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Day Twenty-Seven: Today the prompt is ACTUALLY a picture prompt, and not just me being lazy.

photo by Jean-Baptiste Sinniger

It's a great deal, you know.
Trust me - I'm not a doctor,
but I'm even more powerful.

You'll feel the value right away,
and I'll stand to profit even more.
Just scan that bar code here,

and you'll fit right in, I promise.
We're a very welcoming group,
so long as you've already

done the required shopping.
Just keep in mind that any doubts
are a sign of your own corruption,

not a flaw in the system, of course,
because the system is without flaw,
from my flawless point of view.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Maps & Atlases, The Charm

Birdwatching?

Day Twenty-Three (late): Picture!

photo by Gregory Halpern

Apart from the coursing traffic, this street has been quiet for some time.
Bursts of exhaust roast the air, keep that pesky ozone in check.
Cars drift aimlessly from one sidewalk to another, uninterested.
Drab as it may be, the birds are still excitable, hooting enthusiastically.
Zoology was never a hobby of mine - they are inconceivably bothersome.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
John Grant, GMF

Counterpoints, ten paces, dawn

Day Fourteen: Another self-appointed picture prompt.

photo by Tom Hoying

There's a blank stare across the field,
drilled deep and left as a cavity, black
pits or something else just as ominous.

She brought him here for a reason,
and as of yet he is still too afraid to ask,

what will signal the depth of her anger?

Their silence has remained vast, unbroken,
yards of quiet, empty space between them

and an ocean of usable air - it has become
a question of, who will take advantage first?
Now that the requisite number of paces

has been reached, and the fog has lifted
from the frozen, crunching grass beneath

their feet, whose gunshot will ring loudest?
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Quick Links, NaPoWriMo edition.

Zach - you killed it with this one, my friend.

An amusing noun-switch poem from Leonard.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Two Door Cinema Club, Something Good Can Work

The museum

Day Seven: No prompt for me today. Just writing.

photo by Michael Rudd

There is a world behind the glass,
                                                      set apart,
                                                      left for us to question
as we run our hands down
the cold smoothness,
ponder the meaning of the streaks
we leave behind - oil and dirt,
something majestic like
a brand new work of art,
a masterpiece - bright canvas
and dark brushstrokes we will
hang up behind the glass,
                                                      set apart,
                                                      left for others to question.
_________________________________________________

Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Dag Savage, Van Gogh

Performance review

photo by Kevin Trageser

Have you ever had one of those weeks? Everyone knows what this means. Arthur was having that week. The one that could have inspired the saying. The one that could color the lens through which we see all of our "those weeks" when our boss brings his bad home life to the office or no one else is around and we get stuck with all the work. Arthur's week was like all of our weeks had a week of their own.

He wanted to be somewhere else, of course. He had been online all morning trying to decide where he would like to be. Not one of the places he saw stood out to him. Hawaii was beautiful, New York was exciting, Europe was intriguing. But none of them offered exactly what he wanted.

Arthur wanted to be somewhere so pretty that it all looked fake. He wanted to believe that he had been transported to a make believe place, in a painting perhaps, or a photograph of a movie set - all plaster and fine, detailed craftsmanship. He wanted to ride the escalator out of an airport somewhere and be so distracted that his shoelaces get caught in the machinery. He wouldn't even care, he decided - he would just ditch the shoes and spend his vacation barefoot.

Vacation, though? Would that be good enough? Arthur imagined that even a month away from work would be tainted by the constant thoughts of what he had left behind - or, more depressingly, what would be waiting for him like a old, ruined predator that he could never outrun. He hoped that wherever he ended up going, there would be an escalator built like an MC Escher painting - an impossible loop that he would never have to step off of. He could have his meals delivered.

Arthur's Outlook calendar snapped him out of his daydreaming with an ironically joyful ping. He crinkled his face in disappointment and gathered his things. Meeting with the boss. It would go poorly, no doubt.

