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Quinn Apr 2013
drove down to the tetons
just to see what orange leaves
looked like,
it's hard to remember when
you're surrounded by
lodge pole pines
all the time

we drove slow on the
way back, feeling
the summer slip
between fingertips
as we cruised
along the curving
hips of lake yellowstone

when i discovered the
shot i felt as if i had
borrowed your vision
for just a moment

steady now, don't miss,
the colors layered in
a way i know i won't
ever see again

a single elk stood near
a spruce, separating
serenity from sea swell

the perfection of
a mirrored image,
nature overwhelming me,
not once, but twice

absarokas are beginning
to stand tall stage right
and i'm watching a horizon
that never seems to fade

click, i snap a shot, but
really i've found myself
in a world that can't ever
truly be captured
written about my cover photo.
Kimberly Weber Jul 2014
Majestic Mountains
Grand Tetons stand tall and proud
Against wind, sun, sky
Torin  Sep 2021
Tetons
Torin Sep 2021
The headlines are always bad news
Screams pull the night apart
Low tearing an old would open
To never heal
He said he loved her
I can't blame it on the the Tetons

What once was beauty
Colors change then fade to black
art becoming nothing
I don't even know how to story goes
Lions and lambs
But this autumn growing colder

The Frontlines inside my head are raging
Dreams fail down around me
Sorrowful September
With leaves falling
I never knew her favorite band
I can't blame it on the Tetons

It must have been Hell
Those eyes so cold
Those eyes which once were loving
And even the angels cried
He said he loved her
I never knew her favorite band
Rest in peace Gabby Petito
Rest in peace Gabby Petito
Bryce Jul 2018
Fold you up like unwanted fat
cook you into a rocky stew
placed beneath a mantle of ice
far enough away to be misconstrued

You are old laminated time
And pillowed rock of incomprehensible
Earlier than any lime
Or sand, or sediment, or any kind
You are the grandfather rock
of mine

When I step with my inconsequential feet
living but transiently
I cannot help but be erased
that even you hath but one resting place

All the plants
and sands
and ever since the very first
we have always been ******
to this earth
walking upon your bones
I am sorry we cannot do more
but you know your creator
Speak in the same language
in amalgamators
of which we have forgot
and for that I can say
we are envious; are we naught?

Build softly, and carry us upon your thick
crust like pizza dough, cooking
and you let it sit
Let us win, set us up
drift us apart, leave us crushed
build us,
make us,
break us,
fill us

I want to be restored into your
stony belt and be redeemed
I want to become my own atomic fossil
to connect with the universe through long-lost
plotholes
and once again
hear the story
as a young lad
the way it was meant to be told

I want to eat dinner with my grandfather again
my real sweet stony-chiseled cheeked
father again
to be loved a boy
and a girl
and the whole world
a soul touched back into the deep
left unshackled
by a ***** or a queen
please,
take me back soon
rather than let me turn into

Laurentia
or Baltica
or Gondwana
alack
smacked into new rock to form
Urals
and Tetons
and Moher
back

Carbonate or Silicate,
and the end its the same
It won't be the end
for that fate rearranged
Robert Ronnow Aug 2015
No words, oily body sweats, city summer.
Desperate to get out and never return although
stalled on Triborough Bridge I admired the skyline.

My city, my death, I did it my way.
Counting your blessings a healthy activity,
the park out my back window, a job that pays.

But I am losing strength to fight
for the world in my imagination. Acceptance of reality
makes me a fossil of society.

Basho in old age found strength to walk
deep into the mountains. He visited famous sites
up north. Po Chu-i traveled mountains in his dreams.

You can leave at any time. You can return
without being seen. A way to learn
your insignificance, freedom to have never been.
www.ronnowpoetry.com
Richard Riddle Jul 2016
America, Why I Love Her
Written by John Mitchum
Poet/Actor

You ask me why I love her? Well, give me time, and I'll explain...
Have you seen a Kansas sunset or an Arizona rain?
Have you drifted on a bayou down Louisiana way?
Have you watched the cold fog drifting over San Francisco Bay?


