1889

I clung to rusted metal with broken dreams. Stories above the stories you hear about I looked through the safety cage surrounding a ladder to disappointment realizing the story might be all we have. Caught in the 30 seconds of shutter, a moment can not be described, printed, painted or told. Heads hung in a less than arrogant manner lent to low spots. A crack in a window may only be that to you, to us it is a portal to immortality in an instant. Clatter of metal, the passing of a torch so to say via crowbar. This steel serpent sleeps no more, for tonight adventure has set us upon a tangled web of flickering lights, winding metal stairs, corroded floors. Death around every corner, life in every breath. Slowly winding upwards towards the reality of freedom. Legs burning we emerge from a tiny door to bask in the neon glow of a hundred years of blood, sweat and tears. you were born in 1889,the year of a total solar eclipse. Under a full moon we howl with life coursing through veins. Point. Shoot. Never able to capture this feeling. With this writing. Or his photos. We were there. Some day that will be all we have.

Callin the cavalry

riding a dead horse
to your pale face
big littlehorn
clearly apache
arrowheads deep wounds
GUNSLINGERS
ride into the sunset
muchacho
dust clouds obscure
arrows in a bear
holy land
sacred red cabin
let the loon cry
for it is a lonely
song.

For days. Four days.

Mixing up medicine
gutter water and spit
bothering with
nothing but the worst
the last
now first
sunglassy eyed
drip drop dried drool
dreams done gone past
this cowboys first rodeo
left scars.

Zen and the 83rd year.

His face is wrinkled
his eyes worn.
hearing is a lackluster attempt
at understanding the known
all to well.
Kind and gentle
a mountain now a hill
a voice that carried dreams
raised a family
and is fading slowly.
If you wake to early
there is dew on the grass
and you cant mow the lawn.


Happy 83rd birthday to my grandfather. I love him. Robert James Helgeson

rebel rebel

This jet
over head
led to over heard
dragged this there
for you to hear
But you cant listen
sitting still
and are right here
lost on open water
in ways
in calm seas.
On a path
we share
as strangers
in an even stranger
smaller, flatter world.

april showers

Tonight I beat the rain
as the rain beat glass pains
above me.
The air moist with scent of storm
the rebirth of the frozen as a metaphor.
Standing sodden
glass glowing
the drips hit wet fabric
concussed sound as if to mimic a heart beat
we are not dead
yet.

Cheetah or Chimp?

As I sat, under the haze of street light
Listening to the plows pass
like ants in a line
The filter sticks to lips
hand forces smoke to cut air
the purest thing drops to ceramic home
radiator hiss, glassy eyed.
Some day this may be all I have.

At this moment we escape our own time line that is nothing more than fate dressed in its finest.
going to the party alone and hopeless.
a time we cant see or touch but is all too real.
This will never happen again.
this is not a second coming.
A half hearted yell at the end of the universe.

Turn, turn around

Its yours to find
it is all you have
I am all alone
to fall in love with this
this light is too dim
with thoughts so loud
how a deaf man hears
spatially decomposing
maggots of the social elite
feeding on cheap beer and gossip
could there be a chrysalis here
with anchors on ankles
this is shark infested alcohol
Mr. Bad Ideas carries a straight razor
and a journal in his eyes
Fuck your moleskein
the cracks in my side walk say more
the floor shifts
moon beams hit my face
I sat and remembered to remember everything
this is what it smells like
it feels like
and this is my song.

this storm marching

buried under a pine-cone avalanche
drop the needles
Red timber stands
dockside
sunrise, sunset
flame licks this to copulate my divining rod
parallel universes
falling further towards nothing than imagined
ride this pale horse on
into the sunset or towords this end,
this sickness,
this sleep,
this station.
Burial grounds under a thousand bones
Flower petals frail under the weight of heat
the flood of molten ash to bury
holding on to what is precious to you
that was to me
you were to us
fall out winter in grey clouded heads
a choice to live is
a choice to live so hard it hurts
this is not mine
nor the angel
but we give in to nothing less than that
if i die before i wake
wake before i die
sleep before I rest
and care every day non the less.
yet sleep is a cousin of death.