Toponym
leather woman doesn’t know the
population she says or that kind of
thing, the open sign flashes and spins
like a government emergency misheard
in miniature, translucent alert
that doesn’t sell so well
you can’t hold a small business
in this town she says or on thin
shoulders like my daughter’s got
defrosting’s over, oil’s hot, hold
the mustard I say travel light
she says she knows that kind of thing
come back and see us sometime and
this time she doesn’t say she asks.
Playing
do children still use
scissors? or did they
graduate early from
negative space?
i don’t see them
sitting still mesmerized
by removal, by
the finding a shape inside.
i worry that outward
glances and trust in
those products
animates more. let’s
take a long look at
sorting tools from
molds and make sure
holes get poked.
the alternative
seems unsafe.
Please Visit
storm clouds move
behind the trees.
a dead fox lays.
please visit. just get pulled
over on i-25 by old dial on empty.
take us, as we are here.
see us dressed in our masks,
cloistered in the tall grass.
do drop by.
Remembered Coast
that generator blaring can’t be distinguished
from the crickets. grey matter extinguished
cannot prevent the scent of coastal pines
and saltwater intermingled from drawing throughlines
from thunderstorms past as the present unravels.
as we pass through this place where fried thighs
meet the echoes of emerald waves at high tides
the wild blunders at the pit of our history impart
tales of naked indecision on those before who dart
still in and out of our field of vision on these travels.
somebodies thought it was a grand concept
to fill our days with urges to roam and then forget.
we would be charged with lifetimes like reruns
with new props and new names but old seasons,
the same burnouts and gunners for it and patient types.
all the characters appear when they’re looked for.
they kneel by the boulder and jump from high floors
but it’s hard to tell protagonist from portico
down here where palm of hand and palmetto
so closely resemble each other during nights.
incredulity in every state of being. a buck reels
into the bay and swims for the other side at even keel,
its cloven hooves kicking at starfish and mussels.
this meeting of worlds where thicket is water’s rustle,
some story or another, same thing or other.
hunters dress the buck now in the electric game
processing tent, while it could be a fish by flame.
passing through i wouldn’t dare offer critique,
except that the local handle this eternal technique
delicately, like it were an already-wronged lover.
so little time remains us, though so much time remains,
forgetting our way down this ancient coastline.
We Looked
we looked finally through
the purple sweat of grief
to see that the shimmering
world still shimmered.
age softened pine duff
and a new phase of moon
held our misshapen lives
still operable, salvageable.
F.O.G. (Coincidental Stakeholder)
grandma viola quit
the farm on a day before
my second cousin lee lost
more than an arm to a firework
she didn’t see how
life would work out
but here I sit now
great grandson of a baker
my grandpa garvin once said
there’s takers and there’s
getters but he’s on that old time
train that just delivers you on
i can’t ask him about life
in the mills
so I gotta believe that my own
body will remember
i’ve got that uncle
who lives at the hospital
there’s this other uncle
we don’t know that he’s alive
we were playing cards one
day down in humid Florida
and we haven’t spoke since
we’ve not really spoken since
we were on a road one morning
when a big rain hit
we were drinking from that coffee
then we said “we made it”
we don’t ask about it we
just hop in the train
with the doggies
and keep it up as best we can
til the fog sets in
Carpetbagger
another traverse at hand
having sat down at a gate
gnarled with evergreen stumps
having been again deluged
in a thousand tongues
and another personal rouge.
sitting by myself i see
the smile with no mirror
glad to navigate the windswept
and the untold, between
we hop a whole Wyoming
but it’s one we’ve never seen.
a future grows for us now
likely in a lake kept hot
by an ethic we don’t subscribe to
as we inadvertently cash in
on plastics petrol products
and other poor subs for passion.
the miracle mile lies
indistinct as does its inventor
so we out here in goggles
plus we’ve invented a quarter inch
by which to measure both
the long and short of it.
some new demographic’ll show up
and it’s Halloween according
to mayors ministers malcontents
near had us breaking into battle
but before some great hand
comes to water us i hightail.
como el flor que me da
the sun and its ruthless blessing
i rock back and forth
slowly, as languidly as a trance
is sharp, groaning only to honor
this gorgeous distance.
Overcharged
what if we could go
to the medicine man
not just this asshole
sent from the BIA?
i guess we’ve still
got gumbo and venison
sweet yam and the
sunrise salutation
may my medical bill
trip on momma’s words,
sauna sweat, the torque
of a monkey wrench
Rust Belt
greatest advantage isn’t what team you’re on
but to know what war you’re fighting
is it david ricardo?
or something popular on pacific islands?
i cite a red mustang shooting up from the dead
i just hopped in
on the upward trajectory
i.e. needn’t we revolt?
can we get away with mere landscaping?
shouldn’t we dabble in heavy machines?
heavy red machines dancing on their own graves?
or do we set up a land trust?
maybe we just need teams out there
distributing hens
putting up rainbarrels
a future?
a hurricane?
a favor?
After You
we would toss you in the river
when we really really loved you
then inquire after with our eyes
all the way downstream for
a while. then on the foggiest
days when we couldn’t see our
hands we’d inquire after you
again to wonder where you
ended up and if you ended up
Instructions to God
please water the plants
feel free to play the piano
if fire starts of a sudden
we understand if you run
Ball
scatter them bones, as at
the end-of-days dance, then
on its last legs, that jumbo
jig jackrabbit hop, hipswaying
its way through
the pistons and pendula of
this post-last supper period as
we pulse heel and toe to
polish the floorboards into
mattress and in the gutless
din of the exit
sleep softly.
Note: Ball appears in Writer’s Block Issue 37 and is republished with permission.
Skookum Atlas 