Arthur's boss spent the meeting yelling about expense reports and unpaid vendors and late shipments. He had brought his bad home life with him to the meeting. It stuck out in the fog of anger like a massive, shining iceberg. Arthur tired quickly of all these subjects. They were all real things - things you took at face value, things you could see and touch and had to get done. Arthur didn't want real anymore. He wondered what it would take to get a few days off. Even if it wasn't long enough, it would be better than nothing.

Arthur's boss noticed him drifting back into dream world, and the focus of his distaste shifted from matters of business to his listless employee. He yelled and yelled, so much that Arthur stopped hearing anything he was saying. Arthur ignored the tirade and reached back to his pants pocket, removed his wallet and slid his work ID out of the pocket it had occupied for the past eight years. He watched the slight dent it had made in the leather collapse slowly, like an open air mattress. He stared at the picture on the front of the ID, noticing the shape, intensity and youth of the smile he gave the photographer that day. A similar smile then came to Arthur's lips. Arthur's boss yelled louder. Arthur's smile grew wider. This was going to be an excellent trip.
_________________________________________________

Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Fleet Foxes, The Plains/Bitter Dancer

You won't even know I'm gone

painting by Adam Lupton

The chair next to you will still be full,
another body and a different mind,

a wire that stretched out to trip you,
trick you and keep you captivated

even though the future is impossible.
The waves that pulse through your brain

tell you things you don't want to hear -
things you can't bear to know are true -

the rules to a game you could never win
once the deck has been stacked so high.

And every day apart will feel empty,
and every day together will be worse,

a choice between pulling the arrow out
and letting it stay, blood and skin festering,

the phone ringing nightly - distant humming
of molecules as the temperature drops,

and the nightly summer rains will start snowing,
and the cold could snap July clean in half.
_________________________________________________

Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Blu, Vanity

On flights of arrows, sharper than we'd been led to believe

painting by Brad Phillips

Romance is not a
car crash, but a natural
disaster - you seep
into my brain and
poison all the ground,

and when poured into
the form of a cigarette,
you would be sweeter
than nicotine, but
just as cancerous.
_________________________________________________

From the most recent decomP, an excellent poem from Will Arbery.

And here, my friend Zach absolutely kills it.
_________________________________________________

Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Skyzoo, The Definitive Prayer

Range

photo by Nicole Hunziker (check her feed - absolutely gorgeous)

Where is the chance meeting?
Two people on a train
and they couldn't be farther apart.
That blank space, mere inches,
a filth of fog and floating particles,
something about tension and
the dry heat of emptiness.

Hope is laid like bricks, and
one loose foothold would ruin
the entire avenue - a gust of
cold wind, so cold it hurts
in the spaces between our teeth,
so harsh it brings down the
entire mountain on our heads.
_________________________________________________

Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Shad, Comprimise

Hey, slow down

painting by Brad Kunkle

In the dark it's all contrast,
blacks and whites stand stark, apart,
ready for the race to begin.

At the gunshot they run
and the stripes flash like ants on the screen,
a dance we invented ourselves.

Thoughts swarm, eyes swarm,
blinking pestilence ready for a place to land -
wherever the blood spills.
_________________________________________________

Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Glasser, Apply

Instructions for building a house

Painting by Ben Grasso

You build a house
with wood.
Self-explanatory, perhaps,
but who considers
a plank of wood
and what, exactly,
goes into it?
Each plank is
a decision, wrought
with knots in stomachs
and cold sweats
in frigid mid-December.
There are good decisions
(sturdy, glossy wood)
and bad ones
(rotten planks,
most probably the ones
a good contractor
will use in your basement).

