Tag Archives: nostalgia

Vagabond

Nostalgia is a weary hat in a lost town.
It speaks soberly of altered states,
and doesn’t belong there,
                              but it did-

                                           it did.

The brim is warped leather,
      the crown, sulking against the skull beneath,
with deep canals born of frowns and smiles
          indiscernible from those that rest

                                             on the shoulders

                of endless hours that bridge the days,
          swallow the years
and sever the link to innocence.

          It is a native-born traveler,
  returning as family,
but with the wear of life upon it,
            like a refugee denied asylum,
                                        home again
                a stranger in a strange land.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Here we hide our memories;
those lost, those forgotten
and those memorialized.

Most moments
will outlive their time-
processed,
                    so completely,
we want nothing to do with them anymore
            but, the part of us that lives on-

     in the brighter corners of that vacant space

will not be discarded.

Here we store them…

We place them in a box.
            to cultivate dust and nostalgia,
                  for our future selves to discover,
                        swipe away;
                                  trivialize.

Other events are so magnificent
they break the realm of time itself
piercing the boundaries of reality;
                                      letting it bleed out
                                until its eyes dim
                        the skin pallid
              fading
and we are faced with no choice but
        to pack those away too. 

               here they rest patiently…

                   until there is enough room
                      for them to exist once again
                  or reality needs once again
              to be reminded how fragile it is.

Ice Fishing on Lake Sakakawea

Water rushes forth
cutting through the landscape
tearing down trees…

In my youth
we would gather there.
That was ‘base.’
Some perversion in the soil
grew it awkward
and preserved it.
There was no other of its like
we’d count,

                “One”

                “Two”

                “Three”
Turn and lay low any who moved.

…bushes, plants
gnashing at them
with a hurricane of white caps,
roiling top soil;
the mangled limbs of old oaks.
The flood consumes the forest
but is unsated,
cartwheeling down the street…

We rode our bikes,
cards in the spokes,
three abreast;
like we each had
a full tank of gas, no curfew.
        some of us didn’t
and only went home
when no one was left
to muffle the night.

Taking with it loose sheets of concrete
gauging them out with the dead ends
of what once was a forest
only a few short moments ago.
As if on a mission
                  serving a purpose
the torrent sprints down main street
a feral beast of a cat
on the serengeti
ignoring all the buildings that lined its path
driven only to one end;
to take down the theater.

In the darkness
outside of time
fantasy becomes tangible
while reality falls away
like sheets of snow
from a hot tin roof.
Captured in that web
I am what I am meant to be
until the lights come on.

It may have been the first to go,
but the flood took the whole town
              and discarded in its place
              a lake

When winter comes
and hides it all beneath ice
          we drill holes
          drink til we are warm
          and toss in a line
      only once in awhile terrified
                        that we’ll pull up
                        some part of that old life.