1.

Sasquatch stalks
the Washington woods.
I lope through low-lying
bushes in search of huckleberries.
The purple-reddish stains on my fingers
are as real
as the grumbling in my stomach,
or the solidity of these mighty pines.
The “small rain” begins to seep
through the atmosphere.
It will not wash away my stains.

2.

I do not believe in Big Foot.
He towers, an outsized legend of the forest.
A Nessie of the woodlands.
A mythical creature created
to satisfy our impoverished imagination,
atrophied by the ever-encroaching
artifice and sterility of the human world.

3.

Soon, the mist turns to big rain.
Clouds blot out the sky.
Dusk turns to night, hours early.
Thoroughly soaked, I
will seek shelter alone.

4.

Mountain folk recite encounters
with Big Foot like happy-to-be-frightened
children around a campfire.
The scariest tale is always the next to come.
Twigs snap, branches break, pine cones are crushed.
We all listen, acutely alert.

5.

Gorged on huckleberries, I will sleep tonight
beneath the pines, solitary,
curling up safely in the contours
of a giant footprint.
I can hear the leaves hit the forest floor.
Dare I dream of conversion?
Dare I dream of belief?

i tried to write a poem that wasn't about you
but nothing came to mind
so i climbed up on top of my mom's roof
and puffed smoke signals towards the moon
in hopes that they'd take my thoughts with them

before i knew it
i was counting sattelites
the same way that i'd count your breaths at night
     apparently everything marches to the same measure as your sunken sternum

"sunrise, sunset."

somewhere in orion's belt
hides the same gleam as your moonlit grin
and i'm back at it again
     twisting up sweet leaf in the appologies you'd sling
     and hoping you'll think of me
when you wake from coughing in your sleep
as i scortch my fingertips

maybe you'll be reminded
of that first campfire kiss
we shared in the sticks
     was it five years ago
          or was it six?

****
     i just can't think of anything but our tangled hips

          the way they read just like a star chart's dots and trailing dashes
     and the astrological improbability of celestial bodies managing to gracefully merge

In this cold November night
I’m even now looking for
the  slinky warmth of your frail body
between the white sheets.

In the shadows
the scintillating fire of  the candle
    catches my Sighs
    which  still  it tears from me into the  air
the deepest memories
of the most beautiful moments
I've spent with you

I am cold,
outside, the wind blows
and desperate trees
shed their leaves at the air

and  counting every second  by this way
I'm waiting for you

Inside the room
  the campfire's faint warmth
incites  to ****** ecstasy.
  while the petal of a chaste rose
falls with slow swinging
cutting the air smoothly.

Oh!  baby got to arrive, infamous waiting in agony,
why you have punished my impatient calm?
but no matter, even it was worth it.
I got you right now in my arms,  baby.

Perched high upon burl wood roost
dangling feet swing upon
          mossy girthed heritage
                                       maple tree
Her majestic gnarled scaffold
flinches not from my nebulous gravity,
nor the weight of her unraveling
                                       golden autumn gown

Her lamentable achings  
felt in the voice
of the ripening chill
             within the campfire
                                        scented breeze
For I have climbed so blindly high,
the clinging brilliant yellow leaves
metamorphosing like these fragile paper wings,  
opening palms born to soar wild as the wind,
                                         to just let go and fly free

Waiting here patiently,
wistfully as destiny,
for the final edifying moment
                                          of fate’s unshacklement - - -;

the surrendering to,
      the moment of love set free,
               stolen by the wanton
                                         gypsy breeze


                                                        ­               *wild is the wind

I want my Grandmother,
to be at my college graduation.
I want my Grandmother,
to write me letters while I'm away.
And if you won't let her,
Take me back to when I was a child.
Sitting in the sun on Grandmas lap.
Catching fire flies while she sat,
around a campfire with my Grandfather.
Telling stories of how they first met.
I want my grandmother.
Dear Cancer,
I want my grandmother.

The Song of Amergin: Modern English Translations

The Song of Amergin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am the sea breeze
I am the ocean wave
I am the surf's thunder
I am the stag of the seven tines
I am the cliff hawk
I am the sunlit dewdrop
I am the fairest flower
I am the rampaging boar
I am the swift-swimming salmon
I am the placid lake
I am the excellence of art
I am the vale echoing voices
I am the battle-hardened spearhead
I am the God who gave you fire
Who knows the secrets of the unhewn dolmen
Who understands the cycles of the moon
Who knows where the sunset settles ...



