Out here there are no hearthstones,
Hot grains, simply.  It is dry, dry.
And the air dangerous.  Noonday acts queerly
On the mind's eye erecting a line
Of poplars in the middle distance, the only
Object beside the mad, straight road
One can remember men and houses by.
A cool wind should inhabit these leaves
And a dew collect on them, dearer than money,
In the blue hour before sunup.
Yet they recede, untouchable as tomorrow,
Or those glittery fictions of spilt water
That glide ahead of the very thirsty.

I think of the lizards airing their tongues
In the crevice of an extremely small shadow
And the toad guarding his heart's droplet.
The desert is white as a blind man's eye,
Comfortless as salt.  Snake and bird
Doze behind the old maskss of fury.
We swelter like firedogs in the wind.
The sun puts its cinder out.  Where we lie
The heat-cracked crickets congregate
In their black armorplate and cry.
The day-moon lights up like a sorry mother,
And the crickets come creeping into our hair
To fiddle the short night away.

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Mountains perked out from the Earth as if Atlas himself was attempting to break free from his subterranean cage. These gargantuan, green, organic monoliths stood as gatekeepers of Lone-lands, and watched as low-hovering clouds swirled and swayed around them. Not fluffy white clouds, but deep gray, angry clouds, clouds that move freely with the orchestra of the land. Like a heartbeat, the mountains pulsed and made the horizon jagged and alive. I studied these clouds and hills until sleep bested me. My eyelids shut, and when I opened them again, the gatekeepers were no more. The horizon's heartbeat had flat-lined, and all I could see was an empty blue sky meeting the Mojave shrubbery and sand.

Into the dust of Mojave
On a blow-away afternoon
Wandered a traveling stranger
To the highway truck stop saloon.
Taking a seat by the window
His back to the hot blowing wind
You could tell by his face he was grateful
To be out of the sun once again.

And those desert breezes call him
When he is all alone
Ask him where he’s going
He is going home.
Mysterious sandy traces lead him
Along a distant track.
Home is out there waiting
And he is going back.

Then a laugh floated up from the corner
Where the stranger had recently been.
Except for the glass he had emptied
The booth was practically clean.
Out on the road he was walking
His back to the sweltering town.
His car was still parked at the truck stop
But the stranger did not turn around.

And those desert breezes call him
When he is all alone
Ask him where he’s going
He is going home.
Mysterious sandy traces lead him
Along a distant track.
Home is out there waiting
And he is going back.

I wonder if an unusual flock of white crowned sparrows
Were there that day, that fateful day
Sensing, by which means I know not;
The carnage about to come.
In a frenzy of panic I can imagine the flutter
The unruly encirclement over the festivities.

Perhaps an onlooker gazed upon the sparrows
Momentarily captivated by crying white birds
Together with an eerie hush from the desert wind
Surmising that this is an ominous sign,
Could this be one last final thought of the departed.

For high up in the Mandalay, thirty-two to be exact,
Malevolence hailed down -hailed on a strip of the Mojave.
Smokey rounds undiscrimately raced, laced,
With hate into the music lovers.
Did the Red Rock echo the automatic distant mutter;
The disturbing sounds of mass tuned celebrators' dissarayed.

To what cause is there for such bareful morality?
What heart on 32 could not the feel the serenity;
Of the soothing, harmless country beat?
Then still, sought it fit to take many away
Away from their sacred land and kin.

Many souls - stunned by the sudden halt to dancing
Directed upwards, towards the sun
Yearning to return for one last goodbye.
Perhaps then, that same flock of white crowned sparrows
Native to the north - were grasped by the fallen
By some divine intervention.

