I
I am the boundaries that divide
placed by politics
a mockery of continents
ill-placed border crossings
blockades
walls
no-flight zones
international waters
can be changed
by exploration
treaty or war
II
One day I split continents
still eruptions and quakes
know no boundaries
with my heights and my depth
salty waters
fresh streams
flowing over me
I create weather and air
take care
of me
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dVerse prompt to write an apostrophe
There are still wild horses
in Nevada and Wyoming
mustangs from Spanish bloodlines
their hoofs strong
never shod
herd following a stallion
who is leader and protector
a spirit
hard to be broken
easy to break it off
young ones
brought into the pen
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dVerse prompt on spirit. The wild horses roam on BLM land and the herds are managed by the BLM. To control the population, every year some are caught and brought to holding areas where they are tamed of their wild spirit and sold at auction.
When the viaduct was removed in Seattle
homeless camps lost protection
from rains that always come
wet gear sends cold to the bone
try to stay dry and warm
tent after tent along the freeway
garbage thrown here and there
or burned in a campfire
this will be my last winter here you say
waiting for spring you say
always waiting for spring
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dVerse prompt “less is more” and my choice of the word homeless. Homelessness in Seattle is growing with more tents along the I-5 going past downtown. I was amazed at the extent of it this past summer (more than I had ever seen).
I want to write like Dali painted
disjointed
everything capable
of fluidity whether a horse
or time
or an elephant and rhino on stilts
elongate the llllllls
create more holes in the OOOOOOs
put a whole world inside just one
put a landscape on the table
a seascape in knees
find paragraphs
that grow trees
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dVerse prompt on surrealism
It is late and I am going to bed. There is a scratching sound then it stops. Could it be a bug or a mouse trying to get out of this basket? I shake the basket. No sound. The sound comes again. I look around and there it is. A gecko is half in and half out of my writing book. It has clawed its way out of the pages of paper. Bright green with little eyes, tail and hind legs still in the book. I carry the book outside and free it like a poem into the night air.
a little satire comparing kudzu to racism
It’s called the front porch vine
grows over everything
makes for comfort with its shade
easy to propagate when you get tools
roots are huge and spreading
deep rotted
hard to pull out
just when you think you’re rid of it
here it is again
it can bring folks together
like a festival
a klan or a government
some use it for their own advantage
cultivate it
profit from its invasiveness
stir it in a drink
feels warm and good
when drinking kudzu tea
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dVerse prompt on an invasive plant— this was a prose poem which I reformatted into short Plath lines
When the earth quakes, it could take half of a day to hear the news that people are buried in rubble of collapsed buildings. Others are more fortunate and come out at 4am trying to escape the 35 seconds of earth plates moving. Expecting more to follow, they wait in the streets of Tirana.
Back home we wait for the big one. Engineer stronger buildings, take down viaducts and go underground. The last one swayed trees and road as I drove towards Gazzam Lake. An hour later, the water in a huge tank off the trail was still sloshing.
somewhere a rogue wave
or volcanic eruption
thankful not today
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a haibun following the Albanian earthquake