The Song of Amergin
an original poem by Michael R. Burch

He was our first bard
and we feel in his dim-remembered words
the moment when Time blurs . . .

and he and the Sons of Mil
heave oars as the breakers mill
till at last Ierne―green, brooding―nears,

while Some implore seas cold, fell, dark
to climb and swamp their flimsy bark
. . . and Time here also spumes, careers . . .

while the Ban Shee shriek in awed dismay
to see him still the sea, this day,
then seek the dolmen and the gloam.



The Song of Amergin II
a more imaginative translation by Michael R. Burch

after Robert Bridges

I am the stag of the seven tines;
I am the bull of the seven battles;
I am the boar of the seven bristles;

I am the wide flood cresting plains;
I am the wind sweeping deep waters;
I am the salmon swimming in the shallow pool;

I am the dewdrop lit by the sun;
I am the fairest of flowers;
I am the crystalline fountain;

I am the hawk shrieking after its prey;
I am the demon ablaze in the campfire ashes;
I am the battle-waging spearhead;

I am the vale echoing voices;
I am the sea's roar;
I am the rising sea wave;

I am the meaning of poetry;
I am the God who inspires your prayers;
I am the hope of heaven;

Who else knows the ages of the moon?
Who else knows where the sunset settles?
Who else knows the secrets of the unhewn dolmen?

Translator's Notes:

The "Song of Amergin" and its origins remain mysteries for the ages. The ancient poem, perhaps the oldest extant poem to originate from the British Isles, or perhaps not, was written by an unknown poet at an unknown time at an unknown location. The unlikely date 1268 BC was furnished by Robert Graves, who translated the "Song of Amergin" in his influential book The White Goddess (1948). Graves remarked that "English poetic education should, really, begin not with Canterbury Tales, not with the Odyssey, not even with Genesis, but with the Song of Amergin." The poem has been described as an invocation and a mystical chant.

I did not attempt to fully translate the ending of the poem. I have read several other translations and it seems none of them agree. I went with my "gut" impression of the poem, which is that the "I am" lines refer to God and his "all in all" nature, a belief which is common to the mystics of many religions. I stopped with the last line that I felt I understood and will leave the remainder of the poem to others. The poem reminds me of the Biblical god Yahweh/Jehovah revealing himself to Moses as "I am that I am" and to Job as a mystery beyond human comprehension. If that's what the author intended, I tip my hat to him, because despite all the intervening centuries and the evolution of the language, the message still comes through quite well. If I'm wrong, I have no idea what the poem is about, but I still like it.

Who wrote the poem? That's a very good question and the answers seem speculative to me. Amergin has been said to be a Milesian, or one of the sons of Mil who allegedly invaded and conquered Ireland sometime in the island's deep, dark past. The Milesians were (at least theoretically) Spanish Gaels. According to the Wikipedia page:

Amergin Glúingel ("white knees"), also spelled Amhairghin Glúngheal or Glúnmar ("big knee"), was a bard, druid and judge for the Milesians in the Irish Mythological Cycle. He was appointed Chief Ollam of Ireland by his two brothers the kings of Ireland. A number of poems attributed to Amergin are part of the Milesian mythology. One of the seven sons of Míl Espáine, he took part in the Milesian conquest of Ireland from the Tuatha Dé Danann, in revenge for their great-uncle Íth, who had been treacherously killed by the three kings of the Tuatha Dé Danann, Mac Cuill, Mac Cecht and Mac Gréine. They landed at the estuary of Inber Scéne, named after Amergin's wife Scéne, who had died at sea. The three queens of the Tuatha Dé Danann, (Banba, Ériu and Fódla), gave, in turn, permission for Amergin and his people to settle in Ireland. Each of the sisters required Amergin to name the island after each of them, which he did: Ériu is the origin of the modern name Éire, while Banba and Fódla are used as poetic names for Ireland, much as Albion is for Great Britain. The Milesians had to win the island by engaging in battle with the three kings, their druids and warriors. Amergin acted as an impartial judge for the parties, setting the rules of engagement. The Milesians agreed to leave the island and retreat a short distance back into the ocean beyond the ninth wave, a magical boundary. Upon a signal, they moved toward the beach, but the druids of the Tuatha Dé Danann raised a magical storm to keep them from reaching land. However, Amergin sang an invocation calling upon the spirit of Ireland that has come to be known as The Song of Amergin, and he was able to part the storm and bring the ship safely to land. There were heavy losses on all sides, with more than one major battle, but the Milesians carried the day. The three kings of the Tuatha Dé Danann were each killed in single combat by three of the surviving sons of Míl, Eber Finn, Érimón and Amergin.