You build a house
with stone.
Each rock is a gem,
hand-picked by
gentlemen with beards
named Larry and Pete.
In these stones
a steady hand might find
a rib of metal,
or two,
and you build a house
with this as well.
Craft a growling furnace,
a building's beating heart,
set the air warm
and watch Life go -
an inquisitive creature,
actions all founded
on curiosity.
_________________________________________________

Playing on Spotify at this very moment:
Dr. Dog, Lonesome

The greatest lie

Painting by Joe Rea

In the language of the ancient Greeks he was the bringer of the dawn, the bright morning star that separated the heavens from the earth. For a long time, he was nameless, and that was the way he preferred it. He kept the headlines in front of him, and when he needed to speak, he spoke well, his syllables floating effortlessly as though they were filled with helium.

"Speak plain," he would ask of his constituents. "The road is paved with honesty and with simplicity. Any bumps we feel are as warnings that one among us has laid down a lie."

Skeptics fell before him as grass in an unending wind. He would dazzle them with tricks and illusions. He would cover the ugliness of the world as one would bandage a wound. It was something to behold, this chicanery.

I witnessed it once. We were out among the highest steps, a vantage for the ages, when he beckoned us to the edge and gestured our gazes out into the distance.

"Here," he spoke. One word, nothing more.

We were silent, waiting for something to appear or occur. He stood, his back to the horizon, cloudless and clean, and said nothing. His expression suggested that he was waiting for us to realize something. None of us did, and moments passed. Then, one of us, a troubled soul, stepped forward.

"It's a trick," the troubled one said. Confident, but not loud. "There was something there, but you've taken it. Haven't you? It's somewhere far from here, hiding where only you can find it."

The morning star smiled and shook his head, enjoying the confusion he had sown among us.

"No, my friend. It is here. It is always here. There is nothing up here you can take away - it is all permanent, parts of the scenery, so to speak. The only thing that changes here is what you see." He turned and spread his arms. "So, what do you see?"

The troubled soul gave him a doubting glance and stepped forward, focusing intently on the airy landscape before him. He spent several minutes that way, adjusting his stance, his vantage point, going from standing to crouching and back again. Murmurs spread through the crowd behind him, tiny whispers ("Do you see it?") and silent denials.

The bringer of the dawn stepped up beside the troubled soul and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"There is no shame in this," he said. "None at all. Do you think any of these beasts behind you would have better luck?"

"I don't know," the troubled soul said. Subdued now. Uncertainty tainting the tone of his voice. "It's just - it's just not there."

"You're right," the morning star said. His grip tightened. "In a sense."

He stepped away from the troubled soul and turned his back to the scenery once more.

"There is nothing here, friends." He placed his hands inside his pockets, feigning sheepishness. "I've lied to you. Perception is an untruth, a bump in the road. There is only what is and what is not. What gray do you see here, up in this world? What middle ground have we found? None. None, because have not built it."

He removed his hands from his pockets and gave a flourish, a magician standing before awestruck children. He wheeled around, his shoes grinding two half-moon shapes into the terrain beneath him. His back to us, he raised his hands high and out to the sides.

"My hopeful allies," he yelled, "I have built our middle ground."

His arms flashed to the side and he gripped something invisible. With a single motion, he tore the bandage from the wound and an enormous, cloak-like sheet came tumbling down from the background. Pale blue as the sky, it blanched as it fell to the ground, a pallid shroud.When we could tear our eyes from it, we looked up and saw, appearing in the sky, a single, tumultuous cloud. Its folds fell over one another, a mirror of the cloth that lay crumpled at our feet.

"So you see?" he said, triumphant. "What was not here now is. But what is it, really, besides a conjurer's trick?"

The troubled soul fell to his knees, choking sounds back into his throat.

"Enough," he cried. "There is nothing to this but madness!"

The morning star knelt beside him, stroking his shoulders.

"Fear not, my brother. There is no madness here. I said you were right, in a sense, and I meant it. It is a conjurer's trick, and I am only a conjurer."

He gave the troubled soul one last touch, then stood and walked to his creation.

"The truth is, this cloud does not exist," he said. "And neither do I."