Have you heard a Bobwhite calling in the Carolina pines?
Or heard the bellow of a diesel in the Appalachia mines?
Does the call of Niagara thrill you when you hear her waters roar?
Do you look with awe and wonder at a Massachusetts shore...
Where men who braved a hard new world, first stepped on Plymouth Rock?
And do you think of them when you stroll along a New York City dock ?


Have you seen a snowflake drifting in the Rockies...way up high?
Have you seen the sun come blazing down from a bright Nevada sky?
Do you hail to the Columbia as she rushes to the sea...
Or bow your head at Gettysburg...in our struggle to be free?


Have you seen the mighty Tetons? ...Have you watched an eagle soar?
Have you seen the Mississippi roll along Missouri's shore?
Have you felt a chill at Michigan, when on a winters day,
Her waters rage along the shore in a thunderous display?
Does the word "Aloha"... make you warm?
Do you stare in disbelief When you see the surf come roaring in at Waimea reef?


From Alaska's gold to the Everglades...from the Rio Grande to Maine...
My heart cries out... my pulse runs fast at the might of her domain.
You ask me why I love her?... I've a million reasons why.
My beautiful America... beneath Gods' wide, wide sky.





[topp]
Actor John Wayne recorded this back in the 1970's in an album "America, Why I Love her." I've had the opportunies to travel this country from coast to coast, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. There's nothing that can equal this country.
Rj  Nov 2014
See Ya Later
Rj Nov 2014
I want to be more active
And not spew about all my feelings
I'm done pitying myself,
I just need to trust God,
Anyways here's an ending bucket list
Because I won't write back in a while:

Free swim with whales and sharks
See a lion pride
Shark cage diving
Sky dive
Ski a double black diamond
Climb a mountain
Film a tornado
Learn to surf
Learn to snowboard
Learn to scuba dive
See a wild wolf pack
See a wild brown bear
Hang glide
Paraglide
Cliff dive
Ride Route 66
Camp in complete wilderness of Yellowstone for week
Hike mount Haleakala, Hawaii, and photograph night sky
Visit equafina springs FL (again)
Camp on a beach (not crowded) with friends
Kiss in the rain
Go tree tent camping in smoky mountains
Own bonsai tree for many years
Own horses
Dye my hair (once)
Camp on my own private sail boat w friends
Write a book (actually commit, doesn't have to be good or published)
Own theses dogs: Newfie, husky, Akita
Live in Alaska
Live in the Yukon
Live in Colorado
Climb the grand Tetons and pray
Live without a cell phone
See Unimak pass Alaska and film orcas
Milk a cow
jettlotus  Feb 2016
tetons
jettlotus Feb 2016
in a woven wooden walking distance
tucked between the world i originally dipped my toes in
i am welcomed back by the dancers that tower over the earth
(we call them mountains, sometimes)
i am five years aged since that tiny human first arrived here
they haven't forgotten me, though
it's as if i never roamed too far away
here i am
Isaac Huston  Aug 2015
Timezoned
Isaac Huston Aug 2015
I have been
Friendzoned,
Many a time.
It is a common experience
Among both geneders,
For it is truly
The best way
Do deal
With that issue.

But now,
Now let me tell you
Of a far greater pain
And longing.
For I have been
Timezoned.

For my love,
She is across the country,
Our great country,
Our far too expansive country.
She is over hills and mountains,
Rivers and valleys,
Plains and forests.
She is over the Appalachians,
Past the Blue Ridge
Around the myriad waterfalls
Of Western North Carolina,
All sparkling in their magnificence
As the light crests over the hill,
Spilling into their deep pools
And flowing drops,
Yet they all,
All of them,
Pale in comparison to her,
To her golden skin,
Her flashing eyes,
Her smile
That beams down upon you
And radiates with
Joy and happiness,
And her hair,
So-called ***** blonde,
But to me,
There is no purer,
For it flows
More freely
Than the waterfalls
And looks
Even more gorgeous
As the sunlight hits.
For she is more beautiful
Than a Sunset
Upon the lake
Where she lives.

She is over the great Mississippi,
Which flows from Canada
All the way to the Gulf of Mexico,
Streaming across our country
As a boarder
Twixt east
And west.
The only thing
Even larger
That I know
Is her kindness
And compassion,
For those are
Without end.