It has been suggested that the poem may have been "adapted" by Christian copyists of the poem, perhaps monks. An analogy might be the ancient Celtic myths that were "christianized" into tales of King Arthur, Lancelot, Galahad and the Holy Grail.

Keywords/Tags: Amergin, song, translation, Ireland, Irish, Celtic, Gaelic, Gaels, Milesian, Druid, Banshee

to me
Niagara is represented
by the seasons

it starts off
as a new year,
fresh snow on the ground,
endless possibilities

you step out of your house,
maybe on Devine Crescent in Thorold,
and that first breath
of crisp winter air
fills your lungs
and freezes you to the bone
and reminds you that you are alive

everything is always
so still
on January 1st

like a clean slate,
an empty canvas

and then movement begins to paint the beginning of a detailed picture

[migrating geese,
the rustle of a tree,
a car alarm going off,
the sun trying to peak through the grey clouds,
a friend shouting your name]

and the moment shatters
and the new year officially begins

maybe it starts off
with breakfast at Lester Dees
and quickly, but silently,
unfurls into a whirlwind
of school and work and birthdays and holidays and movies and dates and a trip to Niagara Falls and a stroll through Niagara-on-the-Lake and a hike through the Escarpment in Grimsby and joy and happiness and sadness and laughter and tears
and moments

spring blossoms
you feel drenched by the April rain
and weighted down from melodramatic February

but you also feel that sense
of hope
that tingling in your toes
that something good is coming

so enjoy a drink
on a patio in Port Dalhousie,
and crank the volume up
a little bit louder
before a concert at Mansion House,
and take in the scenery
as you run along the Welland Canal

because spring is here

as the days get longer
and the sun gets hotter
summer, lazy as a sloth, engulfs Niagara

Crystal Beach is in full swing
and summer becomes home
to barbecues, camping adventures, road trips, hiking at DeCew Falls, late night laughter, reminiscing around a campfire, the reuniting of old friends, dips in ice cold pools and water gun wars

and as slow and nonchalant
as it entered your life
summer slips away,
like the golden sunsets that it harbors

the leaves change to brilliant shades
of red, yellow and orange,
we wrap ourselves in scarves
and hats and mitts

the world quietly changes around us

fall gives us
warm nights by the fireside
and hands locked while walking along the Escarpment, the city stretched out below

while the squirrels scrounge for food,
we, too, scamper around,
wondering where the year has gone

some will exhale,
a sigh of relief
and some will allow
a large, satisfied grin to stretch across their face

and fall is just that,
a time to reflect
on all that has gone right
and all that has gone wrong

what resolutions did we keep,
and what did we let melt away,
with the humid summer heat

Niagara changes every year
but it is consistent in its ability
to mold new life, to stretch itself, to immerse itself in every season, to provide outlets to enjoy life, to be that friend that is always there to fall back on
and to provide those memories that bring a smile to your face
and leave a warm feeling in your heart
Niagara is home.

Late July, and the mosquitoes are out
Blackening the sky with their swarm
15 feet from the campfire
Lurks certain death.

Billy strayed too far
1000 tiny syringes saw their chance
He looked like a strawberry Dalmatian
37 bites, he said
37 small pieces of hell