He shook his head and laughed - a deep, horrible sound.

"So many bumps in the road."
_________________________________________________

Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
St. Vincent, Just the Same But Brand New

All this weird beauty

photo by Lukasz Wierzbowski

It stood out to her, a lonely red impulse in a sea of green hedge. She stopped and tiptoed off the sidewalk, dropping her work bag next to the bush. She knelt down and reached out. The rose was trapped, having somehow found it's way into the shrubbery's dense inner lattice. She gently cupped her hands around it and extracted it. 

She cradled the flower in her hand like it was an infant, like if she juggled it only a little, shifted just a bit too far in any direction, it would crumble. It would collapse into dust - she just knew it - and blow away with the next odd gust that tumbled past her. She put her other hand over it as a safeguard and studied it.

"It's been quite a day, hasn't it?" she asked.

The flower did not respond.

"I know I'm pretty much done at this point," she continued. "Can't wait for tomorrow. Never thought I could use a new day as much as I do right now."

Several petals rippled as a soft breeze picked up, tossing a few stray hairs into her face. She picked them aside, rearranging them as neatly as she could before rushing her hand back to the flower's protection.

"I can't believe some of the things they've been saying, can you?" She struggled for words, her mouth opening and closing in wordless gasps. "I guess our first instinct has always been to look for the reason things happen. They always want to know why - they always want to deliver an explanation. I'm not sure there always is one, though."

A bird warbled unsteadily in the distance. The flower stayed silent. She scrunched up her nose as a familiar tickle of emotion built up int the corners of her eyes.

"But something like this..." She adjusted her posture, settling into a cross-legged position but slumping forward, defeated as tears began to flow. "If there isn't a reason for this, where do we put it? Where does it fit into the world?"

The rose, as precious as it was to her, still offered no support. It gave just a slight quiver, a motion carried through her splayed fingers by the wind. She began to laugh, even as saltwater gathered and dripped from her jawline.

"I guess there really isn't anything to say, is there?" She raised a hand and ran it through her hair. "Nothing more than sympathies and well-wishing, anyway."

Her hand came to rest on the back of her neck, her fingertips brushing an imaginary itch as her brain ran through one possibility after another - none of them making complete sense. She came out of her trance just long enough to notice that the tears had stopped. Then, in one inexplicable burst of instinctive energy, her hand was in the air and momentum was carrying it right down into her steadily outstretched palm.

She felt something soft and broken, something tragically at rest between her hands. She opened them, knowing that she wasn't going to like what she saw. The rose was a scattered mess, dented petals trickling between her fingers onto the grass. She dropped it, horrified, and knelt beside it like it was a dying relative.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

As the words drew slowly out of her mouth, she wondered why she was saying them. She didn't feel sorry. Whatever the feeling was, it seemed closer to disappointment. Or perhaps it was longing, like she was watching an old friend board a plane to another continent, never to return home.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Dawes, Take Me Out Of The City

Six lines to sleep by

photo by Peter Erich

And at night, when you
are the last light to read by,
my eyes will stay shut.

There's something in the
darkness of eyelids that keeps
the mind more alive.
_________________________________________________

Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Sene & Blue, TheWonderers

This is why the seats face backward

painting by Linden Frederick

The hail falls faster than your parents can drive to escape it, clanking angrily against the roof like a teenager’s first drum solo. The road is tinted yellow beneath the clouds and the warming twilight, and it falls into the blackness as we round each turn on a desperate, careening road home. I feel your fingers start to slacken as the looming dusk is preceded by a glimpse of roaring orange, peering through a crack in the sky. We’ll sit in each others arms until the brake lights go steady, pour out red the color of an entire world’s lost passion and, ultimately, go dark.

