"trekked" poems
Songs of Oregon: No. 1 “Gonna Make You Crazy, That Place”
nuts, crazy peeps
whomever wherever,
regardless of race creed color or gender (did I get ‘em all?)
current state of residence (geo-identified)
a poem - the very same recited,
as a disclaimer, a yellow finger wagging warning:
“Don’t go! If you go, you won’t come back”
now kids, I’m a veteran of foreign travel,
many continents, cold and hot, rivers and seas,
some living, some dead,
some so big they named it Endless,
been to the great cities, Swiss villages,
pyramids, climbed Masada,
danced on grapes (why can’t I recall where)
skied the Alps, trekked the Sinai Desert,
clubbed in Rio, and danced till morn,
on a certain Greek Isle that rhymes with Mickey’s Nose
even been to L.A and San Fran, left poorer
but in sync,
always came home
with my mind decently reshaped
me/ a product of gritty unpretty grime,
streets of normal humans
acting like normal escaped mad persons,
this brutal city island instilled a
layer of fat and smog neath my skin,
a kind of migrating duck-like survival kit,
came with a homing beacon included
the those of you who know me,
perhaps too well, ken we citified islanders
love our beaches (fire hydrants)
cherish our sun dappled blessings
upon on farms (window sill herb gardens)
and sunning settlements (rooftops)
they say our tap water is secretly bottled,
sold in places where the springs purportedly
run crystalline
though we don’t got no pinot, just sweet concord grape,
so sweet, the wine of children and street nodders,
needy for instant sugar highs
so as we new Yorkers proudly
say on our license plates,
prove it or stfup!
so a first hand investigation for which
the taxpayers won’t be charged even a lousy mill,
deemed necessary to put to rest this crazy claiming warning
“Don’t go! If you go, you won’t come back”
guessing must be something in the water and the wine
Jun 5, 2018
Jun 5, 2018 at 9:00 AM UTC
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn ****** our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.
8k
Congratulations!
It’s finally over!
You’ve climbed the mountains and trekked the canyons
Now it’s time to meet the future.
The past four yeas
Have been challenging and rough,
But we’ve chosen our careers
And high school’s not enough.
University’s on the way.
There are many more paths to tread
And more adventures to slay
All widespread.
We’ll be all across the world
Some here and some there
Not knowing the next place we’ll be hurled
But we’ll be well prepared.
We’ve all known each other for a while
Some longer than other
But through the years our lifestyle
Will keep up close together.
Our travels and experiences
Will unite us
Across the long distances,
Shortening the crevice.
Congratulations!
It’s finally over!
You’ve climbed the mountains and trekked the canyons
Now it’s time to meet the future.
May 21, 2013
May 21, 2013 at 2:42 AM UTC
#
A lively debate
that inside I create
A seemingly
simple state
But this state
of affairs
Is like a ****** affair*
The details
I wish not to share
Please,
don’t stare
For inside
I’m scared
Am I prepared?
Do I have
the ***** to do
what I really care?
Or am I going
to stay on this ship
of self-despair
Where
I can scream
my lungs ******
into the air
But does anyone care?
Do I even f@cking care??
Maybe a life spared
but ***spare me the
retched bullsh@t***
of self-pity
I’m self-giving
It wreaks up the air
It’s noxious scent
is not one I care
to ever encounter
or fair
Let’s “clear the air”
and take on
what I want
from now on
No longer a pawn
who is living the tired
joke
of some *pathetic
love song*
No, THIS
is my “Swan Song”
Where I belong
This sh@t is ON!
Climbing the mountain strong
Bellowing a chant
a song
That’s been so deep within
for so long
It can only come out
Right
Because “wrong”
does not belong
**This virus
is airborne**
No longer forlorn
All the darkness
is gone
You have been
forewarned
Are you ready?
