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Kathryn  Apr 2020
Lady Jackalope
Kathryn Apr 2020
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A bag of clothes, a box of books, another smaller box of letters and photographs & an old guitar are sitting in the backseat.


It's 3am and she's driving through the Blue Ridge mountains. All the windows are down, warm summer air billows in and sends her hair dancing. 


She doesn't know where she's going, but the warmth calls to something in her blood so she heads South. 


She'll probably end up on a beach somewhere in a little East Coast town. Maybe she'll sell flowers and jam by the roadside or find a little bookstore that needs help, she'd wash floors all day if she had to and wouldn't think to complain. 


It all feels like freedom. 


The air smells like rosemary and thyme that grow wild along the roads. The stars are so bright she can hear them breathing. A jackalope dashes across her headlights & is gone before she has time to turn her head.


She parks in the back corner of a gas station somewhere in the Carolinas & stretches her legs out the window, takes a few sips of whiskey and reads a while before she falls asleep. Lightning bugs dance in a nearby field to the voices of cicadas. 


Somewhere a voice is screaming, glass is breaking, sirens pierce the stillness of a quiet street, but she doesn't hear it & she never will again. Even in sleep she is smiling.
Thank you for reading.
mismatched furniture
a few dishes in the cupboards
a couple random blankets and lamps
a pan and a mug or two in the sink
a broken clock above the fake fireplace
a fake jackalope head on the fireplace

a couple college kids' apartment
my brother and his roommate
it isn't much but it feels like home
Jim Sularz Jul 2012
(Omaha to Ogden - Summer 1870)
© 2009 (Jim Sularz)

I can hear the whistle blowin’,
two short bursts, it’s time to throttle up.
Conductor double checks, with tickets punched,
hot glistenin’ oil on connectin’ rods.

Hissin’ steam an’ belchin’ smoke rings,
inside thin ribbons of iron track.
Windin’ through the hills an’ bluffs of Omaha,
along the banks of the river Platte.

A summer’s breeze toss yellow wild flowers,
joyful laughter an’ waves goodbye.
Up ahead, there’s a sea of lush green fields,
belo’ a bright, blue-crimson sky.

O’er plains where sun bleached buffalo,
with skulls hollowed, an’ emptied gaze.
Comes a Baldwin eight wheeler a rollin’,
a sizzlin’ behemoth on clackin’ rails.

Atop distant hills, Sioux warriors rendezvous,
stoke up the locomotive’s firebox.
Crank up the heat, pour on the steam,
we’ll outrun ‘em without a shot!

‘Cross the Loup River, just south of Columbus,
on our way to Silver Creek an’ Clark.
We’re all lookin’ forward to the Grand Island stop,
where there’s hot supper waitin’, just befor’ dark.

On our way again, towards Westward’s end,
hours passin’ without incident.
I fall asleep, while watchin’ hot moonlit cinders,
dancin’ Eastward along the track . . . . .

My mind is swimmin’ in the blue waters of the Pacific,
dreamin’ adventures, an’ thrills galore.
When I awake with a start an’ a **** from my dreamland,
we’re in the midst of a Earth shatterin’ storm!

Tornado winds are a’ whirlin’, an’ lightnin’ bolts a’ hurlin’,
one strikes the locomotive’s right dash-***.
The engine glows red, iron rivets shoot Heaven sent,
it’s whistlin’ like a hundred tea-pots!

The train’s slowin’ down, there’s another town up ahead,
must be North Platte, an’ we’re pushin’ through.
Barely escape from the storm, get needed provisions onboard,
an’ switch out the locomotive for new.

At dawn’s first light, where the valley narrows,
with Lodge Pole’s bluffs an’ antelope.
We can all see the grade movin’ up, near Potter’s City,
where countless prairie dogs call it home.

On a high noon sun, on a mid-day’s run,
at Cheyenne, we stop for grub an’ fuel.
“Hookup another locomotive, men,
an’ start the climb to Sherman Hill!”