Then to return to the scene in the Mojave,
Chirping farewell to the bereaved,
Gracing once again - the soil of the free land;
They loved, and perished upon.
Then into the abode - well above the desert sky.

baking in the mojave
no rivers here like in the tangles back east
crows—and perhaps other animals can on occasion
be heard in a tussle
squeamish feelings settle in the crater of a
stomach half-empty
Last night I woke up aware
of the snakes that bite and scorpions that pinch
but not how truly they exist
I’ve never felt the sun sear my skin so
I hope to fry and lock in all my juices
like my brother’s rich cooking
oh how I dream of a brother by my side
and the more dreary and sweaty I become
the more I begin to see one
a dark, hulking man, as sullen as I
sulking as I do; beneath a new sun

I gaze across the dry desert land.
It goes for miles,
nothing,
but long stretches of valleys,
tucked between mountain walls.
It's like being hidden in a dust bowl.
It's so hot,
and the traffic of cars
kicks up the desert dust,
clouding everything in sight,
but it is a place of refuge
for those seeking
a spiritual revelation.
I certainly understand
why these lands are sacred
to the Native Americans,
and to the indigenous
people of Mexico.
I have only spent
a few days here,
but I already feel more at peace,
free from the hussle,
and shackles of our society.  
I have been contemplating
my place in this world,
beneath the heat of the sun,
with the sand between my toes.
I can't help that my mind wanders.
I wonder who walked
these lands thousands of years ago,
that I am now trespassing on
with my pitched up tent,
and campfire.
What was there purpose?
Were they simply settled here,
or were they just walking
in search of something more?
Possibly for a rite of passage?
Traveling across the desert,
to commune with their
Gods and Goddesses.
These are the questions
that float through my mind,
as I meditate in the dry desert.
I wonder if these
thoughts are my own,
or if the spirits of the past
have placed them in my mind,
to rekindle the magic
that used to fill these lands.
A place now,
where the wonder of the desert
has become a mirage.
A place of beauty,
but barren of magic
to those who live with eyes closed.

I.

Smoke rising to an endless sky
fading twilight in your moon-bright eyes
crickets cry in crooning lullabies
as we kiss the world goodbye.
We lie beneath the stars while
embers from our fire fall
singe our skin and float away
like firefly kisses, like reminders that we
still aren’t dreaming
moonrise and a
soft "I love you" in the dark.

II.

Love,
let me be your now and your forever
let me be your somewhere in between
let me be your ever-loving shelter
for you are everything to me.

Let me be your comfort in the nighttime
let me be your never-ending dream
let me be your sunrise every morning
for you
are everything
to me.

Their breath on the sand
was a Mescalito tornado
across a desert land.

That neuro-cosmic thunder
tore yourself asunder,

Thy nervous system
quantized the data.

You wander in wonder,
As the strings resonate
we remember, thoughts flow.

What is my aim?

A fantastic query to which I have many answers
I aim to explore the most beautiful and most mundane places on our planet
And keep secrets when they should be kept
And fly to great heights and sink to great depths and
Traverse lengthy tripwires that stretch between skyscrapers in the Mojave Desert

But tonight my aim is to be with you
And be with you
And be (where was it again?)

Ah, yes. With you.

(Jenny's Granny's house. Ayr.)

Where seasonal root veg soup
Warmly journeyed our throats
Granny Jean, skin translucent as glass,
Sheer, showing tendril veins beneath
Crinkled cliff-edge lips at Jenny's budding womanhood
She knew hers lay as barren
As insignificant as the pale Mojave borderlands.

Brazen-cheeked dolls and pastel bears
Audienced my transition from slip to sundress
Back in the lucid haze of the pensioner's kitchen
Where dust particles hived like antique film grain
Sat Jenny; painted lips like crisp apple skin
Freckled cheeks hollowing atop
Her milkshake's flimsy plastic straw

Raspy, bubbly ***** filled
The kitchen; appliances groped
By the pious smite of the sun
The kind of light they say never to walk towards
Then, a weathered cough and the stiff moan of a rocking chair
Just to jest fate
Was none of our business yet; I was taken by the hand

We pass many exhibits
On the austere lilac fridge:
"Mr. & Mrs Richard D. Barclay, wed on 11th of Oct 1961"
And crayoned from her own hand, aged 10; "Me and Granny B"
A waxy glyph on lemon sugar-paper not always in memoriam
But among the moth-wing wallpaper lilies
For now

Dust dunes like mattress ghosts
Collect in mushroom clouds above Jenny's sudden weight
While I feed myself to the mirror
My frock, flesh, hair all seep
Into the totalitarian whiteness of our room
And I am happy if this is my course through life
I know I'm no one

I try on, as I shake goodbye,
Jean's hands; fire-crafted leather baseball gloves
They do not fit just yet but
When my hands no longer sheen in the virtuous sun
When I feel citrus hand soap grate into each wrinkled chasm
I promise you, gran, I will remember
Even the Mojave desert will see rainfall.

