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Jordan Hudson Sep 2018
It's collapsing from beneath us
Tearing us apart
Faster than light further from the start
Have much fright for this dangerous barren land
My words may end up killing every popular band
Where will we go, what do we do, when do we see
What we are really here for, save it for the tree
Those who question will go beneath everything, (let me show, let me show, yeah, yeah, let me show)
Further than we go, further than we know
Beneath all the islands and all of the Russian snow
Beneath all the Middle Eastern sand far as it goes
Beneath the American badlands (here, let me show)
Canyons, rivers, oceans and sea
Believe me, it's nothing, my music is free
Take these unjust words and listen carefully
Yeah, it may sound like I teach geography
But trust me, I'm just saying you have to be aware
Of what's around you, it just isn't fair
We stare at a screen that tell us what to do
Tells us what to do, yeah, tells us what to do
We stare at a screen that tells us what to do
Tells us what to do, yeah, tells us what to do
We stare at a screen that tells us what to do
Tells us what to do, yeah , tells us what to do
It's collapsing from beneath us
Tearing us apart
Faster than light further from the start
Have much fright for this dangerous barren land
My words may end up killing every popular band
Where will we go, what do we do, when do we see
What we are really here for, save it for the tree
Those who question will go beneath everything, (let me show, let me show, yeah, yeah, let me show)
Further than we go, further than we know
Beneath all the islands and all of the Russian snow
Beneath all the Middle Eastern sand far as it goes
Beneath the American badlands (here, let me show)
Canyons, rivers, oceans and sea
Believe me, it's nothing, my music is free
Take these unjust words and listen carefully
Yeah, it may sound like I teach geography
But trust me you have to be aware
Of what's around you, it just isn't fair
We stare at a screen that tell us what to do
Tells us what to do, yeah, tells us what to do
We stare at a screen that tells us what to do
Tells us what to do, yeah, tells us what to do
About phones taking over the world
Alyssa Underwood Jun 2016
O darkest night, what are you for?
Sometimes to wrestle, sometimes to rest
But always to cling to Jesus more

Though senses are dulled, desires awaken
Aching grows stronger, inhibitions are taken
Less seeing, less hearing, more hunger, more longing
Answers are dimming while questions are thronging

More drilling, more filling
The canyons of my soul
More boring, more pouring
Himself into the hole
More stretching, more catching
Away my gasping breath
More tearing, more sharing
In the union of His death
"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them *******, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."  
~ Philippians 3:7-14

~~~
Jim Davis  Apr 2017
Touching
Jim Davis Apr 2017
In the last
three decades,
after we became one,
I touched
amazingly beautiful things,
horribly ugly things,  
unbelievably wondrous things

I touched nature's majesty;
hued walls of the Grand Canyon,              
crusty bark of the
Redwoods and Sequoias,
live corals of the
Great Barrier Reef,
dreamlike sandstone of the Wave

I touched magical and strange;
platypus, koalas and
kangaroos Down Under,
underwater alkali flies and
lacustrine tufa at Mono Lake,
astral glowing worms
in the Kawiti caves

I touched holy places;
Christianity's oldest churches,
the Pope's home in the Vatican,
Hindu and Sikh temples and
Moslem mosques in India,
Anasazi's kivas of Chaco canyon,
Aboriginal rocks of Uluru and Kata Tjuta

I touched glimmers of civilization;
uncovered roads of Pompeii,
fighting arenas of Rome,
terra cotta armies of Xian,
sharp stone points of the Apache,
pottery shards from the Navajo,
petroglyphs by the Jornada Mogollon

I touched fantastical things;
winds blowing on the
steppes of Patagonia,,
playas and craters of Death Valley,  
high peaks of the Continental Divide,
blazing white sands of the  
Land of Enchantment

I touched icons of liberty
and freedom;
the defended Alamo,
a fissured Liberty Bell,
an embracing Statue of Liberty,
the harbor of Checkpoints
Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie

I touched glorious things
made by man;
the monstrous Hoover Dam,
an exquisite Eiffel tower,
a soaring St Louis Arch,
an Art deco Empire State Building,
the sublime Golden Gate Bridge

I touched sparks from history;
the running path of an
Olympic flame just off Bourbon,
the last steps of Mohandas Ghandi
at Birla House before Godse,
******'s Eagle's nest and the
grounds over Der Führerbunker

I touched walls of power;
enclosed rings of the Pentagon,
steep steps of the
Great Wall of China,
untried bastions of
Peter and Paul's fortress,
fitted boulders of Machu Picchu

I touched strong hands;
of those conquering
Rommel's and ******'s hordes,
of cold warriors of
Chosin Reservoir,  
of forgotten soldiers of Vietnam,
of terrorist killers of today

I touched memories of war;
the somber Vietnam memorial,
the glorious Iwo Jima statue,
the cold slabs at Arlington,
the buried tomb of USS Arizonians,
Volgograd's Mother Russia  

I touched ugly things;
shreds of light in
Port Arthur's prison,
horrible smelly dust
in the streets from 9/11,
ash impregnated dirt
in the pits at Auschwitz

I touched oppressed freedom;
open ****** plazas
of Tiananmen Square,
smooth pipe and concrete
of the Berlin Wall,  
tall red brick walls
of the Moscow Kremlin

I touched constrained freedom;
heavy ankle and
wrist slave chains
in the South,
little windows
in Berlin's Stasi prison,
haunted cells in Alcatraz  

I touched remnants of madness;
wire and ovens of Auschwitz,
stacked chimneys and
wooden bunks of Birkenau,        
Ravensbruck, and Dachau,
the tomb of Lenin,
toppled Stalins

I touched hands of survivors;
of Leningrad's siege,
of German POWs and
of Russian fighters
of Stalingrad's battle,
of Cancer's scourges  

I touched grand things;
deep waters of the Pacific and Atlantic,
blue hills of Appalachia,
towering peaks of the Rockies,
high falls of Yosemite Valley,
bursting geysers of Yellowstone,
crashing glaciers of Antarctica and Alaska    

I touched times of adventure;
abseiling and zipping in Costa Rica,
packing Pecos wilds and Padre isles,
flying nap of earth Hueys to Meridian,
breaking arms in JRTC's box,
fighting Abu Sayyaf, and Jemaah
Islami in Zamboanga City

I touched through you;
wet sand beaches of  Mexico and Jamaica,
mysterious energy of the monoliths of Stonehenge,
rarefied air in front of the
Louvre's Mona Lisa,
ancient wonders of Giza,
Egypt's tombs and pyramids

We shared soft touches;
drifting in Bora Bora's
surreal waters,
joining hands camel trekking the
Outback's dry sands,
strolling along Tasmania's
eucalyptus forest trails

basking in swinging hammocks
under Fiji's bright sun,
scrambling in
Las Vegas' glittering and
red rock canyons,
kissing under the
Taj Mahal's symphony of arches

We shared touching deep waters;
propelled in gondolas
through the city of canals,
Drifting atop Uru cat boats on Lake Titticaca,
Swooping in jet boats
up a wild river in Talkeetna

Racing in speed boats
around Sydney's great harbour,
skimming in pangas in Puerto Ayora,
paddling the Kennebec for
East's best petroglyphs,
cruising Salzbergwerk's underwater lake

We touched scrumptious things;
Beignets and chicory coffee at DuMonde's in the Big Easy,
Hot *** with sesame sauce
in the walled city of Xian,
Peking duck, dimsum, scorpions,
snake and starfish on Wangfujing Snack Street

We touched delicious things
Crawfish heads and tails at JuJu's shack
and ten years at Jeanette's,
Langoustine at Poinciana's, Fjöruborðinus and Galapagos,
Cream cheese and loch bagels
at Ess-a' s in the Big Apple

I touched your hand riding;
hang loose waves of Waikiki,
a big green bus in Denali's awesomeness,
clip clopping carriages of Vienna, Paris,
Prague, New Orleans, Krakow,
Quebec City, and Zakopane,
the acapella sugar train of St Kitts

We shared touching on paths;
the highway 1 of Big Sur,
the Road of the Great Ocean,
the bahn to Buda and Pest,
the path to the North of Maine,
the trail of the Hoh rainforest,
and time after time, the way home

Yet,
I could spend
the next three decades,
in simple bliss,
having need for
touching nothing,
other than you!

©  2016 Jim Davis
A poem I wrote last year for my wife!  Posted now since it matches the HP' theme for today - "Places"
Kristine  Apr 2011
Canyons
Kristine Apr 2011
There are canyons in my arms.