Late July, and the mosquitoes are out
Billy had learned his lesson
Nothing moves in the blue twilight
Except the mosquitoes
Blackening the sky with their swarm

i appear with boots and a saucy smile on
in the doorway while she's cooking the women
gossip over the sizzling pan of hot butter
under her heaving chest on the stove

i'm wearing a magic cape mimicking a windmill
with my bright pink ***** standing *****
big as a barn in the morning sun
lusting after dominance
fat and wrapped like a chorizo sausage

she sends a half-wave into my
direction of space and says--on the counter
i'm ******* an older latina lady with a chiquita banana
deep in my mother's kitchen with
the sticker on the tip of my **** for reference
as the sun dances and rises just
before pancake breakfast

her dank breath smells like
pollo broth and fiesta cigarettes
but her **** is wild soft and new
like a banana being peeled and sliced lengthwise
warm ***** hanging on either side
fat enough to be chewed on

psychedelic salsa blares
on the radio all morning
and i'm holding her skirt up to
reveal beautiful hips and thigh muscles so
i can **** her harder and faster
at her request

hands fly and the big bowl of
seeds spray downward in gravitational collapse
she's singing mexican gypsy secrets
with a cigarette lit and just hanging lopsided
off her lipsticked marshmallow lips

she's holding a yellow crayon in one hand
like she'll be scribbling notes shorthand
and dribbling cane syrup over my naked body
with the other as the floor begins shaking and
the walls shed plaster the cupboard doors creak
on their hinges and mom walks in the room looking at me
like i'm the crazy one

but the cataclysmic miracle is done
senorita is kneeling and wiping my ****
with an authentic mexican flag handkerchief
her sweat and my *** cooling on her thighs
working holes in her new blue kneesocks
and i'm re-zipping her dress over the
glistening expanse of her brown back

she stands trying to fix her freshly ****** hair and
we both light a cigarette try to forget the whole thing happened laughing at our secret as her cherry toes finally uncurl like an ember drifting in campfire smoke she just juts a hip out licks her lips again and smiles

"bueno."

Brother, why must you go off again?
Stay and play with me, brother, you're my only friend,
Instead of marching off alone away from home.
They always say to me I gotta grow up some time,
But growing up is so lonely.
My brother marches off alone.

Remember when the floor was burning under lava,
And the furniture was the only stable safety?
Father would scold us for making him worry,
Then melt into the floor and rise up a monster.
That day, brother, I know you won't believe it,
But in his eyes I saw a child lit.
There was a spark, brother, and then mom came home.
She brought in a letter that made him hide in his coat.
That spark disappeared, and the child died.
Does everyone have a kid resting inside?

My brother stares at his clothes in a campfire's glow.
The blood on this hands showing all that he knows.
I cast my heart to the stars, brother please come home.
My brother watches the stars. To forever he goes.

Gazing out my window at the subtle rise of dawn,
The figure of my brother approaches on the lawn.
There was a spark in his eye and then silver and lead.
Forever lies my brother who won't march off again.

Isn’t it strange that the same bloodlust
Which feeds the *** drive, drives
Deep into one’s Egyptian appetite,
Feeds deep, deep around the campfire at night,
Flames of carnal desire: and by carnal, I mean
Literally a yearning for rib-eye steaks,
Pork sirloin & Horse Meat.
Horse meatballs.
Horse sausage.
Horse stew.
Hi-** Silver & Trigger,
Fury & My Friend Flicka, &
Lest we forget:  The Famous Mr. Ed.
Oh Wilbur, I'm talking about Horse Cuisine!
(God Bless the French!)
Dartagnan & Brigitte, typical post war
Parisians with slim pickens
(No relation to the actor)
Survivors with little to choose from
Whatever scroungy edibles offered on the pushcart.
The one good thing about those years, you might ask?
It was a jubilee time, a precursor to
Lean Cuisine & Weight Watchers
Jenny Craig & Nutrisystem, & the lovely
Marie Osmond looking especially edible lately
Having dropped a dumb-bell 50 pounds, yet
Still crammed tightly in Spanx.
“Hey Marie, it’s good to be the King!”
I am Mel Brooks ******* you,
From behind, History of the World: Part I.
Marie is looking  tasty, n'est–ce pas?
France after WWI and WWII: a starving time,
Yet ironically a meat-eater's ****.
The French Cavalry, no longer needed,
It meant liquidation of the local Lipizzaners,
War-weary, would-be Man o’ Wars,
Secretariats, Seattle Slews, & California Chromes,
Shot twice in the head,
Carcasses hung & butchered.
But I digress. Or do I?
MEAT: gives the same ecstatic rush as ***,
Carnival Season, a pre-Lenten animal s’morgasm,
Identical, as nourishing as, perhaps as
A horse of a different color: ***?
SEE ME/FEEL ME: ****** cheeks, dripping jowls;
Shredded flesh betwixt my teeth—oh yes!
I confess that among my forebears,
(Not to be confused with The Three Bears,
Which would, of course, be a whole 'nother story)
Somewhere ‘long the spiral helix
Was a seriously carnivorous naked ape,
Some troglodyte Alley Oop, evolving over Time,
Into a reptilian, puffed-up, junior broker,
Impressing some ***** 21 year-old
In some Chichi Manhattan bistro, trumping
The waiter's or waitress’s shopworn query with:
******!
A fresh ****:
****** & still warm.