In those days all thinking took place in his heart.
It had no favorite suburb, no shelter that was home,
immersed, as he was, in the Mojave of humanity,
memories of only former places through which he'd drifted.

Yes, there were women, storms of passion, brevity in bed.
Today, they only took him back in time,
reconstructing scenarios more of actions never taken.
Bedposts served as bivouacs for the nomad.

Here in this desert water assumes a circumstance,
the nomad becoming as fond of it as ambition.
Here silence need not be kept at bay, rather welcomed in,
though it looks down upon him in uncertainty.

Out there on the horizon he hears a sigh,
a mother tongue corresponding to his own.

it was a dry mojave afternoon,
with crows cursing shrilly
the streetlamps bearing broken bulbs
and the striped cat sleeping in the sun.

the wind drew frantic breaths,
exhaling dead leaves over the hill
and sending the blackbirds
spiraling into the sky.

a lizard stirred, somniferous almond eyes
gazing lethargically over his rock
and at the old man on the porch
leaning back- impossibly uncomfortable in his rickety wooden chair.

his name was Jackson.
gnarled gray hair mixed with gnarled gray beard
appropriately framing a pinched, ornery visage
and tattered clothes adorned his whisper of a body.

it was his sixty-fourth year here in the desert-
on the fifty-second he'd lost his wife
on the fifty-eighth he'd gained a kitten
named him Waldrop and let him **** the mice and lizards.

'sixty four years is a long time,'
a thought murmured in the back of his head
eyelids peeling back to give a cursory glance to Waldrop
who was stalking the reptile watching him.

he remembered his twentieth birthday
when Edna had first said she loved him
and he remembered that glorious July morning
where she said she was his forever.

he remembered the pain of labor
down in the factory,
and the camaderie with his fellows
chewing tobacco and cursing the bosses.

he remembered the time spent weeping,
but remembered more the time spent laughing
in places miles and miles away
that now seemed imaginary.

exhaustion echoed through tired bones
and he wondered who would feed the cat,
drooping eyes closing one last time
to await the warmth of sunset.

Living at hard angles,
the hemophilac in the razor blade factory
a diabetic making chocolate,
the alcoholic cooking with vanilla

A car running out of oil
in the great Mojave Desert
broke down,
while heading to Paradise, Nevada

Life at hard angles,
hard to get started
hard to get around

Rent gas water, electric insurance garbage,
car needs tires, internet phone
food
whose ever screaming the loudest
bank accounts have been known to go to zero

Cry all night

We're going to hold on to each other tight
it's all temporary
Even when you're sleeping hard
living at hard angles.

I'm about to slip
quietly into sleep
when the cat,
her food bowl bare
and the drink dried up
like Mojave,
hops on my back
and feigns affection
her sharp claws
stabbing here & there
in a soft attack
as she carves out
a cozy perch
in my flesh.
I lurch up
grunting and fumbling
pull the short chain
on the night table lamp
and in the pale green glow
pad off into the kitchen
scouting for Cat Chow
and a measure
of peace

“one day i will find the right words, and they will be simple.” - jack kerouac

pancakes on a sunday morning, jack daniel’s, getting really drunk then running naked through the forest,  mosh pits, double rainbows, old trucks, freebandz, panic attacks, overflowing bubble baths, woodstock 1969, lemonade, slamming my head into wet pavement, the cranberries, jumping into someone’s arms after having gone years without seeing them, american spirits, crying, heavy metal music, innocence, laughing until a hospital visit is necessary, ragers, smiles on the faces of five year old children after stripping the shelves of a candy store bare, severe depression, the 90s, basketball hoops in driveways, putting on makeup at 1 AM, the mojave desert, life.

