The memory of her sits on a balcony ledge, cigarette in hand.
My green light at the end of a dock.
And this time I am reaching out
like many before,
in pages and poems past.
Macbeth’s face is a book.
Her body is an atlas
tracing a beautiful continent.

Follow the long tributaries that lead to shallow deltas.
This shore begins softly and forms into slender feet,
quiet but powerful when outstretched an angler waiting for prey.
Odysseus, only, can hear this Siren play.  

Follow her legs, those tawny plains,
unbroken, guiding along welcomingly,
inviting curiosity and conscripting imagination.
An oasis.
And her torso is a valley from which
her laughter is ****** upward and resisted until uncontainable.
Dimples break and burst like earthquakes.  
A ridgeline is all that awaits until we see her face.
She is the Americas from bottom to top.

Follow her decorated canyon mouth
but know it is merely a diversion.  
Her eyes are icebergs, which shyly reveal themselves
to sink ships and drown lovers, for always.
Her hair is aurora borealis,
the northern lights,
dancing colorfully
to an unaccompanied waltz
heard by everyone but her.

As the memory of her sits the smoke billows around
like clouds traveling down a coastline
only to dissipate
and disappear.

Clouds at dusk, they bleed a song written by life’s blunt knife,
The ink of pain rains down upon me a sorrowful crisis,
It flows free from my veins serrated and sliced,
Sadness soaks into the dry sponge of my richly wasted life,

A chorus of starlings soars over the horizon dark and hazy,
Taking with them all tidings of hope and mercy.

She, who once sweetly sang the hymn of time,
Her song, which once echoed through my life and left a sign,
This music which was once the rhythm of our breathing rhyme,
It once more seduces me upon the purple twilight ridgeline,

The colours of the sunset bleed into the darkling land,
Dark depression leaks across my mind and stains my hands.

Grief, you rushed with wide open arms and kissed my once happy throne,
Your life changing embrace whispered secrets, laced with groans,
You cheated and robbed me, licked clean my weeping bones,
I know this world no more, only the memories now remain hot as volcanic stone,

All else is but a winter of my soul,
All now is buried in a cold graveyard hole.

Storms batter and sink my ships laden with yesterday’s screams,
The thunder echoes through the dead timbers of my dreams,
But know one thing, go chisel this on my headstone yet unseen,
Her spirit, her love, her words, all pure and clean.

Above the bitter eruption of tears
I hear a soul soothing voice which kisses away my fears.

*Her voice... I hear her beauty the night air fill,
It has her strength and it has her will,
As I stand on this silent grassy hill
I hear her still...

And she sings,
Her song dances and with truth rings.

There was chatter reflecting off the water just like the moon. The Milky Way was swimming with us, wrapped in algae and moss. We had no swimsuits, only spontaneity and laughter. We were far away from trivialities where there was no light pollution, you could see so far outward into everything. We were not looking up, we were looking out at what we are part of. Light, so much light. When our thoughts were finally chilled like iced lemonade, we ran through bushes and flailed in the mud to the car. We drove. Once sitting on our bed, a delicious thought bubbled into reality.
              We discussed it, unanimously deciding on this nights adventure...we'd enjoy the first rays of the morning while seating comfortable at Sacajawea Peak.
              Eager legs kicked and finally slept…too soon later, a buzz of a telephone awoke us, then another. I bounced out of the covers and to the kitchen to prepare a hurried breakfast of peanut butter and fruit roll ups for us, nutrition was priority. Then the clock blinked 3 AM.
Whines squeaked from tired mouths, but excitement prevailed. We packed into our seats and struggled to keep our eyes open, but the drive was bumpy and our sore butts kept us from forgetting the purpose of our trip. We were there to make our lives radical, and you can’t sleep in moments like these. 4 AM screamed at me, we had to hurry. I plowed my way up that mountain as the sun painted the tips of the mountains red. We crossed streams, tripped on rocks, marveled at climate change and the disappearance of the snow we had skied on just a week before. As the incline increased to nearly vertical, we met up with the mountain goats. Their tiny hooves danced on the faces of cliffs and I stood on the trail not more than a meter away. They smiled at us, said good morning, and we went on our way, huffing it up the face. As the sun’s light began to engulf the sky, we watched as the snow capped ridgeline shined pink and gold. A mountain shades us but as we reach the peak, the sun splashes our face, I felt godly. The sun has risen, and so have we. This is why we are alive; this is why we are happy. The valley below us still dozes, and we sit on top a mountain wide-awake. There is no item I could ask for that could ever give me this happiness. I do not climb mountains so that the world can see me, but so I can see the world…and it is so beautiful.

iridium flare:
   when the sun-glint off a
   satellite shines meteor-bright
   before geometry and gravity
   turn things wrong again.