Because it’s coming
Sounding the horn
Sacrificed
the firstborn
The “storm”
Once icy and cold
Now simmering warm
Going to bubble into
volcanic ash scorned
This Oath
hath been sworn
Tattered and torn
**** cloth
all that is worn
But forward my path
What’s behind me
**My ***
The past
*Worn out,
decayed,
and shriveling trash*
All that
is gone
as I head
towards the dawn
Through the darkness
I’ve trekked
The Sun rises ahead
And with it
My song
My Swan Song
I am reborn
withered and worn
But still strong
I belong
***I am one
with the Universe***
The path before me
is brightly lit
with happiness and joy
No more patheticness
All the grit
and the spit
Broken teeth
All that sh@t
It all meant something
It was THIS
*Every bruise
Every break
All the “wrongs”
and “mistakes”*
Are what it takes
You can call it fate
or simply short of fatal
but since
neonatal
through this day till
Every day
I thankfully say
“Thank you”
for showing me the way
Because now I have
A love that stays
A true love
One that can’t
get away
Because I value Me
One ‘hopes’ or ‘prays’
But like a house
Each brick is laid
Onto the next
Foundation made
A sturdy house
Can’t blow away
Hard work put in
Made it this way
The same for me
The price I paid
But end result
A saving grace
#
Dec 6, 2018
Dec 6, 2018 at 5:08 AM UTC
descendants of those left behind,
they found fellowship with
a singularly brutal environment,
free roaming meanderers
of a crepuscular exclusion zone,
having trekked into
the camps of liquidators
to beg for scraps,
they nosed into empty buildings
and found safe places to sleep,
stopping at Café Desyatka
for some borscht,
the guides speak only of
visitor or occupant,
there are no tourists here,
only the genetically distinct
Mar 13, 2023
Mar 13, 2023 at 10:05 AM UTC
somewhen
in the vast crumbling timeline of the universe
13-year-old me is wondering
whether i exist.
4 years is a long time,
after all,
maybe enough to choose the exit,
leave the stage,
throw away everything
she is currently trying to hold together.
but here i am,
after all,
so she must have made it;
trekked through the perilous path of the future,
which is just another word for the unknown
which is just another word for nothing,
for empty,
and made it here.
and here is not a field of green,
exactly,
but maybe an oasis in the desert.
i am proud of her, even if
it is not halfway done,
even if the road stretches dark and endless,
even if she has brought with her nothing
but fistfuls of doubt
all her stupid starving for reassurance—
*will i be here in 3 years?
in 5 years?
in 10?*—
like a haunting hold,
a ghost.
but we have still made it,
after all.
for me,
and my 13-year-old spectre,
the question is not
how do you see yourself in the future
or where do you think you will be by then
or even what do you want to be doing in ten
but merely
will i see myself.
will i see myself.
will i get there.
Aug 20, 2018
Aug 20, 2018 at 12:12 AM UTC
they packed a patchy satchel
with enough snacks
to feed a child army
of two,
trekked though
green-blue forest
spackled with firefly flecks
and second hand moss.
came to a resting spot
on the shores of Mirror Lake
the one place
picnic tables were not
and they ate
in the jagged reflection
of solemn pine trees
he mumbled 12 years of secrets
through a confession booth
of nougat
spat out the seeds
winced at black jelly beans
and she
rested on his knobby knees
sighing with the breeze
face upturned to catch
downward droplets of moonbeam
he was a half-formed pinecone
dangling in the quiet dark
she was some kind of meadow lark
whistling the dawn
no one forgot love after that
no one could remember
what lonely tasted like
anymore.
