"watersheds" poems
complexity
is your beauty
simplicity
your mystery
interdependence
sustains you
once upon a time
we dipped bowls
into your waters
and brought up
draughts of life
now
Skipjacks go
fathoms deep
into endless
depletion
charting
entangled
dead zones
broadening
into a sea of
inertness
your delicate
eco-essence tips
toward oblivion
effluvia farmers
layer mechanized
blankets of
nitrates on your
sunset shores
weaving
green tendrils
of algae blooms
strangling the
entanglements
of all links in
your miraculous
food chain
the EPA
proscribes
a Jenny Craig
pollution diet
to halt the
slaughter in
oxygen
challenged
dead zones
where rockfish
are garroted,
oysters get drilled
by screwworms
and azure tinted
soft shell *****
dance soft
shoe taps
lifting a tinny
chorus of sad
Piedmont Blues
the flat-lining
watersheds
voiceless
warnings
tremble
rocking the
purged nests of
screaming ospreys
in vocal protest
of a sinking
Tangier Isle
anointing it’s
tombstones
of unvisited
cemeteries with
multicolored
guano
fitting
alkaline
tributes
to the lost
inhabitants
and forgotten
languages
sinking into the
brine of gray
brackish tides
Delmarva’s fine
intra-continental
balance skewed
by the oozing
industrial swill
of Frank Perdue
chicken farms
ruling the roost of
sanctioned sustainability
tinging clear watersheds
of finger lakes
set in splints to
repair dislocations
and complex
compound fractures
that may never heal
again
Music Selection:
Taj Mahal: Fishin Blues
jbm
Oakland
6/7/12
Feb 19, 2013
Feb 19, 2013 at 8:36 AM UTC
Remember that day we glided along rice fields,
me and you lagging at the back,
while the 12 of us pedaled bicycles?
The clouds drooled down daylight,
and I was feeling lonely and crap.
You glanced back on the road and waited. "You alright?"
your eyes said.
And we chatted about our problems, time chopping away on an x-asis,
as we passed fields, motorbikes, and watersheds.
Those shared moments every day
with you, our friends, and our Vietnamese teaching staff,
it aligned my universe like a human astrolabe.
I'm so glad our group traveled across the world,
riding bikes and drinking beer unbounded by maps.
It ***** being home now, far away. I miss you and I'm always bored.
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 12:55 AM UTC
when the day has made you weary with it's harsh exacting tolls
and the night is unrelenting with the demands it makes of you
and when sorrow takes your strength through all it's bumps and rolls
let your chambers bring you solace as you bid what's passed adieu
the mountains will watch over you; a sentinel of earth
cradling you in slumber and holding your gentle bed
the rivers will cleanse and bring a gentle rebirth
with dreams that are flowing from oceans to watersheds
the wind with all it's might will take you far from danger's way
blowing away everything that desires to do you wrong
the flame is a reminder of the dawning of a new day
and a light to guide you through into the dreams where you belong
because all the light you bring warrants kind and gentle rest
so no matter what tomorrow brings you'll be your gorgeous best
Sep 29, 2014
Sep 29, 2014 at 11:28 PM UTC
Rain clouds hover in the night
veiling the crystal moon -
spraying steady showers
on the hills and plains below.
The Missouri stirs from slumber
spreading claws of water up its banks
as rain sheets, lashed to horizontal
saturate the fields and valleys.
Illumined by the misted moon
The river’s shoreline grows
by inches through the night -
stealing into ever higher ground.
Daybreak finds new ponds conjoined
and spilled across low lying roads
and TV teasers sound their alarms.
'Stay tuned, tape at 10: 00.'
Downpours to the west and north
saturate Mississippi valleys and
Saint Louis flood gates rumble closed.
Farmers abandon all hope for harvest.
Our screens chant nightmare litanies
of sandbag crews and second floor rescues,
crumbling levies and sunken vehicles -
a twisting farmhouse claimed for driftwood.
The clouds’ reservoirs at last are spent,
the inland sea recedes to lakes
and our weary cousins stumble home
as the Mississippi quietly relearns it banks.
March, 2008
This poem is a recollection of the great flood of 1993 but as it was written the rivers around St. Louis passed over flood stage and the city flood gates were closed. While protecting the city, the gates and levees ship the problem downstream where it intensifies the plight of small towns that are now under water. Continued rain in the Missouri and Mississippi watersheds could cause the current flood to rival that of 1993.
Mar 4, 2015
Mar 4, 2015 at 12:44 AM UTC
Bull eve me (Adam, whether existence
fact or fiction),
his immediate legion heirs whole
heartedly partook
to regale no Joe king paternal prominence,
sans legendary, fraternity,
and consanguinity subsequently implemented
faux pas threatening Nittany Lions role
attested by this papa, a curmudgeon
resident of the North Pole
burrowed deep within tundra
necessitated drilling permafrost black hole
son, which boring task found me dissatisfied,
asper penultimate existential goal
thus, I decided to sell coal
to New Castle, transported
within loco motive conveyance
doubling up as fish bowl
decimated crossing Arctic
great barrier reef Atoll
lauded me with mouthy gift horses,
(one Mister Ed, adore
hubble hoof only high saddled
Equus caballus neighing boar)
feted me, a hay er raising chore
followed by Mister Barns Noble encore
generation standing ovation,
a deafening applause
resonated across the floor
then an electrifying speech
by (plan net fitness diehard) Albert Gore
describing ****** pillaging,
And looting dip lore
able incursions as heath n (moor
or less opprobrious upon poor
sacred Mother Nature
whimpering and softly doth roar
ring, now treated like a *****
telltale global devastation
impossible to ignore agog
pollution extant across
entire world wide web bog
gulls restorative legislation,
when offal debris doth clog
estuaries, where watersheds habitat
choking with despair,
thus imperative to grab hold collective
figurative (corny as this may seem) ear
cuz jackknifed, irreparable,
horrible gnashing fear
fully betokens catastrophic
environmental fractured glare
ring ****** impailment here
and everywhere.
Jun 17, 2018
Jun 17, 2018 at 2:12 AM UTC