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Poetry
(rd king dot net)poetry and digital art
American Summer
Poems written while traveling.
A Trip to the Southland
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1: Road Work Massive works of generic agribusiness squeeze the interstate's itinerant length. August & green—all the stirring way to these golden, central hills worn smooth by the summer's haze. 2: Mirage Given a chance the land shows no sign of water—just dying brush, refuse, dusky tumbleweeds; strings of pylons running off and disappearing, finally, in the vaporous horizon. 3: Highway 41 Cattle in the dry creeks of the cattle-colored hills. Long, fenceless stretches of open land: little oaks, outcrops, arroyos, the wind—old music of the west. 4: San Marcos Pass (Old California) Mountains rise in majestic ranges feathered by the august air, fronted by crumbling foothills— rock-scarred, brush-bare, and plain in deference to the handsome woodland there. 5: US 101 (Old California) Wood-rail bridges, ancient eucalyptus, oleander dwelling in the median where two lanes should be four. Bougainvillea lacing into the palms; offramps leading to pale haciendas. 6: Laguna Niguel One bright morning I took your photos alongside your several smiling cousins— the din of the freeway below you, Mount Mojeska, behind, rising above the visible air. 7: In a Recess of the Mall As if someone waited for this, expected it: your casual stance beneath the recessed lighting—plain youth, beauty, sun-rich skin, garments waiting to mimic the bank of monitors above your head. 8: Movement Relative to Movement Gazing down at the stalled freeway, its continual animation transfixed by pylons, hawks on the powerlines, gunships and jetliners overhead; sporadic trains crossing—I fall back on the bed only to feel it move. 9: Immigrants Condos and townhomes, townhomes, condos, the otherwise large dwellings tethered only by an excess of exotic flora—the articulate landscaping slowly devours the undeveloped: opuntia spreading in fleeting clusters among the sun-worn chaparral. 10: High Desert Saturday (Old California) Miles of sagebrush running off to reach the alluvial fanning, mountains. This distance altered only by little outposts springing up or dying under a western sky, spilling its quintessential clarity. 11: Mono Basin Ruddy boulders and sagebrush, outcrops breaking the skin. Piñon and aspen. Aspen dying in bands. Range upon range; spiritual giddiness, grace. Ancient volcanoes still resting in the airy heights above Mono Lake. 12: Retinal Plunge (Sonora Pass, Old California) Imagining the shift, feeling the uplift, the glacial tearing, the pull of gravity, water's crush. The sun upon us, the lessened air. Its touch gathering at our feet and entering there. Immaculate youth, hard beauty, augustness. back | ToC | next
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