Feb 14, 2013
Feb 14, 2013 at 4:39 PM UTC
Her body
Is a desert
Bare and minimal
With Dry parts that build up
on the surface
and fly away in the wind
Her body
Is a forest
Lush and life giving
With parts that chirp and growl
All at the same time
People have
trekked the highest peaks
explored the darkest caves
picked the sweetest flowers
Taking with them
much more than she would initially care
Leaving behind
much more than was initially there
People have come
And gone
With vessels as small as row boats
Or as big as Noah’s ark
They navigate the floods
But trust me
there is nothing
holy about these ventures
No
they did not seek to
save two of every animal
They only sought to save themselves
Her body is a beach
Covered in shells
of Past lives
Past lies
Past blessings in disguise
These shells are beautiful
But Leave them
They’re too heavy to carry around
Maybe one day
someone else will take these shells
make them into concrete
And use them as foundation for the grandest, safest, most stable
Sandcastle around
And call it, Love
Because from a strong foundation
Love can only grow
No matter how many times
The wind changes its appearance
From fertile soil, love can bloom again
Her body
is a garden
But be careful
Nature has a way
of hiding poison
In beautiful things
Only to defend,
She is never malicious
It is survival of the smartest
Not the fittest
Oct 26, 2020
Oct 26, 2020 at 9:40 PM UTC
Your love,
devoted and passionate,
yet proprietorial.
Your alluring fingers trekked down my arm,
tearing my skin in halves,
like the my confidant pal on my wrist.
Your faithful kisses all over me,
reminding me of the possession;
your spirit.
Your dilating pupils,
stone-cold and quiet like the winter,
cutting off the vessels of my heart.
Clinging on me seductively,
and yet pernicious,
its your love;
Jul 20, 2018
Jul 20, 2018 at 10:41 AM UTC
His name is ingrained into the fabric of our flag,
yes, the one you see there, waving in the December air,
with waves that glisten not from sun but from wind,
through the water turned frozen they fail to despair,
"My, oh, my, it's Washington Crossing the Delaware!"
Yet an intrinsic sense of nationalistic pride
exudes from the ink that tattoos this canvas,
the genesis of a nation they had taken for their own;
though, as truth becomes told, our pride seems to fold,
and the ink in the portrait begins to fade in color.
Still, on he trekked, though frigid and cold,
as hills bleached in snow began to unfold
potential Hessian retreats scattered across the beach,
a visualization of a battle bounding to unfold,
a strategist adept in war, in honor he was cloaked,
too determined to fail now.
But here we sit, in contemplation and wonder,
pondering the juxtaposition of privilege and patriotism --
how deceitful corruption now riddles those in charge,
empty promises as true as the navy blue
of the oils that stain this worn, cherished canvas.
Its memory lives on in the minds of many made here:
those of us who bleed the good ol' red, white, and blue,
and those of us who hide from the ones who tattoo
their whispered words into the portrait of our being.
Our quilted nation is laced with crimson,
a tapestry of history hidden from the young;
woven threads of variability outline the margins,
a picturesque vision of what could be; a voice speaks,
"Perhaps our future is just across the Delaware!"
Nov 22, 2023
Nov 22, 2023 at 12:14 AM UTC
Brisk footsteps clank on the cold floor,
Likewise it was a cold evening
the hollow air echoed the silence that
fell after each footstep.
This was the walk of a dead man,
And the chilly twilight wind only whispered lies
as the man trekked onward.
He had been gone. Disappeared.
His magic trick had prevailed.
For three years he fooled the people of the world,
For three years he fooled his one and only true friend.
As he walked, his footsteps echoed words
of the game. A game he had not wanted to play.
Unwillingly, he had fallen.
An expression of pain crept its way onto the man's face
as he walked, pace lessened under the weight of the words.
The words, swelling up in his mind.
Twisting, hissing, taunting and haunting him.
Annoying, psychopath, show off, misanthrope, arrogant,
ignorant, ***** abnormal, inhuman,
machine, fake, fraud.
Fraud.
The irony laughed at his side as he mouthed
the word again: F r a u d
Noun. deceit, trickery, sharp practice, or breach of confidence,
perpetrated for profit or to gain some unfair or dishonest advantage.
Indeed he had been tricked, what a wonderful trap.
A trap only he could have over looked.
It was all so well planned out, his final problem.
Final words. Wrapping a lie in a blanket of truth,
it was the only thing that could[had] stopped him-
The most human, human being-
Reality struck him
as his feet came to a halt, the man's gaze drifted upward,
shifting into a familiar glance.