You don’t see them very well right now because they are old and filled with dark tissue.

But I remember when they were fresh and new.

The river ran red and dripped drop drip.

Look at how the canyon goes all the way down.
It has branches.
They sting like hell.

But it feels worth it.

Wake up to white.
White yells and screams.
White questions,
white answers.
Sterile lies.
The canyons are covered by white.

Now they are gone.

Only a shadow remains.
skyraftwanderer Jan 2012
Open bramble gate, morning lets itself in,
eyes open in welcome. Water stirs – a

glance outside. A jade tiger rises,
blue herons fly to South Mountain.

~~~

Forage through herb abundance on South
Mountain sunlight pooled in cassia leaves.

It’s why you reclused here, hermitage entwined
in viridian mists. I find your footprints

headed to the clouds, so I leave this
poem on your wall and on a whim

ascend South Mountain ridges. Sticks
snap underfoot – blue herons startle away.

~~~

Boundless and empty to townsfolk,
South Mountain peaks. But here

immortals dance among indomitable pines.
Above the sun blue herons fly into

paper crumpled clouds – clouds the body,
clouds the wings. Sonorous bird song -

radiant clarity – makes mountain forests
sing, each beat moves the clouds, red

dust cleared from rivers and peaks,
ochre streams flood forests and fields,

canyons and gorges, jades and emeralds rise.
Petals scatter on crystalline swells, night

lengthens slowly – coldness wanders by
but I will linger here, a little longer.

Version 2

South Mountain peaks, boundless and empty to townsfolk.
But here immortals dance among indomitable pines.

Above the sun blue herons fly into paper folded clouds
- azure heaven change – clouds the body, clouds the wings.

Sonorous bird song radiant clarity – makes mountain forest sing,
each beat moves the clouds, red dust cleared from rivers

and peaks, ochre streams flood forests and fields,
canyons and gorges, jade and emerald rises.

Petals scatter on crystalline swells – night lengthens slowly -
coldness wanders by but I believe I will linger here, a little longer.

Version 3

South Mountain peaks, boundless and empty to townsfolk.
But here immortals dance among indomitable pines.

Above the sun blue herons fly into paper folded clouds
- azure heaven change – clouds the body, clouds the wings.

Sonorous bird songs radiant clarity – makes mountain forests sing,
each beat moves the clouds, red dust clears from rivers

and peaks. Streams of ochre flood forests and fields,
canyons and gorges, jades and emeralds rise.

Scattered petals on crystalline swells – night slowly lengthens -
coldness wanders by but I believe I will linger here, a little longer.
My mind is a canyon where your voice echoed.
I wish you belonged to me but I think that's what I like most.
That you're not meant to be owned.
And maybe it's wrong of me to wish for you on falling stars.
Maybe It's childish.
But it's so rare to meet someone who knows who they are.
and I don't care what anyone thinks they know.
they do not know you.
And I'm determined to show you I can be all that you need.
I want the best for you, wanting you for myself is simply out of greed
because I know you can do better.
and with every letter I write in each word in each line while you're on my mind is important.
my writing gets distorted at night but every A, B and C is hope
that you might take another look at me.
And maybe see something in me worth saving.
as of now my heart's been replaced with wooden shavings
And the tree that they came from is nothing but a stump
I get a lump in my throat just thinking of how I **** everything I love.
Because I give my whole heart.
And I love things to death.
So I shouldn't be surprised to see that they left.
But I almost always am.
And I don't know how to start the grief process.
when no one is as lost as I am.
I wish you would find me
I've stayed where you left me.
defiantly,
more shaken then I was before.
When you awaken with my scent in your empty bed,
Do you just sleep on the floor?
Do you even know me anymore?
are you torn between not knowing and not caring.
because I'm staring at the walls wishing there was a way to get to you, a way out of here.
it appears that I'm trapped. If these walls could talk they'd be full of crap because all they do is keep me from living.
and the life they're giving me isn't life it's just a safe way to survive.
Because a free spirit shouldn't be confined.
And I'm fed up,
with being fed and given water, shelter and love
like that should be more than enough.
but I love my parakeet.
i give it food and water so it should happily tweet.
But it's still a caged bird like me.