At the highest point on that railroad line,
I hear a whistle an’ a frantic call.
An’ a ceiling’s thud from a brakeman’s leap,
to slow that creakin’ train to a crawl.

Wyomin’ winds blow like a hurrican’,
the flimsy bridge sways to an’ fro.
Some hold their breath, some toss down a few,
‘till Dale Creek disappears belo’.

With increasin’ speed, we’re on to Laramie,
uncouple our helper engine an’ crew.
Twenty round-house stalls, near the new town hall,
up ahead, the Rocky Mountains loom!

You can feel the weight, of their fear an’ dread,
I crack a smile, then tip my hat.
“Folks, we won’t attempt to scale those Alps,
the path we’ll take, is almost flat.

There ain’t really much else to see ahead,
but sagebrush an’ jackalope.
It’s an open prairie, on a windswept plain,
the Divide’s, just a gentle *****.

But, there’s quite a few cuts an’ fills to see,
from Lookout to Medicine Bow.
Carbon’s got coal, yields two-hundred tons a day,
where hawks an’ coyotes call.

When dusk sets in, we’ll be closin’ in,
on Elk Mountain’s orange silhouette.
We’ll arrive in Rawlins, with stars burnin’ bright,
an’ steam in, at exactly ten.

It’s a fair ways out, befor’ that next meal stop,
afterwards, we’ll feel renewed.
So folks don’t you fret, just relax a bit,
let’s all enjoy the view.”

Rawlins, is a rough an’ tumble, lawless town,
barely tame, still a Hell on wheels.
A major depot for the UP rail,
with three saloons, an’ lost, broken dreams.

Now time to stretch, wolf down some vittles,
take on water, an’ a load o’ coal.
Gunshots ring out, up an’ down the streets of Rawlins,
just befor’ the call, “All aboard!”

I know for sure, some folks had left,
to catch a saloon or two.
‘Cause when the conductor tallies his final count,
we’re missin’ quite a few!

Nearly everyone plays cards that night,
mostly, I just sit there an’ read.
A Gazetteer is open on my lap,
an’ spells out, what’s next to see –

‘Cross bone-dry alkali beds that parch man an’ beast,
from Creston to bubblin’ Rock Springs.
We’re at the backbone of the greatest nation on Earth,
where Winter’s thaw washes West, not East.

On the outer edge of Red Desert, near Table Rock,
a bluff rises from desolation’s floor.
An’ red sandstones, laden with fresh water shells,
are grooved, chipped, cut an’ worn.

Grease wood an’ more sagebrush, tumble-weeds a’plenty,
past a desert’s rim, with heavy cuts an’ fills.
It’s a lonesome road to the foul waters of Bitter Creek,
from there, to Green River’s Citadel –

Mornin’ breaks again, we chug out to Bryan an’ Carter,
at Fort Bridger, lives Chief Wash-a-kie.
Another steep grade, snow-capped mountains to see,
down belo’, there’s Bear Valley Lake.

Near journey’s end, some eighty miles to go,
at Evanston’s rail shops, an’ hotel.
Leavin’ Wahsatch behind, where there’s the grandest divide,
with fortressed bluffs, an’ canyon walls.

A chasm’s ahead, Hanging Rock’s slightly bent,
a thrillin’ ride, rushin’ past Witches’ Cave.
‘lot more to see, from Pulpit Rock to Echo City,
to a tall an’ majestic tree.

It’s a picnic stop, an’ a place to celebrate –
marchin’ legions, that crossed a distant trail.
Proud immigrants, Mormons an’ Civil War veterans,
it’s here, they spiked thousand miles of rail!

We’re now barrelin’ down Weber Canyon, shootin’ past Devil’s Slide,
there’s a paradise, just beyon’ Devil’s Gate.
Cold frothy torrents from Weber River, splash up in our faces,
an’ spill West, to the Great Salt Lake.

It’s a long ways off, from the hills an’ bluffs of Omaha,
to a place called – “God’s promised land.”
An’ it took dreamin’, schemin’, guts an’ sinew,
to carve this road with calloused hands.