-z. vega

There is fire above the neon
Their shine and burn so eloquent yet brash
I am trapped beneath Fremont Street
and I hear exodus—

I am trapped beneath Fremont Street
My coffin is lined with casino carpet
The embers of cigarette ash
Burn wild within me

I want to move to Sahara Avenue
and live amongst the cracked asphalt
So I can catch a glimpse of
The Genesis I am missing

So next I am under Main Street
where the sweltering desert meets
the diminished pavement;
the metal statues that hold blinking lights

I am trapped beneath Fremont Street
As I gaze into the deep, wide Mojave
Oh, Deuteronomy, it is I,
the one you so eagerly seek!

Paradise, 2018

On a lip-crack Wednesday morning
with a mind as dry as ice
my cold Mojave fingers
make it difficult to write
and the radio is laying
sentimental sediment
on a limestone lack of lustre
that's as solid as cement
and a sad Sahara sunrise
bakes a barren riverbed
where the trickled inspiration
once went gushing through my head
and I point a brittle finger
at the unrelenting sky
and I ask it why?

Then you
dawn
upon
my memory and

My heart becomes a waterfall
cascading through my very soul
refresh the butterflies that fly
in coloured clouds below
And if you'll take me, I will grow
I will grow

I recall a conversation
from a few years down the line
one voice isn't shouting
but the other one is mine
laying words like sandbags
against the battlements
making promises which, made,
cannot be made again
I was sure of something
but my certainty was wrong
now I'm sure of something else
I can't tell for how long
I point that brittle finger
at the unrelenting sky
and ask it why?

Then you
dawn
upon
my memory and

My heart becomes a waterfall
cascading through my very soul
refresh the butterflies that fly
in coloured clouds below
and if you'll take me I will grow
If you'll take me I will grow
If you'll take me I will grow
I will grow.

Barren—they call you and now
it is your badge of honor, one
you wear proudly on display.

They likened you to a desert for
a lack of children and lack of
desire for them.

Be Mojave—Gobi—Sahara—
because your glittering, glass sand dunes
are great
and bearing fruit and flowers
is your prerogative and yours alone.

As dusk approached,
the fire in the sky
lit the mountains of the Mojave
aflame.
Painting the horizon
as hot coals,
destined to smolder.
Gray haze hanging
in the valleys.
The breeze brought night,
the moon, and stars
uncountable.
It was life, and
death,
the peace,
and violence
between.

I am not heartless,
life just taught me
to use my heart less.

I don’t always allow my heart
to make choices for me.

Life is saddened by love,
because when those
you care about die,
it hurts more than
if they were a stranger.

That’s why I always say,
love is not a happy journey
where the sun always shines.

It can be a barren landscape
wasting away with fattened pigs,
and chickens who lost their feathers.

Love can burn like the hot sun
in the Mojave Desert.

It can drink your blood
until you’re ready to pop.
Leaving you to die
from a broken heart.

© 2017 Amanda Shelton

in the absence
of
the beloved
Switzerland
feels like
the Kalahari
the Sahara
or the Mojave
desert
and
heaven
becomes
hell