The only thing I truly need is to be free.
and freedom is hard to come by.
you're the only one who's showed me some.
and I don't want this thing to die.
my mind is a canyon where your voice echos
my eyes are canyons full of the tears I haven't let go.
My lungs are canyons full of smoke.
and my hollow laughs at life's sick jokes.
I'm a canyon, quite simply
I'm empty
empty
empty



© copyrighted Nicole Ann Osborn
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2018
when the moon resembles a Cheshire smile,
a sickle, or a scythe,
away from the two-dimensional
experience of a full-moon,
when the moon looks two-dimensional...
the night comes,
and then the shadow of
the earth is launched
against the moon...
a full-moon is when the sun
can "see" the moon in
its orbit, a perfect orb...
but when the moon
resembles a Cheshire smile,
a sickle, a scythe,
or a scimitar...
   the moon is peeking
from behind the earth...
only partially exposed
to the sun...
i've watched, i've tried to listen
to the sound of the vacuum,
being filled with Holst...
  sorry... no...
yet... light reflected,
rather than initiated, sourced...
can allow you to see
a three-dimensional shadow-object,
which is earth, projected
onto the face of the moon,
when it is...
  Cheshire smile, sickle, scythe or
scimitar shaped...
i always thought...
ever peer at the canyons on
the moon, the darkened spots?
ever think that if another world
existed outside our own...
the white bits in between
the canyons of meteoric impact
where the landmasses
on another world, similar
to ours?
             that's why the moon
is not a perfect orb...
the earth casts a shadow onto
the moon...
               i.e. when the moon
is a fullness orb...
it is in-front of us...
    that's why i was asking for
what substance emits light
on the moon... light from the sun
hits earth, the seas,
and illuminates the moon
in its pristine orb glory...
  or so i think...
   only when the moon is behind
the earth in orbit,
so we only see fractions of it,
fractions of the Cheshire smile,
the sickle, the scythe, the scimitar...
that's when the earth is in-front
of the moon, and the moon is behind
earth, hence the moon is partially exposed...
earth casts a shadow onto the moon...
hence?    )   and the variant degrees of it...
you wouldn't think it,
but when there's a full moon,
and no shadow cast:
  the moon looks two dimensional,
or... what became known as the flat-earth
argument...
but if you look at the partial moon...
you can see the shadow...
and the shadow looks three-dimensional!
i'm not kidding...
i might be drunk but then, by being drunk,
i see no monopoly on lying...
drunks hate lying,
drunks hate lying because there
is no ******, no 100m run parallel in
a straight line...
  the whole labyrinth tract
of "truths" while sober?
   it, doesn't, work, on, drunks...
i just want to get this observation
out of the way, and return to my
gingerbread man cocktail
of pepsi and whiskey...
and that wes borland album...
  wait a minute...
the sky is blue because when
light hits the oceans,
       the blue moves into and construct
the atmosphere...
so a full moon is when
the moon is completely hidden
from the sun,
or fully exposed to it?
   ****...
    what's copernican in terms of north,
east, west or south?
    ah...
so a full moon implies...
the moon is wholly hidden behind
the earth...
     the light sourced from the sun,
travels into the Pacific ocean,
and a light refraction occurs,
a bending of light...
and those of us on the Atlantic scale,
who are experiencing night
while those on the Pacific ocean
experience day...
               so the moon is illuminated,
hence... light refraction,
  hence the moon is "not really" an orb,
but, given its orbit, a curvature ) or (
although momentarily being an orb...
to reiterate...
    a full moon is when the moon is
in front of the earth,
or a full moon is when the moon is
behind earth?
            well... given Einstein...
and the gravity dip...
   how light bends and doesn't travel
in straight lines...
  d'uh... the ) or ( curve of:
              half the moon in light,
half of the moon in shadow -
          and thereby other fractional exposures
of the orb, and thereby other
fractional hiding places of the orb...
i have my excuses:
i'm either drunk, or i'm drinking...
but to think, of these sober people,
having serious problems with videos,
comments, opinions,
           whatever you want to call it,
sober people?
    sober people drunk on resentment?!
i'm a drunk with a resentment at...
having "my" jukebox being ****** with...
i don't listen to any new music,
i turn into an anemic,
or an albino...
   no new music, my thinking enters
a period of involuntary starvation from
a lack of: a chaotic new playlist...
and like i "said"... looks like the freedom
of speech cue has become overrated...
writing is what would always become
the Georgian Stalin of Russia,
or the Austrian ****** of Germany...
writing would always subvert free-speech /
video commentary...
it would subvert it...
after all: the devil makes work of idle hands...
just as: god makes idle work of excessively
waggling tongues.