She lies
Past the cornfields of Nebraska
And past the plains
Of the olden tribes.
My love lies beyond them,
And of all things
She alone
Could make those miles of wheat
Joyous
To drive through.

She lies over the Rockies,
Past the Tetons,
And around the great apple orchards
Of her state.
For her I would climb
The Rockies,
Tunnel through
The Tetons,
And harvest
Every apple
In the state.
But alas,
That would help me
No more
Than hacking off a limb.

To be timezoned then,
Is to end
What barely began
Not because
Anyone wants to
But because
Simple geography
And age
Makes it impossible.
It feels far worse
Knowing that,
If you were there,
If you lived within
A three-hour drive,
You would be
With her.
But alas,
I am not.
I live
Forty-five hours
Of non-stop driving
To the east
And south.
A seventy-hour long bus ride,
And a 6 hour long flight.
And yet I know
That if I were there
I would be with her.
But I am not,
And so someone else
Is.
What hurts
More than rejection
Is acceptance
And then having
The cruel fates
Swoop down
And stop
What would have been
Amazing.
What could have been
Perfection.
But what was instead
That
Which barely
Happened.
Martin Narrod Oct 2016
Hello morning, I have anticipated you since
I awoke to the small barking dog's tailored speak for food.

I want that Eddie should start preparing her own meals. I know that while I smoke this morning's cigarette, that French Bulldog inside contemplates the fifty dollar bag of high-grade kibble she has pushed me to buy her or instead enjoying her own ****. And all of my wives friends call her a lady.

I want to ride alone in our FJ Cruiser through Yellowstone at dawn, before the predators have gone to bed and the tourists make their queues, I want to beat morning until I have found the wolves, and the sun rise mocks me as I sit four hours in traffic for a cup of coffee as I round the shivering peaks of our Rocky Mountain backyard landscape, and the Tetons swell with last nights snow-fall and the warm autumn air sends plumes of frigid mist above the valley floor and into the skies above Jackson.

And I wish I could stand once more on the balcony of the 777 building and smoke the finest sativas with my friend Turtle while our significant others drink coffees and watch reruns of American Gladiators on a $14,000 couch waiting for us to come back inside.

I wish I could wait on the benches outside baggage claim at San Francisco International Airport smoking inside the white lines, waiting for a girl in a red sports car to pick me up and my friend Guy's absurd faces there to greet me amidst the fog and the out of place palm trees Inevwr expected to see so far North.

And it would be great to hear my grandfather play the ukulele once more while I excitedly fished off of my grandparents dock somewhere in New Jersey where my mother's accent insists she grew up. And my grandfather sings horrifically demeaning songs written in 1924 that offer little respect to women, but much adventure to young men.

I want to play tag with the neighborhood children again in the Summer of 1995. Even though I had come to find all of those playing tag had absconded to a game entitled The 'A' Game, which its only rules were to exclude me from joining. I want to throw scalding hot water once more into Simon Berman's face. Though I do not wish for him to block the water with a basketball and turn my face into Jack Nicholson's Joker.

In Chicago as an eighteen year old, I could count the chalk outlines of bodies as I drove down Fullerton Avenue through the Logan Square neighborhood. I wish I could remember those sounds the boricua made. I wish I could forget the burning runs I received from Lazo's burritos at some time 'o clock in the morning.

I've never been one for finding edible late-night eats. I only want the memory of being able to do so. I do wish that my wife's ex-best friend's boyfriend realizes that he's less the great Emeril of his kitchen and more or less is just an unemployed sous chef with a laundry list of felonies, rather than a wish list of awful entrees. At least in that memory, he's neither a chef nor my wife's ex-friend's boyfriend and instead he's just another hideous orcish ****** ringing the doorbells in some suburb of Seattle, announcing to each and every one of his neighbors that he's obligated to notify the community of his ****** offenses.

I just wish I was there to witness his humiliation, and enjoy the total collapse of ego amidst the long list of those decent people he has surely offended.

Perhaps in some future life I can enjoy watching as jungle rot solves my hatred, disposing of his evilness in small skin ***** of flesh that dot the sidewalk while his disease evolves.