I keep telling myself that if I lay here long enough something's gonna swallow me and it's not because my heads been somewhere else lately it's because I sleep on the floor. Even when I don't. I sleep on the floor. The mattress has holes because mattresses get holes sometimes when you don't have blankets to cover them and you're too cold to put the cigarette out on anything other than yourself or what you have to sleep on now. Last year I'd spend every day in bed with a little bag full of drugs and a map to the bathtub just in case I forget what I took two seconds ago because I think it happened yesterday and I take more. And then I'm shaking, not because I'm cold this time. I'm seizing and nobody is home because everybody leaves me for preachers or church or a campfire or someone prettier. This part is foggy. I remember again a bathtub, an empty hotel bathtub and my mother and I say mama did you leave the door open on purpose and she says I went to church. She went to church. She went to church. Bathtub. I sleep there. Even though we are in a hotel I sleep in the bathtub because I like the way my anxiety sounds when it echoes. I like to hear it. Play it back. Memory. Back to the only house I've ever lived in alone.  I'm seizing. I stop. I hear you. I somehow forget that it's 4 in the morning. It's my birthday now, nobody knows but it's my birthday now, teen years behind me but still a teen year drug addiction and you tell me to look out the window so I do. And the sky's on fire. I don't fall asleep again for three days but the sky's on fire. And so am I. And so are you. And I don't want to go back to the place I go to when I see the faces but I put myself here. I push and push and push and then I act surprised when something falls off the edge. I'm alone now. Even when I'm not. I'm alone.

The night is soft and billowy,
Beckoning me deeper into her velvet embrace.  
The dark air caresses me,
Like a smooth, silken hand stroking my face.

The breeze carries with it the scent of autumn;
decaying leaves, campfire smoke, pumpkin spice and pine needles.
A heady cocktail that rouses something in me that no other season can.

This, is my favourite time of year.

The bare trees, colourful leaves and crisp breeze soothe my mind.

The long nights of candlelight and incense soothe my soul.

Draped in moonlight and watched over by the stars,
I drink the wine of ancient Roman nights,
of sacred pagan rites,
of owls' sleepless flights,
of lustful lovers' bites,
That dark and warm midwinter wine.

And it is here

As I lie naked beneath the gentle gaze of the moon,
Vulnerable and exposed,
Innocent and joyful,
With child-like wonder at the beauty that surrounds and encompasses me,
Sipping the crimson nectar of the gods,

That I feel whole.

Let us send mosquitoes into exile,
To the obliterating cold of Antarctica,
     In hope that the stars will take refuge
In this corrupted Archipelago, till then
We shall tire this full moon, lay our lovers down,
And burn the shadows
     As a campfire of our love.*

© 2015 J.S.P.

Midnight Treat
A campfire
Dies
Before the scouts
Are ready to leave
They hide
In their tents
As wolves surround
Their false sense
Of security
…quiet
Or there tear through
Everything
That stands
In the way of their feast
We are
But
A bite to eat
Compared
To the meat
Of a bear
But the sweat
From our fear
Will make us
Quite the midnight treat

There once was a man who said you could beat the world with your words. That you could conquer an army with the knowledge of a greater narrative and move the legions of many with the action of one verb. I want to believe who ever can recreate the frameworks our race. The foundational narrative of our moral ethic, the guidelines mankind has been leaning on for millenniums. I want to know a alternative story, with made up words and no respect for a-priori intuition or tradition but a legend of unabiding experience that is unlike any tangent or discourse known. I want to reinvent another codex.  

I saw god as the architect I consoled in the grand tree house, with the grand green house sitting in a curious English archway. The telescope room was laid with bricks and from it I could see all that made me content. I felt the time changing before my eyes. Whether I was in compromise or not was entirely up to the seasons of Zeus.