_________________________________________________

Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Sarah Jarosz, My Muse

Time to be alive

photo by Kevin Lindridge

We'll group together in the darkness and then send out a flare:
          Sound the alarm! it cries, tears and spit cast
          like fire to a casket -

          before the apocalypse, that is - and to the tune of the three
          greatest symphonies every written, left in
          stone on the steps of

          someone wise enough to copy them down and keep them.
          Until our teflon-coated wings unstick from
          the pavement, consider

          our home a prison. The joyful noises you hear from the
          basement sound out in protest, stand-up guys
          who only mean to send

          a message, not to burn the whole place down at the drop
          of a lighter emblazoned with silver expletives
          stolen from a harder age.
_________________________________________________

Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Neutral Milk Hotel, Two-Headed Boy

One day, you'll all be gone

drawing by Brooks Shane Salzwedel

A wiry breeze sews through my ear,
calls me to savor the taste of my time
and to lower my eyes to see beneath me.
Stand with me, grasp at dancing straws,

watch how our forebears stand so tiny
beside our potential, greasing the wheels
and bathing in the warm current of the past
until they shrink to historical invisibility.
_________________________________________________

Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Neko Case, Ghost Wiring

Vase construction

Day 29: Not doing the prompt today. Just not feeling it.

painting by Dane Lovett

Our heads are heavy
and borne again on stock film,
watered-down visions.

Our hands reach northward,
a place we've never been to
but would love to see.

Our eyes hang loosely,
downcast and weather-beaten
on our dad's front porch.

Our legs hold no weight
but the burdens we give them
daily, like sad gifts.

Our hearts ask questions,
looking for the wrong answers
for a test we'll pass.

The house leans southward,
a tendency toward life
and beauty in it.
_________________________________________________

Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Deer Tick, Smith Hill

Hurricane

Day 19: I'm terrible at following prompts this week. Hey look, a picture!

photo by Jeffrey Stockbridge

They found him crouched,
knees caught between
launch position and a prayer,
sorrow strewn about like
a sparse rain, salt and pain.
He held a hand upon
the remains of a lifetime,
the work and worth of a family,
the combined willpower
of seven hardy generations.

"Right when you think you've
got it handled," he said
between the tears, "life proves
just how helpless you are."
He was in the house, chin up
as he stared through the roof
at the afternoon sun, a blazing
contrast to the storm in his
mind, the tempest that tore
through his composure.

They followed him, carefully,
through the dining room,
the hall, the living room, kitchen.
In the bedroom he could move
no more, rudderless before
a full-wall painting of
his wife's dream vacation.
They left him cross-legged
in front of that mural, breathless.
"Need to get away," he told them.
_________________________________________________

 Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Common, They Say (OG Version)

By any other name

Day 9: Couldn't get anything with today's prompt, so here's this, instead.

photo by Fong Qi Wei

An untethered urgency hangs from his head,
a crown of worry weighting him forward,
trapped in a formal bow to the afternoon heat.

And to the dockside he goes, a quiet man
bothered only by his own insistence on denim,
sweating in a greenhouse of highly textured blue.

And at the water's edge he sits, contemplative.
Here he finds something he wasn't looking for,
a small joy, buried in the furious eddy of the river.

And in its drooping folds he finds her, lost, crying,
a tiny jewel cast aside at the last - a tragedy, he thinks.
He peers side to side, hopeful not to find the owner.

An untethered urgency tumbles from his head
and his back springs up - a tall, unweighted coil
to lift a dying man back to life - back to love.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
St. Vincent, Strange Mercy

Heritage

With help from the below, by Adam de Boer. 

And can you hear the cheers go up?
A soft swell at first, 
perhaps a moment or two
for those in the back
to realize what has begun. 
But then...
Oh, but then...
A tempest does rage,

and for centuries, even millenia.
Seconds.

A lazy caterpillar to the top of the branch,
a stunning butterfly back down
to the masses,
and all televised! What luck!
The bird sounds mean nothing.
The pointy hats?
Even less.
But who's to judge?
_________________________________________________

Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Andrew Bird, Danse Caribe