---

i have my own iridium flare - it
sits on my night stand, my
sad-lite -- machine-made splinter of
sunlight to remind my solar cells what
summer felt like

my depression is a discharged battery:
i turn the engine but the engine doesn't turn
doesn't matter that i have to go to work, or
already paid for the class, or my
friend is waiting for me

ivy grows over me   heavy on my limbs

i need something stronger than volition
than one twenty volts or ten thousand steady desk lamp lux
i need lighting, mjolnir, asteroid
fire from heaven to
burn through these roots to
repolarize these synaptic terminals

i need july and hollow bones and
feathers   need mountain tops and
sunny days   need summer breeze
reaching underneath me  lifting me from
ridgeline   elevating higher until i
am cloud   am stratosphere   am
escape velocity   until i am starburst   am
pre-dawn august constellation smiling
down   smiling and finally
meaning it

Dark shadows circled my nest
on the ridgeline that
spooky winter night.
All I could see
was the moonglow
sifting through my misty breath,
glinting off my suppressor.
Icy winds whipped
up through the valley
to kiss my bearded face
& freeze my teardrops.
I thanked God for my pakol
and woolen fingerless gloves.
The fibers kept me warm
under the blanket of stars.
Not a cloud,
nor a single wisp
could I see against the pitch.
I had the itch to pop off a round
on a falling pebble.
But to do so,
might have meant certain death.
The area was crawling with bad guys,
insurgents looking for heads.

Information is weight that holds
down and holds back like a jungle
like so many vines and chutes
mud and rain that keeps
you struggling and straining
towards that place on a map
the high point that once atop
promises an unambiguous view,
the place that looks so close
there's no need to carry a pack
but nine hours later, hacking
through underbrush, pulling
at leeches and swatting mosquitos
finds you crippled by heat
cursing the map that so
grossly misrepresented the
relationship between yourself
and the place you wished to reach,
the map that never mentions, never,
that should you ever achieve
that keystone ridge, that high and
illuminating view, you will look out
to see the impeding silhouette of the
next ridgeline blocking your way.

Half the world slept below me
as I trudged up
the spine of majesty,
a massive stone sentinel resting
under the Milky Way galaxy
swirling above me
on this knife-ridgeline,
walking toward Heaven on Earth.

That dark December night,
negatively charged magnetic eyelids forced open by a vibrating
assiduous humming brain
machine.

An untidy bed left warm, within the
smoking, choking exhaust fumes. An early morning engine roars.
I find that towering rock in eastern jagged-grin ridgeline.
Peering up from yawning limbs hung from red toothpicks,
frail clouds skirt that dark jutting face as stiff muscle tendon battles mud rock gravity staircase.
All alone, in echoey sloping vastness.

Lunge forward from tree line, sink down, old snow,
hunched old man drinks coffee says something…
Away from that wretched voice! I scramble
upward through white flakes, black boulders.
Wool gloves hinder grip, boots shove rogue rocks to space, hand slips, smash thumb,
eight now seven rocks until summit.

White washed walls of wild winter.
Silence.

In utero of a universe.

Four thousand feet above.
Fire.

Me, my despair, a stone palace, and trail mix. I brought hope.
You brought a shining red hope extinguisher then swung the emptied tank at my skull,
I am not impervious to pain like these rocks I hurl
at whirling gods they watch me
miss. Pebbles drop through glass table
swallowed by dark green limbs.

You do not know you could not know you cannot know it was right,
if you are Right, then I am Left
with aching expectations and a decomposing handful
sticky memories, remnants cannot be cast away, and
these blessed rocks are fond friends no longer call my own because
I’ll never look the same but they always will.

Step down from nowhere and retreat south, your footprints remain.
Darkened face, this line is named you and will stay there.
It is a cold winter rain
that taps my hunched shoulders
I have stopped answering.

You are in everything I see.
It is sickening because you own all and you will not let go but
you cannot own this next day.

The poetry of motion
Rotating light
Changing tides
Birds in flight, floating, diving, calling
Endless stars when the sky is right
Redsky clouds at dawn
and in the night
Cedar ridgeline
Across the bay.

The poetry of motion
Changing emotions
The waters are never silent
the poetry of motion
Allows the restless soul to rest.

At sea level once,
I placed myself on a pedastal,
but the nosebleed was a river,
a torrent greater than
one found
in the jetstream
& now I stick to the ground,
keep my feet plastered
firmly on the ridgeline
& stare up
into heaven
graciously.