JM McCann Mar 2015
I first would like to apologize for getting rather mad,
calling you a stupid *****
and saying it was a “hit and run” to the police,
also in hindsight spitting at you was not cool.
I feel bad about it now,
and it will haunt me for a while,
or at least until something else comes up.


You shattered my wings,
granted they were glass wings and
when you’re throwing yourself through the narrowest possible canyons
getting hit is almost certain still, it *****
the wind out of you, even if just for a second.


I love jumping through
canyons daring gravity to do its worst, but I was playing by the rules,
respecting nature
or at least I planned on not breezing by the sides as much.
I guess its habit now, to risk getting shattered for
the freedom of movement in a restricted space.

I swear when I hit the ground I was ready to walk away
I was intact.
Ready
to continue on my way and saying “yeah I’m fine”,
learn nothing and find smaller canyons.
but when I saw the bird you hit, my brain
sprinted for the worst.
That knocked the wind out of me.
Instantly I thought it was completely ******,
and while I still do have my wings,
you shattered part of my glass illusion.
Thank god for repair shops.

You see you own the skies your kind controls
the canyons walls, make them zig then zag that way.
Sure their are bigger gods,
but they only show up from time to time. I’m part of the skies
but my only possible responsibility is to not
hit the birds.
The rules say I need to act like you,
but the rulers let us fly our own ways.
The bigger gods understand or just don’t care.

So next time just know that the rules
are not the ones in physics textbooks, those are
often confusing and require years worth of reading,
of understanding billions of acceptions of knowing what
the hell centripetal force is, and being able to solve painful
multi variable calculus problems
the way physics actually works is what happens when
the winds take glass
and you, being a god got careless and broke the laws of physics.
So I'm a very passionate cyclist and this was my first crash of any note whatsoever with a car, any feedback is more than welcome
r  Sep 2014
in the canyons
r Sep 2014
it's half-past our time
and i'm still listening-
a song about getting lost
in the canyons

-and the divide
seems much greater
than before-

if i don't look at you
maybe you won't see me

and i won't have to lie
here still
unmoved by you
and your kindness

i don't get lost there
anymore.

r ~ 9/8/14
\¥/\.  inspired by Neil Young's
   |       The Great Divide
/ \
And because canyons
sever the earth
as tremors widen the divide
Go ahead, pick a side.
I'll stand to the north
where headwinds blow
as mustangs run wild
And you'll scamper to the south
when hurricanes begin to collide
As earth cycles and days turn to night
an eternity passes, plain in sight
Mudslides will fill the valley
and make things once more new
but until that time comes
I'll wait right here for you
Robert Ronnow Aug 2015
Blackbrush -- Coleogyne ramosissima
the dominant understory shrub
in the pinyon-juniper canyons.

Mountain-mahogany -- Cercocarpus montanus and ledifolia.
Single-leaf ash -- Fraxinus anomalus
and possibly a western hophornbeam

by the small birch-like leaves
and the shredding bark
in a moist stretch of joint trail.

The joint-fir, green ephedra
looks like an ocean plant.
Could the wind or white water rivers alone

have shaped these sandstone, red rock forms?
Network of canyons, inverse of mountains.
It had to be ocean

ebbing and flowing, emotionally, like wind,
moving atmosphere, thicker
shaving, scraping, polishing, gouging, digging

fish canyons
then, shallower, dinosaur swamps
now, dry, rock gardens.

Explain the human history with water:
did the Anasazi visit neighbors
along the canyon rims and deep within,

combination caves and red-rock houses
small windows, doorways, just crawlways,
with corn gifts on summer evenings

when the canyon bottoms held permanent, not intermittent,
streams? After them
came the Ute and Navajo, Spanish and English.

Ravens dine on road ****.
A few long red roads connect some canyons.
The unprotected flats are overgrazed, rabbitbrush.

It is interesting
that as I learn the woody and herbaceous plants,
walk the desert foothills, I too could stay.
www.ronnowpoetry.com

— The End —