I closed my eyes
and felt the ground vibrate
as the Huskavarna roared to life
and chewed through log after log
devouring fibers
and depositing sawdust
the smell filled my nose
and a smile passed my lips
fresh fir in the morning
the crash of timber in the distance
the hush that fell upon the forest during lunch –
muted thumping trancelike and rhythmic
each round hit with a maul
and then bashed with the sledge
tossing split rounds
into stacks on the truck bed
perfect dance performed by the woodcutter –
the rumbling tires against the gravel road
sent me to slumber
the crunching mixed with the gentle rocking
fighting until the very last
trying desperately to hear
the low murmur
of my father and uncle Steve
telling tall tales
of 600 yard coyote kills
with just one blast
from the old 2-23 Remington
and the 40 lb. salmon
still swimming with a 20 dollar jig –

there we were
staring blankly at the screen
the error prompt called for
immediate demodulation
but it may as well been written in Latin
or Sanskrit –
I grabbed ahold of the digitizer with both hands
and began to **** and pry
which of course was not ergonomically correct
leaving me with a sore back and tattered finger skin
I caught the faintest sound
and thought maybe I had inadvertently tapped
into an alien frequency –
slowly it came clear to me that mainframe
only held a single kilobyte
and that with such a limited amount of storage
we would never reach the stars –
again, there came a slight modulation
with enough force to be considered noise
I instantly compared it
against the relational database
and realized, suddenly, that this had the potential
to be the real thing…
unfortunately I double checked with another terminal
and began to understand
what I was witnessing
was just a simple
user-friendly
videoconference –

We lived just south
of railroad tracks,
wrong side of town.
The trains would come
all day and night
back in those days.
Their click and clank,
their tireless wheels
drummed in my brain.
And then, the wailing whistle screamed release twice,
a kid who held his breath too long.
And once again,
the trains moved on,
left me behind.

napowrimo2016
Challenge: write a poem using at least 10 dictionary terms

no wood carver
marks or remarks
here, no sinking
prose with nautical
terms, no rhymes
that use ropes to climb mountains higher,
these are all and only dreams to me
I will use as it
uses me, a
poetic dictionary.
Please starting read out loud, naked in front of a mirror, what follows after, now!


Oulipo, acronym,
there are no slim
chances at Norms,
Shall we play a game,
with words and no one
gets hurt.

And the peace of
Pastoral settings
Over shadowed
love, I mean Love,
by your chief complaint.

I am but a man, thick
and thin, who touches
only Sentence Sounds
with his tongue.

But you wait on your
Heroic Couplet,
And find me not the qualified culprit.

Pick your poets then, go back way back when,
some Poets are Fugitives, short lived in Nashville,
Harlem had a Renaissance,
inclusive, read South to North, and I read and I read sustained by the Sestina,
some red wine, oh did I spill, let me cleanup while you mouth the Prose and let me, tempt you, to Rhyme, as I **** your toes.

I am a Poet after all, and the Echo verse proves me perverse in the unseemly way I overtly finish seams, a long lines that follow curves of hips and softnes of inflection, still the distance between Poetry and bliss is obscene. Please let me Muse you...?
I wait.

A living poet writes for those not born,
for those who wake, and live as if they're dead
and those who resurrect themselves each morn.

A pat of praise upon a loaf of scorn's
what constitutes a rebel's daily bread.
A living poet writes for those not born.

An elegy to comfort those who mourn,
to weep the sadness they have left unshed
and those who resurrect themselves each morn.

To lovers, unrequited and forlorn
whose stillborn passion never left their heads,
a living poet writes for those not born.

A few rare people, worldly, wise and shorn
of most pretense, will grasp what's being said
and those, who resurrect themselves each morn,

will reach for pen and paper, and adorn
us all with sacred words, keep spirit fed.
A living poet writes for those not born
and those who resurrect themselves each morn.

Cascade foothill town
So many white faces shine
Winter skin, springtime