I am now never afraid of myself, I almost died and I remember it all. I have known fear and still revere the quenching of it's animosity. I am only a swerving flake of inner rind. I am all that is exhausted of my honest dive for humanity. I am me finally, a shell no more! Man is the helplessness of lost spatiality in his own timid surrealism. I have never been satisfied with the explanations no matter how exhaustive! Revisited by the techni-color outlook of the turning millennium craze. The alleviation of all hopes when they turned out a dead end inthemselves, a lost avenue of my childhood.

I guess we all wanted that age-old rampant abuse of youth in ways that were neither aesthetically pleasing or unifying towards our own, best. I was tired of the beautiful sprites I grew up with. I was tired of locking myself in closets at nights and rubbing my face into the it's knotted carpet floor. I'm tired of the songs that advocated joyful frolicking into the drapped daylight. The oddities grow old and the used up phrase are clique now. I lost my mind seeing the years of my language frightened by the sound of my own breath. Grow into yourself. I am done with you anyways. I am done seeing them engulf a titanic drift of colorful intentions; flirting around the grand bonfire of the uncreated experience. I am lost with them. I question more than just our own value and I resign my thoughts on themselves for their own wealth and safety. When you want it said so bad but the forces of those unforeseen, creative hives oscillate and never stop it's steps into the night-legend. Then the world ends and was never in out of tension. I electrify my time and run into the a.m. frantic like a monkey, waving around and jesting my arms. I'm tired of the old music, in with the artifacts who architect the reverberation of my heart.

Your myth has lived into the century and I can see your ideas into the lives of all maniacs and the honest young, the deranged youth. We are amidst a heavy tension, i cry again. I want my mother's words three times a day and more on my weak hours. I am content in the alien maze of my music and want only the childhood campers to love me like a king. They gathered around at night, around the campfire. They initiated the song and dance with gaiety rhythm; that was the nights stars collided into bedtime. The same night I was torn by the dreams of an old horrid man who gave me no name and no rest from tear and horror. What evil is an anonymous the Will that censors awareness and knowledge. If it kills

So what then of the tribal pack psyche we all inherit. In days where beauty was up to chance. Our proximity to a woman was determined by breeding patterns and the realm of funds available for travel and food. What now in these days of the internet? When the whole world is at the tops of our finger tips and even more far away is the understanding we gain of our inability to have the cream of the world. We are in a great exaggeration of ourselves, of our will, and of our determined out-come. We have little but the pessimisme of our predecessors to guide our philosophies application. The translation of dream-world is perfectly out of reach for us and always for our posterity. From here on out we are a new age. A new age whose gates are christened by the ungenuine thugs and malevolent brand names of our civilization. We are faking it till the end. I am scared and drilled by horror and filled more with black premonitions. I wish I had eyes to see myself with a more generous charity but I don't and neither do you. What you see is an age of outward anticipation for the soring ribbons of undone realities.

The artist is the one who has seen the broad fleeting wisp of an out-of-world innuendo. It is the ethereal encounter with a cognitive defect that mimic as a supernatural sensation, this is seen by the artist as true humanity and rightfully so as it brings him to tears.

I always forget that we are always on the cusp. That we are simply a few bruised years away from reveling in the stained, sealed golden sunlight of the age that has came. What we do now is entirely crucial to our ability to be in unending sorrow and remorse. We see our people in a clearer way, for what they where struggling with, for what their reverie finally came to look like, ugly or gleefully self created, their vision of the world will always be our continual source of inspiration.

THE SUMMER BREEZE
THE BLOWING TREES
THE SMELL OF SUMMER AIR
AS IT BLOWS THROUGH MY HAIR
WHEN IM RUNNING THROUGH THE BRIGHT GREEN GRASS
SITTING AROUND THAT CAMPFIRE, WITH A COLD DRINK IN MY GLASS
O HOW I MISS THE WARM GLOWING SUN
AND PUTTING FRESH HAMBURGERS FROM THE GRILL ON A BUN
WEARING FLIP FLOPS AND BEING OUTSIDE ALL DAY
NOTHING ABOUT SUMMER RUBS ME THE WRONG WAY
SO PLEASE COME BACK SOON MR SUN
BECAUSE YOU MAKE EVERYTHING SO FUN

drunk woodland children, we
ask so many questions, we
firefly skin. the picnic table beneath
our lamps, our ouija board, our girlfriends
next to us warm and laughing.
stories:
we tell stories to scare eachother
before descending into our tents
on the outer darks.
sweet night nothings.
& everythings.

