"Timestamps"

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11:46 p.m., Shower

(Timestamps)

When the lightning strikes

Often and the dark river

Runs high and wide,

Words flow freely through

Me. The desert blooms with

Inspiration in my notebook.

But storm season ends

Again and I grow parched.

The inkwells run dry.

Under the searing sun,

My notebook lies barren until 

Distant flickers appear on

The horizon. Heat lightning:

A crackle, an echo of 

Storms that came before

And will once more.

But until they do, until

Ink floods my pages

In rivers, I record

The spark I saw from

Afar, a planted seed

Waiting for reviving water.

With the note, I write

The time and place

I saw the lightning 

Fall, so I can find

It again in rain-time. 

11:46 p.m., Shower

10:37 a.m., Room 355

5:54 p.m., Holmes Lake

12:10 a.m., I-80

10:37 a.m., Room 355

(Ave Calliope)

Ave Calliope, please hear me call

From where you’re chained against my wall.

I scream to you with fettered tongue

And lungs that drowned in what you gave,

The boon I was a fool to crave.

Ave Calliope, your promise chokes.

The words you gave seal up my throat

And weigh me down with silent pain.

They stain me with a golden bruise

For who was I to cage a muse?

Ave Calliope, I fumble with the lock

Which made in me my stumbling block.

Once loosed, I fall before the wall —

Phantasmic words that won’t be shared

Are heavier than I can bear.

Ave Calliope, my siren, my selkie:

Don’t leave me here in reverie

Unvoiced. I hand the knife to you —

Strike true and let the poem pour,

My crimson shot with searing ichor!

5:54 p.m., Holmes Lake

(The World is Wide Enough)

I think the world is wide enough

For all the art we make —

With purpose formed or simply to

Create for beauty’s sake.

Despite the million words of love

That have before been penned,

There’s always time for one more voice

In passion to ascend.

Though tragedies are numerous

As falling flakes of snow,

Each is unique, like those who weep,

And from tears, let words flow.

Poems will be written still, for

Poems poetry begets.

And though so many poems are,

I’ll add mine to them yet.

12:10 a.m., I-80

(Wind Farm)

The concert ended late. We drove o’er hills

On empty roads through thick and friendly night.

The high beams cut a lonely path until

The heavy dark was pierced by countless lights:

A swarm of scarlet fireflies that sparked 

In rhythm, locked in perfect synchrony.

The watch lights of a hidden wind farm marked

Strange constellations intermittently.

The sudden vision fully filled the air,

Yet visions end. Dark crept back in around.

I saw the boundary of the farm draw near

And asked my friend to pin the beauty down.

“Please, take a photo so the memory lasts.”

But roads lead on. The moment then had passed.