Entry ~
*How can one person change so much in a single month. I've been walking under the same sun, but passing beneath different streetlights. I haven't been traveling long. I've been gone from my hometown for about three months. I miss the snow covered trees. The cool familiar sensation of the Lake Erie breeze. I miss the tulips in spring that seem to pop up wherever they please. I miss the big blue house with white window frames sitting on the corner of Temple Street. The big garden out front surrounded by an electric fence to ward off deer. That place was my refuge. My sacred ground. I was born into a family twisted from life. I was lost during my childhood, and for most of my teen years. I was a hopeless kid. I kept it together on the surface, but never could hide the sadness in my eyes. I moved into that house a month after I turned eighteen. I was at that crucial age. Teetering on adulthood, fresh out of the high school scene. I moved in with my boyfriend. The man who would become a rock for most of my life. He was the first person to teach me unconditional love. Two words I have been vaguely familiar with from childhood. It was a long process to learn how to give, and receive unconditional love. It's been three years since I've met him. I'm only grasping the concept now. I lived in that house for three years. That house is my home. My real home. When I moved in, I hardly knew my housemates. We were acquaintances. Not exactly friends, but I was accepted because of my boyfriend. I was such a shy girl back then. I hardly said much. Kept myself busy by cleaning, and reading. Smoking lots of ****. Little did I know, three years later they would become some of the most crucial people in my life. My boyfriend taught me unconditional love, but the people in that house taught it to me too. For myself, and for others. I learned more from them then they will ever know. I was brought into their world, one so different from where I came. For a bit, I felt like I was in wonderland. Like I fell down a rabbit hole chasing the cheshire cat. Wandering through scenes of nonsense, caught in the folds of time. Looking back, I can't tell if that's how I actually saw it, or if that was just the acid. Either way, I learned to love it. I was Alice, exploring my new wonderland. I expanded my consciousness in that house. I soaked up what was going on around me like a sponge. I'm an observer. I always have been. I can sit back in a room full of people, not saying a single word, just watching. I notice the things most people do without thinking. The little things. Biting nails, shaking legs, even twisting their earrings exactly three times. Detail is my specialty. I notice everything, from the words people choose right down to what they do when they say them. I'm an observer, not a judger. I keep most of my observations to myself. Unless, I feel someone could benefit from something being noticed. I grew up more in those three years than I had during my entire adolescence. I grew so much that I felt like I was exploding out the windows cracking the white frames, blowing off the roof. I had three of the best years of my life in that house. I had no idea what I was prepping myself for when I moved in. I never would've had the guts to travel cross country if it wasn't for that house. For those people. I owe everything to those three years of my life there. It's been three months since I moved out. Just three short months. I've seen everything from the Appalachian Trial to the Rocky Mountains to the Mojave Desert. In each place I've been, I've found a piece of my lost soul. If life was fair, I would get to keep those pieces. Finders keepers. Unfortunately, that just isn't the way it works. For every piece that's found, one's left behind. This is simply the way. It was decided long ago. By those who understood the circle of life. There must be balance. For what we take, we must give, in order to receive. This is what I learned in that big blue house on temple street. This is the lesson I hold dear to me now as I prepar to come back to my hometown. I haven't been gone long, but I'm not the same as when I left. I'm stronger. Wiser. I'm ready to face the tragedy that awaits me when I pull off exit fifty three. I'll be walking into a storm, but I'm not afraid of the rain. I can take it. I'll feel so much relief when I pull into that rocky driveway, park my car, and walk up the path half swallowed by grass. Up those steps, then right through the door held together with duct tape. I'll walk into the kitchen right into my family's arms, and finally find some peace. I'll be right where I need to be. Right at home with the people that love me. Supporting me, as I face an unbearable tragedy.

The little dog sits
staring out the large window
to the street
beyond

where he is a wolf on the Steppes
a jackal on the Serengeti
a coyote of the Mojave

But for now
he sits

I walked like water into this
Ready to be part of your cycle,
Rain and sleet and hail, and all we would need
Bountiful as light-
I slipped into your bathtub, silently
Caught in your current,
Thrown to the sea
Alone and unwilling to admit
I cannot swim and don’t want to
And all because I walked like water
And you mistook me for such.
Now, the drought has purged me of this,
Left senseless,
I’d have never taken this as the Mojave
Had I not given you my springs.
Now I walk like a continent into this,
I’ve got my own topography,
Don’t need your plains to carve into.
I walk like soil into this,
Now we mix tectonic into bliss,
Never was so beautiful a landslide,
No water, no tide
So you know I fall into this
I will not creep and crawl,
Seep through your rafters in the night
No, I’ll build you bedrooms,
Flowers in my mind,
Support,
Dependency,
Vulnerable
To your touch.

To not
Learn

From what
Brought
You down
Before

Leaves you
Chasing
A
Dream
Of Godly strength

Where the
Only person
To blame

Is yourself

To glare into the sun
And think
The mind won't burn

Is to live
In a
Denial
Vaster than:

The Pacific
The Mojave
The Roads of Los Angeles or
The Plains of Montana

Each finger
That lifts
Will be in vain

Will be
Energy
Wasted

The eyes
Wish not to see
What they
Cannot
Accept

Accept the
Horrible

Accept the
Madness

Admit to
Accept
The unacceptable

Accept the
Inhumanity
Of
Humanity

And then

Fight

Fight against
All of it