From Ogden, we’re headin’ West to Sacramento,
we’ll forge ahead on CP steam.
An’ when we get there, we’ll always remember –
Stops along an American dream.

“Nothing like it in the World,”
East an’ West a nation hailed.
All aboard at every stop,
along the first transcontinental rail!
This is one of my favorite poems to recite.   I wrote this after I read the book "Nothing Like It In the World" by Stephen Ambrose.  The title of this book is actually a quote from Seymour Silas, who was a consulting engineer for the Union Pacific railroad.  Stephen's book is about building the World's first transcontinental railroad.   Building the transcontinental Railroad was quite an accomplishment.   At it's completion in 1869, it was that generation's "moonshot" at the time.   It's hard to believe it was just another hundred years later (1969) and we actually landed men on the Moon.   "Stops Along an American Dream" is written in a style common to that period.   I researched the topic for nearly four months along with the Union Pacific (UP) train stops in 1870 - when most of the route's stops were established.    The second part of the companion poem, yet to be written, will take place from Ogden to Sacramento on the Central Pacific railroad.   That poem is still in the early formative stages.   I hope you enjoy this half of the trip on the Union Pacific railroad!   It was truely a labor of love and respect for all those who built the first transcontinental railroad.    It's completion on May 10th, 1869 opened the Western United States to mass migration and settlement.

Jim Sularz
sobie  Mar 2015
I'm Still Alive
sobie Mar 2015
My mother raised me under the belief that monotony was a worse state than death and she lived her life accordingly. She taught me to do the same. About five years ago, my mother died. Her death steered my course from any sort of seated, settled life and into a spiral of new experiences.
For months after she left, I skulked about each day feeling slumped and cynical and finding everything and everyone coated in the sickly metallic taste of loss. I noticed that without her I had allowed myself to settle into a routine of mourning. I pitied myself, knowing what she would have thought.  Life was already so different without her there and I couldn’t continue with life as if nothing had happened, so I jumped from my stagnancy in attempts to forget my mother’s name and to destroy the mundane just like she had taught me to. I had to learn how to live again, and I wanted to find something that would always be there if she wouldn’t. I had a purpose. I tried to start anew and drown myself in change by throwing all that I knew to the wind and leaving my life behind.

I was running away from the fact that she had died for a long time. When I first picked up and left, I befriended the ocean and for many months I soaked my sorrows in salt water and *****, hoping to forget. I repressed my thoughts. Mom’s Gone would paint the inside of my mind and I would cover it up with parties and Polynesian women.
I was the sand on the shores of Tahiti, living on the waves of my own freedom. A freedom I had borrowed from nature. A gift that had been given to me by my birth, by my mother. I tried to lose myself in those waves and they treated me with limited respect. More often than not, they kicked me up against their black walls of water. They were made of such immense freedom that many times made me scream and **** my pants in fear, but they shoved loads that fear into my arms and forced me to eventually overcome the burden.
As time slipped by unnoticed, I created routine around the unpredictability of the tides and the cycle of developing alcoholism. One night after a full day of making love to the Tahitian waters, my buddies and I celebrated the big waves by filling our aching bodies with a good bit of Bourbon. By morning time, a good bit of Bourbon had become a fog of drink after drink of not-so-good *****? Gin maybe? I awoke to the sight of the godly sunrise glinting off of the wet beach around me, pitying my trouser-less hungover self. With sand in every orifice, I took a swim to wash me of the night before. I floated on my back in silence while the birds taunted me. I felt the ocean fill every nook and cranny of my body, each pulse of my heartbeat sending ripples through it. My heart was the moon that pressed the waves of my freedom onward and it was sore for different waters. The ache for elsewhere was coming back, and the hole she left in my gut that was once filled with Tahiti was now almost gaping. It had been a beautiful ride in Tahiti but I had not found solace, only distraction. The currents were shifting towards something new.
She had always said that the mountains brought her a solace that she never felt in church. They were her place to pray and they were the gods that fulfilled her. She told me this under the sheets at bedtime as if it were her biggest secret. I had delusional hope that she might be somewhere, she might not be gone. I thought if I would find her anywhere it would be there, up in the clouds on the highest peaks.
The next day, I was on the plane back to the States where I would gather gear. The mountains had called and left a needy voicemail, so I told them I was on my way.