Light killed night so I rose and rolled over
shaved and showered
then stood before the blinds-drawn-back
freshly foggy glass
I traced the outline of the ridgeline
of the mountains outside with my finger
in the condensation,
sat and watched the light bounce off the snow
til the misty glass dried
and suddenly all the details were clear
tufts of green
tusks of brown
standing up through the crusted-over ice
and crystalline facets of cliff-face
bits and bobs, anyway, of color on a fresh canvas
and all still
til I spied a couple specks
-and squinted-
not just spots now, but bodies on stilts
(four apiece)
and a ***** crown on the one.
Goats!
yes, mountain goats,
male and female,
traversing the treachery
in spite of it all-
though I could feel they had none,
not an ounce of spite between them
no!
not in spite, but in tandem
with the elements,
the terrain,
with each other.
The conditions aren't adverse,
I realized,
they're ideal.

here is here,
now is now,
and you're a little speck,
just like me,
just like mountain goats,
just swimming through it all
with grace
and tact
and majesty.

On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin! Plunge right through that line!
Forward to ridgeline, a victory sure this time.

On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin! Fight on for your name,
Fight! Boars! Fight! Fight, fight, live up to MacArthur's fame.

On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin! Stand up, regiment sing!
'Forward' in the campaign spirit Union soldiers ring.

On Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin! Plant it with a jag
Stand, party, let us now behold this flag

grotesque characters smash themselves against Plexiglass windows
the sheer mass bowing and distorting the transparent protector
squeezing into the darkened faux-cave for a glimpse
of the last starfish in the Pacific –
droopy fingers cling desperately to transplanted basalt
slow death from radiation poisoning
the future picture for all of mankind
little Cindy sheds a tear as discolored water flows, unfiltered
saline ratio destroyed by the introduction or pesticides
and straight petroleum
reflective properties shifting the absorption rate
oceanic temperature altered
the tree so memorizing
no one notices the inferno on the ridgeline –
facilitating the fall, politicians look to tax carbon emissions
pretending to understand
while Jupiter develops another eye
and the storms on Venus have gained intensity at a steady rate for 25 years
blaming the diesel SUV, sun worshipers get skin cancer
and ulcers –
unrepentant hordes of sheeple march through drive-throughs
signing up for the slaughter
the gods of old are coming home
and blood sacrifice is all they accept –

We slipped down olive drab line
under deafening blades,
out
onto the ridgeline
into pitch
like lightning.

Then the hookers,
them stick *******
scooted,
leaving us
in total silence.

Three days
& two cracks later,
we got extracted,
two departed,
mission accomplished.

got caught in this small, fine-crafted world:

with half-moon indents below flittering
eyelids, with new rotation about iris,
embers under cloud sprawl, bloodshot from
  later
on in the night. with reveries hung out,
with sharp fog covering the evening: i
misplaced most sensibilities, i
clambered down from
this ridgeline, hope,
for god knows
whatever
reason. i
stood still, continually incapable of translation,
scrambling for word-count, the inside of my chest.

with new broken bones,
some impossible heaviness,
some insurmountable hopelessness:
soft poison, self-administrated;
i'll still climb back up, though,
given any fractional semblance of luck.

we've all been burnt, yeah,
but if you'd take this
half-exhausted charcoal splintering
heart in flax-woven basket up,
i will do my best, to
nurture your own back to
meadowlark wings your
breath takes flight upon, in
interstitial moments, as
your quiet lips
  turn to smile& glow.

There was chatter reflecting off the water just like the moon. Th­e Milky Way was swimming with us, wrapped in algae and moss. We h­ad no swimsuits, only spontaneity and laughter. We were far away from trivialities where there was no light pollution, you could see so far outward into everything. We­ were not looking up, we were looking out at what we are part of.­ Light, so much light. When our thoughts were finally chilled lik­e iced lemonade, we ran through bushes and flailed in the mud to the car. We drove. Once sitting on our bed, a delic­ious thought bubbled into reality.
We discussed it, unanimously deciding on this nights adventure...we'­d enjoy the first rays of the morning while seated comfortably at the top­ of Sacajawea Peak.
Eager legs kicked and finally­ slept…too soon later, a buzz of a telephone awoke us, then another. I bounced out of the covers and to the ki­tchen to prepare a hurried breakfast of peanut butter and fruit roll ups. Nutrition was priority. The clock blinked 3 AM.
Whines squeaked from tired mouths, but excitement­ prevailed. We packed into our seats and struggled to keep our eyes open, but the drive­ was bumpy and our sore butts kept us from forgetting the purpose­ of our trip. We were there to make our lives radical, and you can’t sleep in moments like these­. 4 AM screamed at me, we had to hurry. I plowed my way up the five miles of that mo­untain as the sun painted the tops of the mountains red. We crossed streams, trippe­d on rocks, marveled at climate change and the disappearance of the snow we h­ad skied on just a week before. As the incline increased to nearl­y vertical, we met up with the mountain goats. Their tiny hooves danced on the faces of cliffs a­nd I stood on the trail not more than a meter away. They smiled at us, said good mo­rning, and we went on our way, huffing it up the face. As the sun’s light began­ to engulf the sky, we watched as the snowcapped ridgeline shined pink and gold. A mountain shaded us but as we reached the peak, the sun splashed our face, I felt god­ly. The sun had risen, and so had we. This is why we are alive; this is why we are happy. The valley below us still dozed, and we sat atop a mountain wide-awake. There is no item I could ask for that could ever give me this happiness. I do not climb mountains so that the world can see me, but so I can see the world and it is so beautiful.