The wind no longer wished to whisper lies,
and the silence that followed him would break
with the final echoes of his footsteps:
Home.
Apr 10, 2012
Apr 10, 2012 at 12:36 AM UTC
A Victorian Girl, with eyes forlorn
Wild and elusive since the day she was born
Her features smattered with a blanket of tears
From barbaric acts exposed through the years
Through **** and pillage she never would yield
Some hailed her as foolish as her fate was sealed
She trekked for miles with liberal endeavour
Innocence and intrigue in equal measure
Till she encountered a fellow who furnished the chance
And brandished a languishing olive-like branch
He beckoned her forth with ravishing guile
Bearing pomp and splendor and a fraudulent smile
In mounting the stallion, the deal was done
As the lecherous libertine embodied the pun
He savagely severed her ivory threads
And fiercely penetrated the pallid spread legs
With a barrage of torment unduly unleashed
A Victorian girl, morosely deceased.
(September 2010)
Oct 1, 2010
Oct 1, 2010 at 4:12 PM UTC
East, they said,
and east we went.
Onward, upward,
to what they called "The Ruins" at the mouth of Emigration Canyon
A failed building project that left nothing but a few giant curved brick walls.
We parked our vehicles and trekked up to the top of the highest wall.
Cracked open a few brews, sparked a few smokes and gazed.
We gazed out upon the twinkling lights of the Salt Lake valley.
Our view extending to every point of every mountain top creating a giant bowl of glimmering city soup.
I took a sip of my beer, a drag of a Lucky Strike,
and leaned back, my focus slowly fading from the valley, and directing itself upward to the vast sky, obstructed only by a few purple clouds.
The stars were bright and visible that night.
Maybe it was the cigarette, but in that moment I felt remarkably lucky.
The small talk, and jokes made among friends,
The beauty of everything now in sight,
and knowing how it was once nothing.
The thought of every light we could see from the valley containing people, currently living their lives,
We pondered,
How many people are crying?
How many laughing?
How many dying?
How many being born?
Reborn?
Our lives are strikingly meaningless,
And how beautiful is that?
The coyotes howling in the distance reminded us that the land was not ours to keep,
only ours to visit.
We had taken in all we could, for the time being, of an illimitable world.
We ventured downward, west,
and back to our lives,
insignificant as all the rest,
and tried to hold on the the feeling of being above it all.
Being
Boundless
Feb 28, 2014
Feb 28, 2014 at 3:18 AM UTC
I've trekked across the deserts 'til there was sand beneath my skin,
And I've swam under the oceans 'til I started growing fins.
I've found myself in perils from which none before could escape.
From frozen caves to scorching skies; from rolling sands to sinking mud.
And, after all my travels, I've decided to go back into the Blood.
I have scaled so many mountains, my hands began to take their shape.
I've fallen victim to the dangers of all natures of landscape.
But through it all there was not a single war I couldn't win.
You see, I was born of far worse; birthed from a visceral flood,
And, after all my travels, I've decided to go back into the Blood.
A product of the darkness, I am proud to wear my sin,
Like a badge to prove my source to every place I've been.
And, though I am immortal, I'll wear my cape upon the cape,
When the End of Times arrives to carry all into the Scud.
But on this day my travels wish me to go back into the Blood.