In Bozeman, the home I had run from when I left, every street and friend was a reminder of my childhood and of her. I was only there to trade out my dive mask for my goggles. I had sold most of my stuff and had no house, apartment, or any place of residence to return to except for a small public storage unit where I’d stashed the rest of my goods. Almost everything I owned was kept in a roomy 25 square foot space, the rest was in my duffel. I’d left my pick-up in the hands of my good man, Max, and he returned her to me *****, gleaming, and with the tank full. I took her down to the storage yard and opened my unit to see that everything remained untouched. Beautifully, gracefully, precariously piled just as it was when I left. I transitioned what I carried in my duffel from surf to snow. I made my trades: flip flops for boots, bare chest for base layers, board shorts for snow pants, and of course, board for skis. Ah, my skis… sweet and tender pieces of soulful engineering, how I missed them. They still suffered core-shots and scratches from last season. I embraced them like the old friends they were.
I loaded up the pick-up with all the necessities and hit the road before anyone could give me condolences for a loss I didn’t want to believe. I could not stray from my path to forget her or find her or figure out how to live again. I did not know exactly what I wanted but I could not let myself hear my mother’s name. She was not a constant; that was now true.  

My truck made it half way there and across the Canadian border before I had to set her free. She had been my stallion for some time, but her miles got the best of her. It was only another loss, another betrayal of constancy. I walked with everything on my back until I eventually thumbed my way to the edge of the wild forest beneath the mountains that I had dreamt of. They were looming ahead but I swore I caught a whiff of hope in their cool breeze.
With skis and skins strapped to my feet, I took off into the wilderness. My eyes were peeled looking for something more than myself, and I found some things. There were icy streams and a few fattened birds and hidden rocks and tracks from wolves and barks of their pups off in the distance. But what I found within all of these things was just the constant reminder of my own loneliness.
I spent the days pushing on towards some unknown relief from the pain. On good days there fresh snow to carry me and on most days storms came and pounded me further into my seclusion. The trees bowed heavy to me as I inched forward on my skis, my only loyal companions; I only hoped they would not betray me on this journey. I could not afford to lose any more, I was alone enough. My mother was no where to be found. The snow seemed to miss her too and sometimes I think it sympathized with me.
I spent the nights warmed with a whimpy fire lying on my back in wait hoping that from out of the darkness she would speak to me, give me some guidance or explanation on how I could live happily and wildly without her. Where was this solace she had spoken of? Where was she? She was not with me, yet everything told me about her. The sun sparkled with her laughter, the air was as crisp as her wit, the cold carried her scent. I could feel her embrace around me in her hand-me-downs that I wore. They were family heirlooms that had been passed to her through generations, and then to me. The lives that had been lived in these jackets and sweaters were lived on through me. Though the stories hidden in the seams of these Greats had long been forgotten, died off with their original masters, I could feel the warmth of their memories cradle me whenever I wore them. I cringed to think about what was lost from their lives that did not live on. I was the only one left of my family to tell the world of the things they had done. I was all that was left of my mother. She had left her mark on the world, that was clear. It was a mark that stained my existence.
These forested mountain hills held a tragic beauty that I wish I could have appreciated more, but I felt heavy with heartache. Nature was not always sweet to me. For days storms surged without end and I coughed up crystals, feeling the snowflake’s dendrites tickle at my throat. I had gotten a cold. Snot oozed from my nostrils, my eyes itched, my schnoz glowed pink, my voice was hoarse, and I wanted nothing but to go home to a home that no longer existed. But I chose to go it alone on this quest and I knew the dangers in the freedom of going solo. The winds were strong and the snow was sharp. New ice glazed once powdery fields and the storms of yesterday came again and there was nothing I could do except cower at the magnificence of Nature’s sword: a thing so grand and powerful that it has slayed armies of men with merely a windy slash. I was nature’s *****. I felt no promise in pressing on, but I did so only to keep the snow from burying me alive in my tent.
And I am so glad that I did, because when the great storm finally passed I looked up to see the sky so hopeful and blue bordering the mountains I knew to be the ones I was searching for. I recognized them from the bedtime stories. She had said that when she saw them for the first time that she felt a sudden understanding that all the many hundred miles she’d ever walked were supposed to take her here. She said that the mere sight of them gave her purpose. These were those mountains. I knew because the purpose I had lost sight of came bubbling back out of my aching heart, just as it had for her.