i’m consumed by dreams of you;
somehow running;
somehow ******* my way out of my own inevitable
death.

a lady bug wing half-yanked and humming.
wind scorpion.
mosquito
in the early morning buzz, and i roll over
to see your puffy little sleeping face ::: sunlight there.
limp beyond the tent and zipper.

we eat mayo sharp cheddar salami wheat sammies
& take acid.
everyone one else goes on a group nature-hike,
but i stay behind
hallucinating of my dead mother in those sequined clothes she used to wear.
::: we play scrabble and talk,
until she leaves.
like love.
like guitar strummed chords and many hydrations later –
my tribe returns,
with fish.

the girl i love.
you/she roll joints in your lap,
in my lap,
in a chair and i mirage
the faces of everyone through glass &
slosh; through campfire
& lemonade.

Blow a kiss & show me
What true liberation and
Desire look like, I deserve it
& when I see you, I am coming
With you. With nothing but
Excitement and the best intention.
I would love nothing more than that.
It doesn’t matter the list of places.
The first, second, or third destination.
I’d really just like to go hallucinate
With you In the wilderness.
A language that needs no translation.
No matter where we stand, mentally
We are where we want to be.
Prosperous in each other.
The earth tucked beneath a blanket,
eventually we’ll have to get up
but until then blow a few kisses
& take me with you.
A naked soul free, exploring a dream.
One of the first things that come to mind
Your face on front of a post card.
This memory snuggled up close
In infinity.
Without having to imagine or dream
Where we’ve already been.
Together by the lake,
The mountains nestled low,
One head snuggled into another.
The campfire barely visible, piled in a mess
Together.
Realizing that there’s nothing more perfect
Realizing that we are a dream within a dream.
Realizing that only we can make this a reality.
I want this so bad.
No matter where we stand, mentally.
We are where we want to be.
Each other’s everywhere & everything
in between.

Gaze upon the moon.
Moonlight illuminates the room.
Stars glitter & glow.
An enchanting beauty it bestows.
The cold night sky.
Makes me feel alive.
Not wanting to die.
An immortal existence.
Humanity has no resistance.
Fireworks penetrate the fog.
Gathering around the campfire on a log.
Rainbow colors that dont blur, you can see clearly. An image that depression is a cure.
A strength unweary.
Roasting marshmellow smores,
while the others sleep & snore.
Collecting more fire wood.
Right before me is where the grizzly bear stood.
He wanted food that is what I understood.
If you run they will attack.
The woods I wont be going back.
To live you have to stand still or try to climb a tree.
Don't run to the hills.
Just stay & be.
Animals smell fear. That much is clear.
Food attracts them. Tranqualize could be wise.

i want to sit by a campfire


with you

on a cool summer night

i want to sleep under the stars

with you lying beside me

i want to

gaze into  your irises as i

sink into

subconscious

and dream about being infinitely

frozen in a moment such as this

and

what it would be like

to wake up beside you

every morning

and just be happy to be yours

although

for now

i must live in the  

reality

that is also known as transatlantism

but

maybe all those

late night phone conversations

where

falling asleep would never

be the same as if we were together

allows me to focus on the

beauty in the rasp

your tone conveys that i hear as i do so

is  the most vivacious sound

that i have ever heard

and

the symphonic melody

as if your

vocal chords were violin strings

or

something like that

makes me fall more in love with you than you just talking to me

in person

would

because your words would not

be near as

sincere and would be

without

meaning or

depth

so let us be judged by others who

know nothing about

what you feel for me nor i for you

who do not understand the

blissfulness

of not

two beings

but

rather

two souls who can just be content

with talking to each other

and who belittle us

because of their  ignorant

prejudices

because no matter

what anyone chooses to think

or to

believe

they will never

comprehend that you just

make me smile

when i need nothing more than that

up the water hole


Ledbetters:
the waterfall which we yearned to
explore on our days
off. like a fresh romance, we wanted to know
each rock on her body and how it got there.
the raft guides and myself,
the master of whitewater reservations, most days
working (trapped) in an old stone house
grabbing phones, calls from pockets-full-of-cash families, boy scouts,  
seeking gorge thrills on full days of
sun and moody thunderstorms.