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 2:58 AM UTC
*I trekked across the icy shores of Alaska and survived with Gary Paulsen and his dogs
I went on many cross-country road trips, hitchhiking, train riding, and drinking with Jack Kerouac
I shot up ****** and did some time in Interzone with William S Burroughs
I dropped acid and read poetry with Jim Morrison
I murdered a girl and committed suicide with J.R. Hayes
I insulted everyone I knew with Jay Randall and laughed about it afterwards
I meditated high up in the mountaintops with Gary Snyder
I suffered New Orleans police brutality and withdrawal with Mike Williams
I drank, worked, gambled, ****** myself with Charles Bukowski
I admired the beauty of nature and God as self with Walt Whitman
I admired the beauty and balance of nature and city life with Henry David Thoreau
I wandered the desert landscape and sabotaged those that would harm the Earth with Edward Abbey
I painted a world of pictures out of words with e.e. cummings
I loved like no one has ever been loved in this wretched world with Pablo Neruda
I outlived macabre and twisted tales from the mind of Edgar Allan Poe
I spent a few months in France with the cryptic mind of Charles Baudelaire
I drank and wrote nature literature from animal perspectives with Jack London
I lived the songs that Tom Waits wrote
I went insane with Sparrow in New York
I found myself traveling on a Tour Of Homes, reciting ‘Talk Music’ with Dan Smith
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness” with Allen Ginsberg*
When all was said and done and every word wrote three times or more
I disappeared into the oncoming onslaught of midnight's dreary dreams
Like so many forgotten poets, writers, and orators
Who’s words have faded with the oblivion of time
Only to be remembered by a select few from here and there
That have chosen to remember, to write, to read, to never forget
Which are you and where do you come from?
Oct 8, 2011
Oct 8, 2011 at 9:26 AM UTC
She brushed out landscapes with her words
as deftly as any impressionist master
and speed-trekked us from where we sat
to scenes of transcendent beauty.
Each day I awaited her verbal canvases
with self-indulgent anticipation.
But one day all was all different.
What was this horrific account of
of unspeakable Afghan tragedy -
A wandering woman whose final defeat,
after all she loved had been butchered,
was hope beyond all recovery
dragging her feet through the dust?
I picked up my heart from out of the soil
to ask her, "were you there?"
She was - with a physician's bag
for Cindy is a doctor
who eschews a suburban clinic
to defy all danger
and be where life would fail
without her healing craft and care.
Dodging bullets, sputum and mortal threats,
Cindy fights life's most essential battles
and so uplifts the standard of our species.
The next day Cindy painted for us
a verdant mountain scene
whose whispering streams and fragrance
exceeded all I'd every witnessed.
I wonder where she is.
September, 2013
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 1:13 PM UTC
I rode in the black back seat
at the age of three
From Wichita to Selma
in this land where nothing comes free
Across Texas , Arkansas , Mississippi
under stars I dreamed
While a heartbeat
was ever following me
Strange the things we choose
to remember and recall
Are the things maybe trivial
But are another brick in the wall
I lived in Panama City
until I was twelve
Swam with sharks and rays
Fell in love but on it I won't dwell
I ran with wild mustangs
in the wilds of Spokane
Climbed up the Rockies
Trekked the snows in a winter wonderland
I slept in the desert under
the most gorgeous stars
Ate mushrooms and peyote
trying to figure out who I are
But there's no place
No place , like the one
Where you were born
No place
on earth
Can lead you away that's far
There's no where
Like the dirt running
through your veins
There's no place
like the place where
you got your name
Dec 17, 2015
Dec 17, 2015 at 7:25 AM UTC
For a long while I lay next to you
Sheltering myself from your fan
And listening to you breathe
I touched your face
But you refused to wake
So I grabbed my things
And stole a kiss before I left
The only one I had received that night
And like so many times before
I snuck out the back
And trekked to my car in the dark
I didn't realize I had left
Until I was halfway home
Choking out lyrics to a CD
That I will never be able to listen to
Without thinking of you
After so many times
You would think I'd be used to you
Leaving
But each time it's the same
Taking the downtown exit
With blurred sight
Only able to make out light
And color
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 1:14 PM UTC
Put me in a cage,
and I'll fly away
Put me in an aquarium,
and I'll swim out to the seas
Put me in the wilderness,
and I'll find my way back home
I've had dreams
Many never came to reality
I have failed
with the world, have dropped it like a ball,
turned directions until I was dizzy
to try another and another and another
way that never seemed to work
But I cannot give up
and cannot find any more roads
in a cage,
an aquarium,
or the wilderness
God has not forsaken His children
though we may endures such places,
but I venture to say that He gives us
a way out of any snare
that man has designed
I've got a song in my heart
I've got a place to go
no matter how shut off the world can be
God gives me melody beyond measure
Yes, I can go on!