These peaks as barren as plucked pelicans and peacocks, but as beautiful as the feathers taken from them, were beacons in the night for those in search of a world of dreams in which to create a new reality. From them I heard laughter jiggle and echo, hefty and deep in the stomachs of the only people truly living it seemed. When I was scouring the vastness of this wilderness for a sign or a purpose, I followed the scent of their delicious living and I guess my nose led me well.
A glide and a hop further on my skis, there the trees parted and powder deepened and sun shone just a bit brighter. Behind the blinding glare of the snow, faces gleamed from tents and huts and igloos and hammocks. Shrieks of children swinging from branches tickled my ears, which had grown accustomed to the silence of winter. As I approached this camp, I saw they were not kids but grown men and women. It seemed I had stumbled down a rabbit hole while following the tracks of a white jackalope. I had found my world of dreams. I had found them. I had found a home.
I was escaping my lonely, wintery existence into a shared haven perfectly placed beneath the peaks that had plagued my dreams. A place where the only directions that existed were up and down the slopes and forwards to the future. Never Eat Soggy Waffles did not matter anymore. By the end of my time there, I had even forgotten my lefts and rights. The camp had been assembled with the leftovers of the modern world and looked like a puzzle with mismatched pieces from fifty different pictures. At first glance, it could have been a snow covered trash heap, but there was a sentimental glow on each broken appliance that told me otherwise. Everything had a use, though it was not usually what was intended. The homes of these families and friends were made of tarp or blankets or animal hides and had smelly socks or utensils or boots or bones hanging from their openings. There were homemade hot springs made of bathtubs placed above fires with water bubbling. Unplugged ovens buried in snow and ice kept the beer cooled. Trees doubled as diving boards for jumping into the deep pits of powder around them. The masterminds behind this camp were geniuses of invention and creation. Their most impressive creation was their lifestyle; it was one that had been deemed impossible by society. This place promised the solace I had been searching for.
A hefty mass of man and dogs galumphed its way through the snow. Rosy cheeks and big hands came to greet me. This was Angus. His face grew a beard that scratched the skies; it was a doppelganger to the mossy branches above us. But his smile shone through the hairs like the moon. There are people in this world whose presence alone is magic, an anomaly among existence. Angus was one of them. Not an ounce of his being made sense. The gut that hung from his broad-shouldered bodice was its own entity and it swung with rhythms unknown to any man; it was known only to the laughter that shook it. Gently perched atop this, was his shaggy white head that flew backwards and into the clouds each time he laughed, which was often. Angus fathered and fed the folks who’d found their way to this wintery oasis, none of which were of the ordinary. There was a lady with snakes tattooed to her temples, parents who’d birthed their babies here beneath the full moon, couples who went bankrupt and eloped to Canada, men and women who felt the itch just as me and my mother had. The itch for something beyond the mundane that left us unsatisfied with life out in the real world. All of them came out of their lives’ hardships with hilarious belligerence and wit, each with their own story to tell. The common thread sewn between all these dangerous minds was an undeniable lust for life.
The man who represented this lust more than any other was Wiley and wily he was. He’d seen near-death countless times and every time he saw the light at the end of the tunnel, he would run like a fool in the other direction. He lived on borrowed time. You could see that restlessness driving him in each step he took. Each step was a leap from the edges of what you thought possible. Wiley was a man of serious grit, skill, and intelligence and never did he let his mortality shake him from living like the animal he was. He’d surely forgotten where and whence he came from and, until finding his way here, had made homes out of any place that offered him beer and some good eatin’. Within moments of shaking hands, he and I created instant brotherhood.
The next few days turned into months and I eventually lost track of time all together. I could have stayed there forever and no day would have been the same. I played with these people in the mountains and pretended it was childhood again. We lived with the wind and the wildness the way my mother had once shown me how to live. I had forgotten how to live this way without her and I was learning it all over again. We awoke when we pleased and trekked about when weather permitted, and sometimes when it didn’t. Each day the sun rose ripe with opportunities for new lines to ski and new peaks to explore. The backcountry was ours and only ours to explore. We were its residents just like the moose and the wolves. My body grew stinky and hairy with joy and pushed limits. Hair that stank of musk and days of labor was washed only with painful whitewashes courtesy of Wiley. Generally after a nice run, we’d exchange them, shoving each other’s faces deep into the icy layers of snow, which would be followed with some hardy wrestling. By the end of each day, if we didn’t have blood coming out of at least two holes in our faces then it wasn’t a good day.
I never could wait to get my life’s adventures in and here I was having them, recalling the unsatisfied ache I had before I left. Life was lost to me before. I had forgotten how to live it after she had died. Modern monotony had taken control until my life became starved of genuine purity and all that was left then was mimicry. But the hair grown long on these men and smiles grown large on these woman showed no remembrance of such an earth I had come from. They had long ago cast themselves away from such a society to relish in all they knew to be right, all their guts told them to pursue: the truth that nature supplies. Still I worried I would not remember these people and these moments, knowing how they would be ****** into the abyss of loss and time like all the others. But we lived too loud and the sounds of my worries were often drowned in fun.
     We spent the nights beside the fire and listened to Wiley softly plucking strings, that was when I always liked to look at Yona. Her curls endlessly waterfalled down her chest and the fire made her hair shimmer gold in its glow. She was the spark among us, and if we weren’t careful she could light up the whole forest.  She was a drum, beating fast and strong. Never did she lose track of herself in the clashing rhythms of the world. She had ripped herself from the hands of the education system at a young age and had learned from the ways of the changing seasons f
Nathan MacKrith Mar 2020
I was busy chasing rainbows, dragons, and unicorns
I probably caught a leprechaun or maybe the Jackalope
Do I regret being busy? Nope!

