"portage" poems
The sky is painted a pale orange and blue
I'm just out there thinking of you
No way, no how to ever break through
But with a paddle in hand you know that's untrue
A wannigan, a duffle, a heavy deluth
An impenetrable vessel, a wood canvas canoe
Unexplored nature, a spirit renewed
All with friends, an unstoppable crew
No need to run, no need to prove
Rise with the sun, incredible views
There's always a portage, skeg on the boots
But who can stop walking our unfenced zoo
We do what we do, there to feel, be, and move
Nov 12, 2012
Nov 12, 2012 at 2:59 PM UTC
I am up
Awake
Before the sun
It's arrival
Heralded by
Colors creeping
Out against
The retreating night sky
Do not mistake me
For a morning person
I do not relish this
Nor do I mourn
For sleep
lost
It could be
found
But this
is necessary
Not without joy
Not without sacrifice
Without a word
It simply is
A ride
My Fortress
of Solitude
For a mind
Besieged
By thought
At war with
Itself
Do not
retreat
Into the past
A ruthless place
A heckling pace
That tells you
You cannot
Hang on
Give no portage
To fate
For you cannot grasp
What the future holds
Just
Keep moving
Focus
This ride
It is the only ride
That matters
I wrap myself
In its tight fabric
It's sounds
Clicking and clacking
Racing thoughts
Shifting
Centrifugal forces
Sifting
As I order
Myself
Ride
As long
as I pedal
I am
Present
Jul 14, 2016
Jul 14, 2016 at 6:49 AM UTC
#***Blackwater rise up from artesian fountains
Upsurge from the provenance of earthen soul
Mingle unto a river of willow’s bend and sway
Rooted in boulders***
*scattered within
milestones
and*
***riverbed Cornerstones
Gray
As though empowering sown seeds mightily strewn
With intent a higher law's freshet flows
For to stream from silence in a satiating tongue
Rolling currents thickly bestow
A river of simple truth lay bare
A stream of random kindness betides,
Rivulets of unconditional love abounding
Rootstock birthplace coursing passage from whence
Unbounded rivers' silent reverie manifests
Rippling cadence immersing pulsing whispers
Unbounded rivers rushing deep and wide
Blossoming undercurrents gushing,
resounding,
rhythmic ebb and flow
Verve undulating wholly alive
Genesis of soul marrow's enlightened shine ―
Wellsprings arise from bedrock
ancient mother earth
A surmounting light leavens abidingly
From imploring water's flowing river song
To illuminate the beckoning pathway's bearings
divergent from thither and yon
Through which to portage
A way to carry back home in psalm***
h.a. rivers ... November 4th, 2017
Nov 9, 2017
Nov 9, 2017 at 7:59 PM UTC
trolling through
midnight streets
braking to avert
inflicted pedestrians
crawling to and from
pedestrian afflictions
I hope become fares
I am the vehicle
to next destinations
the portage to
an evenings
ravenous
end
Music Selection:
Ides of March
Vehicle
10/15/14
Oakland
jbm
Oct 15, 2014
Oct 15, 2014 at 3:54 PM UTC
Silver ribbon Assiniboine
a sash for a city--a Ceinture Fléchée
tied into the Red just off Highway 1
You leak into the topsoil
in the place you call home
and come back up a street map
with fingerprint roads
I remember the way you'd trace these out on my back
with fingertip pencils--cartographer's hands--
Bird's Hill and Lag' and Portage and Corydon
laid 'em down in my veins
just under my skin
Where are you tonight, in your smiling Great City?
Crossing the bridge and inhaling the skyline?
Or walking the river in my iced over thoughts?
Maybe walking, mid-tempo, around KP mall?
Those hipsters in Osborne Village
and Wolsely
had nothing on us, did they?
Cooler than Main
on the 1st of the year
I trickled away
and I leaked into topsoil
enjambed between rhymes in apology poems.
An Irish Goodbye; a blip on the radar
stopped flashing to fade off the map of your streets.
Our voices still echo, our spectres still haunt
Dollaramas and sidewalks, Tim Horton's and pubs
Our hands still lace up--at least so in theory
Perimeter Highway's still traced on my back.
Here's hoping our avenues
meet again soon.
Here's hoping that luck can outrun shortcomings
one more time.
Jul 15, 2014
Jul 15, 2014 at 1:59 PM UTC
Can you settle for more or less if today was your last day
And what would be your retort if you were denied another chance?