Ledbetters:
she sits down the railroad tracks which ran
through our cabin homes (and my little shack-barn)
traintracks that kept running next to its river friend, heading into
the town as a timid tourist train jaunt.

we’d creep on top of the rails, while sparrows sang their high-pitched
refrains, river rafters’ shrieks faded,
(i’d pretend not to hear the rattlesnake’s jingle).
the sun beat down ******* our shoulders,
but stopped its punches when we snuck off the tracks,
onto the trail, into the woods.
(then, the spots of sun shone only where trees told them to)

down the path,
past the wooden bridge where we played Pooh Sticks,
past the old campfire spots, the towers of rocks we crafted so carefully,
to get to Ledbetter’s legs: her huge rocks, the heavy flow of water, her blood.

i always slipped and fell as i jumped from rock to rock,
up and over cliffed streams. higher and higher we would climb,
until we reached her narrow water hole:
Birth Canal.

i’ve been afraid to climb up Birth Canal—
shimmy up and clench its slippery rocks with gravity’s water
working against me. i’m almost certain she would wash me away,
i’d tumble down all her rocks, crack my skull on wet rock,
more of a Death Canal.
when you can overcome your mind,
are you truly reborn?

Stolen warmth gone for now,  followed by melancholic uneventful sounds. When I walk, I walk away from seeing. Everything I thought I might've been. This skin trying to fly away from me, like a misplaced shadow searching for a body to shrug off its grief. Bending, arcing, aching thumbs that have too much memory to allow them any fun. The old time might have agreed, with the girl lost for at least three weeks. Sugar and a can of milk condensed, heated up over campfire coals in the woods near Libereć.

Twice I'm too scared to talk. After a boxing match with a raging bull. Staleness lingers over these sweating hips, where half a moon quaffs down Verdi's Requiems. I told you I'm hiding in the jungle now. Through these cufflinks I speak through a startled jowl. First that dying tone, the startling sound of a fading D Minor song. The mines of the forest grieve, until the hours born sell the rights to sleep. Taken and away from grief, where wiggling children's fingers are seen. Only to find the child was not a realty.
Let your hands make amends to me, whether you're here for the pistachio ice cream or vanilla almond dream. Princess pleas for a pauper's being.

Looks like the child bit off half it's tongue, to ignore all inquiries into where its gone. Minute games and clauses of flesh, I tie her up using her own belt.  Chasing The Rockies for a festive blue, then I gorge myself while she enrolled me too. Quiet bandits filled with starlight.

The New York City skyline
from across the water;
sunsets at sea;
the shadows of clouds
shifting over treetops;
my sisters wishing on
a shooting star;
the sunrise over the desert
from a hot air balloon;
the warmth and light of a
campfire as the voices rise
into the sky with the embers.

And I have tallied up these
beautiful things and kept
tabs on them, memories like
index cards in my mind, labeled,
categorized, logical, the way
I like my things to be:
landscape, cityscape, skyline,
harmony, melody, warmth,
friendship

and then somewhere in the back
of the drawer is a folder, a
category that is not a category
and it is spilling into the
other categories and it
is disorder and the absence
of order, the incapacity to
categorize beautiful things

overflowing, not logically

and then, there's *you

In the old time west
Man was at his best 
In the wake of the new dawn
Cowboys were filled with pride and brawn

Riding across the grassy range
They thought naught much of change
Man's promise's was his word
His voice was always heard

The fire within the night 
Kept him warm till light 
Old bones spoke of times past
The creak of a saddle was to last

Generations of spirits walk
Within a cowboys talk
They are a different breed
Riding there grande steeds

Passion lights within those eyes
Campfire stories of all they tried 
Strength and courage go beyond
The reflection you see in the pond 

They know and feel a real romance
In this truth they take the stance
Family and pride is not kept at bay
Within those lines he never strays 

For what is ingrained he will do battle
Whether for wife, family or cattle
For this is the cowboy way
Still on the range to this day

I bask in the silky, blue-gray Alaskan light which blankets my mother's bedroom
at 3am
while, from the cat's fur ,
Static sparks
each time my hand runs down his sleek back and
cool campfire air drifts in through the open window where
Mosquitos are clinging to the screen