I was busy solving the world’s problems with love’s power
So busy I forgot to shower
And grew my personal jungle
Where I was busy chasing tigers with the help of bears and panthers

If I say I was busy
I was actually a bee
or maybe a bee’s knees
Because nothing’s more busy
than a bee collecting pollen

If I tell you I am busy
A volcano exploded,
and my path’s corroded
by lava pits perilous
and hungry magma monsters

If I tell you I am busy
I may be counting sheep
for little Bo Peep or to sleep
Trying to cuddle with my stuffed buds

If I tell you I’m busy,
I’m busy in a way most people may not understand
but you do, because you’re grand
~
NM
03/17/20

*for Harly
Rhett Robertson Sep 2017
If you don't know where you're going.
If you don't know where to turn
Look to the ground for ancestors
Look to the sky to learn
Because the world is rolling
With or without your blessing
It won't wait for the corner to turn
And the skyline silhouette jackalope
Will reach the water and back i know
We could meet up and play by the ferns
Don't get caught up with your disease
Playing games like droned out teens
Waiting for the bite sized treats
To finish nuking in the unnatural heat
Instead find a tune
Meet a snail under a ruin
In your heart is the rhythm of Gods beat
Then you'll be able to trust your feet
To lead you down the knife
To a genuine life
Bless you child, that's what we all need
sofolo  Dec 2022
Taxidermy
sofolo Dec 2022
our love was a gaff
a two-headed calf
suckling on the monotony

i laughed
uncontrollably
as you clipped my wings

the irony is
i’m a jackalope
a prickly freak

the velvet of
my antlers
is powdered &
shedding
onto the apple
of your cheek

a masterpiece
                     of grief

— The End —