I want more vegan eating options across the food desert we call America. I want to arrive home one evening and find my wife ancy to share a new study that American Journal of Medixibe has found on the benefits of providing non-reciprocated ******* to your partners. And I want to be the first to enjoy the benefits of such a study, that I'm encouraged by her to publish my findings while I attend a prestigious university I once wasn't allowed to attend because of my religious background.

I want to live in a world where violence is no longer a viable solution to resolving the in differences we as humans confuse each other trying to make sense of between ourselves.

I want to visit our local grocery store and find that my favorite $8 a pint vegan ice cream has been marked down to a more reasonable number and that there is still an abundance of flavors left for me to choose from.

I don't wish for much: to not have people ask me to speak louder, full-frontal ****** in made for television movies, and a decent blonde IPA for under $10 in glass bottles. Where in this world can a poet go and still receive the respect that was once given by the royal monarchy of The British Empire.

Now it seems those with the fine knowledge of words are cast into a class with less regard than street-drifters and the homeless.

When did our world lose major respect for the artisans of fine art, or the ability to render an opus?

28-integer news memos and 15-second clips of our cute dog eating its own **** attract more attention than a fine explanation of the human condition or the sultry and sophisticated sounds of my Argentinian friend Anna recite Garcia Lorca in her native Spanish tongue.

I just want to be gone before there is a consequence for finding joy in the human condition, and honesty and integrity are known as the recividism that takes down our nation.

We were once the leaders of a great country. We were compelled by our history to create and indoctrinate one another to achieve, conceive, and amend ourselves to thrive amidst the uncertainty of a mischievous and disgraceful society. Now I just wish to be in bed with my wife when this storm of stupidity comes. I wish I never had to be on the receiving end of a sermon set forth by business leaders instead of political achievers.

I want Eddie to make herself some breakfast so I can lay here in bed a few more moments. I want pancakes and fresh fruit juice for breakfast, a quiet room and a hard-covered notebook. I want to believe a great pen and a good friend could lead me through the exciting and anxiety-writhing times in this life, but I to know too sadly that we live in a world where we don't view it as a weakness as those around us may not be able to read or may not be able to write.
Lucanna  Aug 2015
Love Drought
Lucanna Aug 2015
I light a flame in protest
Waxy comfort, my rebottle to this
credentialed crisis
--Wildfires slither up to my terrain
And me,
The fire caught me years ago
I look out to choked sky
My disposable golden rod environment
finally surrenders and declares--"yes, me too."
I whisper back under smoky breath--"it's about time."
Blinking away ember tears...
I'm still blinking them down blue cheeks.
My face has been striped wet for so long
I'm pigmented in bubbled weariness
Underneath my epidermis
I block each volcanic bolo punch,
loving masochistic movement
My lush goodness taps out to
Core's tectonic intensity
My earthy green
Covered with licking ***** lava
My maroon sadness seeps through
Every ******* time
My tears blamed on the Tetons
"Blame it on the Tetons" Modest Mouse
Martin Narrod  Oct 2016
Shatter
Martin Narrod Oct 2016
Shards of the mirror that you smashed over a decade ago still lie fragmented in the fireplace,
Shining reflections of the present curse promised to be lifted seven years too late.

I lilt my head to the rivers flow, where a lullaby subdues itself and the riffles go. I am no good at harmonies, I wait until I'm fastening sleep, and I can unbutton the breeze, that our mid-October autumn brings. Some people think they know themselves, but I want to know you and nobody else. I carry a flame in my pocket, and pick rocks with you on the summit. Mountains melt and glaciers pass, there's so much life inside your laugh. You captured me at my weakest and helped me back into my best. We dance together on the two-track road, Fire Road 584, there were supposed to be agates, but the path was too rough to travel. There's not anywhere I wouldn't go with you. We can chop firewood at Grand Teton too, I will carry the hatchet if you will pull the wagon. We awake at 5:00pm on the reg, and share our nightmares with one another once we're out of bed. You feed my soul with your hugs, I return to you my very softest kiss. A base for us, a nighttime stark and chilled, only the sounds of elk drinking from our backyard rill. I want to smoke another, I light you another. There's no rhyme to hedge the fading warmth, bundled up under our coats and quilts, I wish the Summer was starting soon, so we'd never have to go back into the living room. Fires churn inside our guts, is it the cramps or each other's love- either way it fits my stomach like a Lepidopteric glove.

