Tag Archives: travel

Tourist

Visiting a place is not being there,
it is only sight and sound –
drawn curtains
a polished candelabra.

You see in lists and itineraries,
perspective narrowed
to what such places concede freely,
satisfying curious wanderers;
souls ravaged like refugees,
without the time or patience to settle
down.

A distant home that feels like asylum,
pending and uncertain.
All virtues lost,
yet to be found.

You can feel authenticity crisp in
the air.

You can’t grasp it,
though it is there –
it is there,
left only with pictures awash in venom;
that resolve like troubled thoughts,
dying after a sober night’s sleep.

Visiting a place is not being there.

Being there requires sacrifice.
It requires the hint of escape on the horizon,
silhouetting all the shapes visitors ignore;
seeing those shadows and loving them,
for how they embrace the light.

Impetus

Wind through the desert finds levity
rising with the accumulated heat
flowing past deep read monoliths
that whisper of oceans long dead,
of fish and whales and other beasts.
Whispers overwhelmed by present sounds
birds, coyotes and rodents
rocks tumbling beneath careless paws
and – another noise, angry and forced.

The skyline is a well tended furnace
clouds just kindling in the fire
thick cords of pine
brittle bark, fractured and eclectic
some loose straw stretching over the canopy;
the fires on the horizon catch them all
draw them over the precipice of day
to slumber amongst the embers
yet – a false light rises with the night.

The smell of ancient minerals
millions of years in the heat,
rust and stagnation permeates
with mesquite and forgotten rain.
When the sun is at its highest
the scent of burnt oxygen prevails
now at night creosote returns
a muted persistent dream
but – a foul odor imposes.

Steel tracks scream through the canyons
level the mountains, fell the trees
cutting through with lines and destinations
like the maps that inspired their creation
while great pillars of soot vomit out their tops,
too dark to for any light to survive
and the smell of coal, ground metal, motor oil
announce that the train has arrived.

Safe Travels

We crossed the earth with planes, trains and automobiles
with boats, cruise ships, and whalers.
We crossed the earth with poisons
harpoons and muskets
with naked flesh hungry for furs
and insecurities demanding conquest.
With fears that birthed shackles and cages
and empty hearts that could recognize no others.
We crossed the earth with trade
financial analytics, global markets
bonds, loans and shell accounts;
with people and products and people as products.
We crossed the earth with shell fire,
artillery, war ships, fighter jets and drones.
With fire bombs, fire bats, patriot missiles
nuclear bombs and peace treaties;
with demilitarization, missionaries and imperialism.
We crossed the earth with progress,
invention, intention and exploration;
with philosophy and reason
the fires of icarus, and the smoke and mirrors of christ;
with the patience of Buddha, the temperament of Vishnu;
the criticism of Nietzsche, the ambition of Socrates
and with the virus of ignorance.
We crossed the earth over and over again
the betrayals stagnant in the air
as yet unanswered.

The World is Yours

Locked in wood stocks
the world bound and wound up
             spinning at the whim of a child’s hand
an expectant finger
             waiting for a place to land.

             Like spearmen to a charging horse
the blow lands and stops it dead
a digit stalled sets the course.

In that space dreams are made;
             a poor facsimile of an immutable thing
                           quieted by innocence
                                        inquisitiveness
                                        inspiration
                                        imagination
             and thus made immutable again.

The world in a child’s mind is but a word
             until a place is named
         held down
   and claimed for their future self