How life introduces sobriety and the impending inevitability
The interstice and it’s ingress that encloses before your eyes
The demanding pouring of importune time
That soothing allaying sighs that evoke incalculable alleviation
If someone were to impart as they closed their eyes
As they died with a commital of happenings with not enough time
As to burden you with the impression of only one chance
It would seem and with the impending inevitability
Of your death which would subito compromise the day
A bearding contrivance plight of obligations engagement and commital no alleviation
An abecedarian dossier concealed for a long time
All this time the inevitable coinciding incident only for your eyes
The emotional habituation was of quotidian rendition each day
Of how trivial things take us on a dance with only one life one chance
With your attention and awareness on the answer the inevitability
Of what you are becoming with each passing second for each
Thought which transpires and no alleviation
Is there an epoch a replicating limn a depiction of our linear time
As we perpetrate and pursue progressively for our alleviation
Engaged to staying the course the day
Stirring closing in on our deliberate objective determined chance
Which remained for a terse duration from the inevitability
In which at the atrium of this erstwhile portage of a duvet to belabor
To stifle firsthand with your eyes
The variant from this domicile from this residence on a day
Is the vagabond to perish in yonder with no alleviation
Once man was a brute dullard or a curmudgeon spinster at a time
Which offers a mute disconnection ragged miscreant the inevi
Naivety or absent mindedness to somnambulist and its silhouette
Notwithstanding change
The quagmire and it’s nightmare the ingrate delighted with coined
Shunned eyes
Reputation with a flagrant obscene defilement galvanizing
The alleviation
At the heart of this lies another chance
A precocious inevitability
A man who lies to die another day
The annihilation in desperate want for from those argent eyes
To the starving newfangled optimism which in its sheen
Shines sunshine dulling the ocular orbs of time
Forwithal in befuddlement remain here
The time if infringement to comprehend the volatile vertigo
And the inevitability
The harrowing of hell
Glance at the shinning suns in her eyes intention considers change
After you heal and left are the cicatrix
Will you plunge further for alleviation
Or on the intent of regression once again
From long ago to another distant day.
Jan 23, 2019
Jan 23, 2019 at 9:20 PM UTC
with apologies to WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
(from Henry V, spoken by King Henry)
Once more to the table, dear friends, once more;
Or close up our hungry mouths with supermarket staples.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of hunger blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Cut fine the sinews, simmer up the blood,
Disguise cheaper meats with hard-favour'd sage;
Then lend the stirring spoon a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the foccacia bread
Like the brass cannon; let the garlic o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled onion
O'erhang and jutty his confounded tomato base,
Swill'd with a wild and wasteful Cabernet Savignon.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose ragu is fet from Nonna's fail proof recipe!
Nonna's that, like so many Stephanie Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even, baked
And brewed their sauces and stews, for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest...
That those whom you call'd mothers did feed you well
Be copy now to men of larger appetites
And teach them how to eat.
And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your belt; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so hungry,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'
Apr 3, 2016
Apr 3, 2016 at 1:30 AM UTC
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
Bones awake groaning. Sing the body decrepit. Don't moan, Agonize!
Neurons snap, crackle, plop. Locate head. Try to find shoes.
Dreams dismissed. Day bleeds into sameness. Relentless boredom.
Tread the doomed bog of Old with attentions. ***** traps.
Each step the future. Abandon all dope. Mortality worm gnaws.
Denentiasand ***** Tumorgators lurk. Snappers break hips.
EDacondas slither. Limply. Lungconstrictors hide in tar. Gasp.
Peer through blurry eyes. Portage cataracts. Slow streams drip.
Lust peters out. Prostate yourself. Up becomes down. Flexile.
Shelf life gets shorter. Discard after. Only expiration Dates.
So what if life is ebbing. Reality is an unhappy meal. Ignore.
Be a clueless American. Slap on a big grin. No fears!
Pretend to enjoy the swamp of these Golden Years.
Mar 4, 2016
Mar 4, 2016 at 7:48 AM UTC
Blades of grass
Slice like swords
Up the mountain towards
Divinity and
Portage Pass.
Ripples make
The water's mirror
Obscured but clearer
Is my mind at
Gold Cord Lake.
Sailing towards
The deepest blue
Where nature's hue
Harmonizes in
Kenai Fjords.
The mountains wield
Their crown with pride,
And skies abide
The reign of the
Harding Ice Field.
The sky is dark
But a giant looms
And light assumes
It's silhouette in
Denali Park.
Dec 21, 2018
Dec 21, 2018 at 9:19 PM UTC
awaken love in me
gently. fallible.
spontaneous.
alive.
laying beneath the sense of each
word is the armistice
of mind versus heart
of body versus stillness
of sound versus silence
of distance versus proximities.
this long-winded gasp of breath
holding on to gravitas
keeping things in their
designations.
or this desperate hum of quietude
yearning to be noticed,
concealed in immense portage
flowing to be bequeathed
to cupped hands and touch
a face callow. mild. tender.
like water falling again
and again in repetitions
memorized - permitting
desire to utter plainly rendering love's easy, breakable structures.
Sep 14, 2015
Sep 14, 2015 at 10:23 AM UTC