Yet I need not convince anyone
but myself of this truth
Although I nearly lost the will
to experience God's joys at all,
I boldy answer the challenging call,
spanning the skies
that once looked threatening,
swimming the ocean blue
that once engulfed me in fear
traveling through the wilderness
that seemed never ending
Yes, I trekked afoot far and wide
just to hear a pleasant voice again,
and to find mine
If you listen
you can hear what I say
with the stroke of my pen,
although you detect
not a sound
I've got a song in my heart
that will not go away
and keeps me
moving on
Jul 19, 2010
Jul 19, 2010 at 10:26 AM UTC
My Indian friend thinks I'm a guru -
He deems wise,
my rhetorical musings
But they're just the result of a jaded heart
that's been studying humans too long
Truth is, if I were a Guru
and people trekked up a mountain
to sit at my feet and learn,
my honest answer would be;
I do not know!
Nov 8, 2014
Nov 8, 2014 at 8:09 PM UTC
i have been around the world
trekked through the amazon
battled dragons
fallen in love
and saved mankind
all in three hours.
what have you
done today?
Dec 1, 2011
Dec 1, 2011 at 10:47 PM UTC
The lone man ventures the path to the unknown,
and to the unknown he went alone…
From there, he trekked the shadowed Valley of Death,
where bleakness was raw within, and
it swarms lost souls of their own mischiefs and miseries…
There, nothingness spawned.
Time does not exist, but nothing is absolute.
Plains and jagged paths, all but nothing to last.
He stood there in the crossroad,
where the absolute was over the horizon of
impossibilities and possibilities…
No Sages to come and see, no Forseer to oversee.
Nothing.
Without heed nor light, he strode towards the dead of the night.
The Lone Man walks along the crooked road…
Sep 12, 2025
Sep 12, 2025 at 12:32 PM UTC
Were you alive when the
bricks began to crumble
beneath our hand-held, kiss
puppets?
Our mumbled whispers
that tapered ladders on gargantuan folds and slung-held
boy-grips.
Cohorts torn into flip stands
layered toward standing sores --
tell me how to cross rapid waters of social trends.
We were strung up the flag pole, almost posted as decapitated heads for the public.
Under teeming hammer-strikes :
glasses shred to paper-splinters
before a car crying white chalk bricks
onto saran-wrapped concrete.
There were antennas perched like speckled,
mangy feathers,
poised, reflecting defiance toward
the wool-ashed sky.
With dirt-trekked journey marks,
there were trees growing silver hair outside the grocery store --
and frown-marked women -- that skin-folded
war paint -- yelled at their daughters to pay attention.
Dec 22, 2011
Dec 22, 2011 at 9:30 PM UTC
I wake up but, bubba, I don't wanna.
Put on my cleanest ***** shirt.
Smoke some marijuana.
Brush my teeth.
Got nothin to eat.
Head on to school,
So I won't be a fool.
I'm at the top of the list.
I have the best GPA.
But I still feel worthless,
At the end of the day.
Hello Poetry,
Let's you read my thoughts.
I'm even one of your favorites.
But still, I feel lost.
I'm good at everything,
But I get nothin' done.
In the face of danger,
I get up and run.
Where am I going?
Where have I been?
Get me out of this slum.
That I'm livin' in.
So I can put on my pants.
One leg at a time.
Put on a clean shirt,
And get on my grind.
Its time to buckle up.
The ride ahead is rough.
It's time to buckle down.
Stop actin' a clown.
So next time you see me
I'll be on my high horse
On my pedestal, I shine
Can you come?
But, of course.
Just as long as you were there.
At rock bottom with me,
While I trekked through the mud,
And the dirt and debris.
If when I was down,
You got up and left.
Get off my high horse.
And go **** yourself.
Nov 1, 2010
Nov 1, 2010 at 9:15 AM UTC