powerlines and dandelions point me toward
where the morning sun may rise.
the sky still glows a dawning blue
that reminds me of things i'd like to soon forget.

cosmic pinholes and the creators thumb nail
hang high but will soon be lost by breaking light.
clouds begin to take their shape but only
while they also radiate an entirely new shade and hue.

my bare-feet are smothered in September's dew
and my skin in contact with the earth begins to swell.
each step I take wets the tops of my toes and collects clippings
and critters that join me for my morning stroll.

i can't wait to see the sunrise.
like the first time i watched it rise over the ocean,
or that time i saw it peak over the distant mountains ridgeline.
that moment of knowing epiphanies do not exist.

you're loosing me at daybreak
and I'm learning to let go when all I want to do is squeeze
but I am as uncertain here as I am there
so I will let it be

as best i can, even when i don't know how.

Don't show me no recliner,
stop the chatter and the talking;
let me lace my hiking boots,
and let me be off -  walking.

East of the burning sun,
where a shadow's just a friend;
where I can see for miles and miles,
where the roads - they never end.

Where the mountains rise above me,
where the ridgeline's edge is high;
where horizons fade in silence,
and above me - only sky.

There's a solace in this desert place,
soft peace,  that fills the soul;
that gives me satisfaction,
where nothing is my goal.

Just a sense of new found freedom,
like a wandering vagabond;
at one, with all of nature,
my feet and heart respond.

A Poem on hearing the voice of nature

The open field
Bordered by firs elders
Covered in blooming
Lemon clover
Left space

Inside this vast openness
I set down my burdens

My worries
& discomforts
And the burlap
they rode in on

What was left was
clear azure sky

Holding a new sound
authored by birds

Toby’s
soft breath
Inside this dome of space

Oh most definitely,
dogs speak

in the secret language
translated by those
who love them beyond
logic

The sun shoots a cannon
across the ridgeline of the trees
paralleling the emerald horizon

Pouring golden syrup over the eastern trunks
of exhausted autumn trees

The sunrise casts a spotlight
over
this magical stage

pulling back the curtain
over the
enchanted valley floor

The sun is setting and I’m not alone—
We hiked to the middle of the Appalachian trail,
I don’t know who I am  
But the colors are moving
Nothing has felt so pristine.

On top of white rocks,
This is not a dream.  
A ridgeline where we lay our coats on the diagonal granite
Hands lightly touch on cold stone
Over pristine valleys of moving trees
Stretching from the blue ridge mountains.

My heart is not falling—it is ascending  
Like the summit,
Like the valley below
Floating in space
On the spirit of boulders, we scramble up with open hands.
Covered in delicate bonsai roots
Connecting the longest trail in the world,
Two thousand miles between us but we’ve never been closer
   In a warm car, floral turtlenecks, squares of paper
  I close my eyes because it’s too much
And the sun is gone.

frost rime, moss, and shatter'd
limb
tall spruce a wanton guard

our thoughts like steam from
broken mouth
trail back to summer's yard

while wait and lie and wait
again
the ridgeline constant scann'd

and bow and blade and axe near
by
and fires held low, not fann'd

with voices soft and breath kept
close
and furs and leather clutch'd

we swore and begg'd to gods we
knew
and others we knew not

'til dawn a misty lifeless haze
broke forth her frozen glow

and through the mouth of Hell
itself
the first of them did blow

like leaves before a horrid
storm
the Roman legions came

yet worse, alas, before the crest
a beast we could not name

bore down upon us cruel and
fierce
and widely gaped its maw

the cane corso Romans bred
to rend us tooth from jaw

my axe a useless feeble limb
no strength to give it seed

no time or space to swing or
slash

but time afresh to bleed