Pancakes and postcards soon, I forgot to buy stamps for you. You can't send a package, full of smiles and laughter. I told you I'm sure your skin was made for me, perfectly soft, and made of sateen. We ought to warm our hearts, and never be apart.

The jagged outlines of the snow-capped Tetons cast shadows on the Snake River down below,
The levees hold back the flow of the icy mountain runoff and the riverbanks behemoth sides swell up to the Rocky Mountains.
But all of man's efforts to control nature cannot dictate the love we have for each other,
Like the wild mustangs that gallop through the verdant fields that refuse to be broken by human hands.
We walk along the river banks collecting heart-shaped rocks to bestow upon each other,
These stones are not unlike the pebbles penguins give the ones they love.
We wade in our wellies panning for the gold that others forgot in their rush to find fortunate amongst the willows golden branches and sun-kissed skies.
Our frozen hands refuse to let go of the treasures that fill our pockets,
But our cache is penultimate to the paragon in my heart for you.
Every parallel universe pales in comparison to the one I share with you.

Everyday excursions amongst Sunday drivers posing as tourists.

We witness Darwin Awards in the lemmings' race to take selfies with grizzlies, placing children on bison because they forgot their glasses. And are convinced that equine photographs will warrant more likes on social media sites along with the video of a moose by the name of Dusty that charges their cameras to protect her offspring.

We have learned not feed the animals known as **** sapiens,
And instead we trek onwards toward Teton Pass where the wilderness returns on our serpentine drive amongst minerals that took millenniums to form. And pressures our world too often.

We lay upon our roof, the one atop our car, a cruiser we use to enjoy ourselves, while we cross the miles. Millions of things we speak about in order to inspire one another quite often. There is no order in this genus of foul-tempered and ill-willed human beings, there seems to only be our genius, and what we call as ours, while we stare upon the stars.

My twin flame, you called me that. Now I see exactly what you meant. And I feel so grateful, there's no room for hatred. The energy spewing across these pages, thermal currents rise as we share each day, and listen to so much music, we take our turns to do it, but never over do it.

I call myself a poet, because I have a magnifying glass I use to explain the world. I call you the artist, because your writing follows the lullaby of the music your voice throws.

Sometimes, I am sure I observe you sway like manes of wild horses, dusts of ancient visions, candle-flames or brightly orange and yellow lights. I wait to latch us into two and carry off to sleep with you, and snuggle into your sweet smells so redolent and sweetly held, until we stroll across the beat, your bass faintly brings.

May I encase all of us and all of time, while we eat pesto and then drift through awesome time, entwined together while our minds collude our brains to bring back items from the store, before we've even discussed what to buy for home.

When we gift each other greeting cards, I love to find the ones that sing their songs, and twitch in a paper-dance, that sells for too many dollars. Come go, come go with me, we get to live our own California dream. I have a taste for coffee if Teton County would allow it.

I hate ignorance, it's appalling and totally irresolute, especially the fat children fattened by America's foods. If we didn't pick our produce, we'd share diseases the CDC do not yet have names for, and instead we'd get to bleed out of our inner ears.

To be blind would be worse than deaf, because at least I wouldn't have to listen to the foolishness teacher's teach and give, to a generation of students who know more about capturing Pokémon with their handheld devices then how to get home without using their iPhones.

The mountains wait to **** a man, whose ego he believes can fill his pants, instead of feeding the mouths of babes. Until we see there's nothing, to profligate his future. And with a future outside of our peripheral visions, I only wish you and I had a better, safer place to live in. But corporations run this show, I hate to watch as America goes. So while some wonder, some wander and move, we can use our brains but that doesn't mean they will too.

This America is worse than Watergate.
And even I don't know if we'll live long enough to solve it. There's so much sad about it.
Written back and forth between my love Sarah Gray

— The End —