AN ACCIDENTAL BRIDGE.

This blog is on hiatus.

2009-07-12T10:48:00.003-05:00

Between

2009-04-19T19:39:00.001-05:00

Between us daylight shifts water
to chalky fingerprints
on a blackboard sky.
You, anonymous girl, peel
by my frosted window again
in bruised banana car.
The white dusted lane, some distance
from my kitchen prison
never reveals your one-way smile,
only a blurred sheet metal mile.

Between us red flashes
winged ghosts into a cardinal’s
crown, piercing the end of another day.
I would not know you
if you stood near me reading,
silver cart filled with shitakes
and cheap white wine.
Tonight you offer inflated castles,
but tow them down the gravel
like wind dancing in winter grass.

Between us desire passes
turning pages of falling leaves
erasing the blackboard sky.
Did you angle a glance today,
me standing hands deep
in lonely soap and soup grease?
No. There was no chance or nod or toot
of horn, no loving angel born.
Just the evening road again, a bit of dusty
autumn air, chilled with time and rust.

2009-03-17T15:28:00.001-05:00

SNAPSHOT

Silhouetted drummers
against a pink sunset riding on the waves.
An old man dances
and a little boy on a bike with training wheels grins at me.
Passing cars honk and passengers crane their necks
to see the source of the sound.
An innocent girl smiles sweetly as I stop to listen...
Captivated.
Tapping my finger on the tailgate of a truck
in sync with the rhythm of every human heart.

John Langford

Last Night

2009-02-20T13:37:00.001-06:00

DREAM

The dream opens & closes
like a woman dressing
& undressing for a party
she does not want to attend.
Fresh baked bread going cold.
And the shimmering
of northern lights,
white ribbed wings
stabbing the snowy tree tops.
You lay naked & the wall is falling
open into space in a flash
and the wall goes on
like ten milkyways & the distant crackling
of stars. Frozen stars. Lucent lake ice.
And the voice is in the water.
New water, different voice.
The door is narrow.
Water breaks out
from the ice to the light.
Light years away from you.
It’s how I grow wings.
To escape.
It’s how we reinvent.
It’s how we float to the sky.
And we are ice, solid & thick & crystal.
But what I see in my sleep is fluid
like your tongue.
It moves & answers
questions before it.
It’s like that.
It’s like you.

2009-01-03T16:45:00.004-06:00

A Natural History

by Jack Helder

I

They say Michigan white pine
rebuilt Chicago
after the Great Fire,
back when everyone believed
the miracle of trees
would last
five centuries or more.

II

Only nightfall stopped the ax and saw,
when loons began to mourn
from pinesmoke hovering the lake.
The dry mist stung the eyes like tears
as shanty boys and river hogs
downed stacks of redhorse beef
and echo plum beans
to feed the crosscut teeth of progress.

III

Hard to believe
no one was watching
loggers invent a language
for making moonscapes
and gutting rivers like a doe.
In photographs brittle as birch bark,
they pose on giant logs
laid out like so much wild game.

Behind a scratched glass case,
a neat quill script notes
each man’s name and wage,
the daily harvest,
and casually records
that near Traverse City
there was a tall white pine
yielding enough board feet
to build a house,
a giant that took root
the same year Columbus floundered
on the fresh, green breast
of the New World.

IV

East of Grand Marais
there’s a great log slide
like a mile-high scar
on the face of Lake Superior.
Across the landscape,
sand still bleeds
from a hundred high rollways,
and in every river
rest wooden relics
that escaped the drive
to sink beneath a silk shroud
or grow parched and hollow
in the sun.

V

A postage stamp of virgin pine
survived the locust march
to become a state park
north of Grayling,
which hasn’t seen a winged trout
since 1938,
long after the lumber barons
moved on west,
leaving a trail of Victorian splendor
from Saginaw to Manistee,
to become law offices
and funeral parlors
along main street.

VI

There was a time trees drew deep
on the earth’s dark marrow,
drank clouds of clear rain,
and so devoured the sun
that a man could walk
the entire state in their shadow.
But now one hot breath from Chicago
could sweep a forest flat,
expose roots pale as entrails,
and tear away the thin scalp
to leave bones
clacking in the breeze.

Across Michigan,
too many Manitou have died,
bereft among woods too soft
to nourish a myth,
their concentric rings too few
to encircle even our lives.

VII

Up in Oregon, rumor has it
some folks still spike trees
with a three-penny nail
to eat a sawmill blade.
The temptation is so great
that we might yet hope
to meet a spirit some day,
to at least hear the lilt
of her song in the wind,
glimpse her bright veil
draping like sunlight
from a canopy of hardwoods,
see the flutter of her skirt
in a turning season.

VII

Still,
every day,
the New York Times
requires the lives
of 50,000 trees.

VIII

Under sagging lodgepoles,
old men mourn the days of shade,
pass the pipe, and dream
of the Wasichu, “he who eats the fat,”
he who fingers his dull blade
and stares at the sea
from the edge of the earth,
then slowly begins to carve away
at his own heart.

2009-01-03T16:28:00.005-06:00

THIRTEEN STEPS OF YOU

You watch your life shimmering
in blue logs
as your other brother
stokes the swimming sweatlodge
embers.

You stand naked
in a frigid stream
waiting for love to gather
enough steam to cleanse
your frayed around the edges life.

You shudder awake In Texas,
in the middle of a night
as another river rises from it’s broken bed
crawling up the thirteen steps
to occupy your empty bedroom.

You loved her before this blizzard
of rain and ashen dust, before the snow,
before, while sleepwalking through your life
you crossed an accidental bridge
into her.

6/7/89

2008-12-15T11:24:00.000-06:00

My first wife would tell me over coffee in the morning. She'd say,"Well, do you remember last night? You did it again. Do you remember?" Then she would stare at me biting the inside of her lower lip fast like she does. Like her mom did. Like our daughter will. She'd just sit working her lip like that and wait, holding her coffee cup up to her mouth, with both hands, staring over the rim. Then eventually I'd say, “What?”, and look dumb like I didn't hear her. Like I didn't know what was coming. Like it had never happened before. Then she'd say it again. “Well, do you remember?" Then she would stare at me, now biting the inside of her cheek. Biting it fast like her mom did before she died of the aneurism. She'd just sit there chomping on herself. “Well? Do you?” "Do I what?" I'd say. Still playing dumb. "Do you remember? Last night?" Then I'd lie. "Yeah I remember, what about it?" And she'd say, "No you don't. You can't remember a motherfucking thing. Not one goddamn fucking thing. You were gone pal. Out of it. Blotto. Shit faced”. Then sometimes I would get up and walk out to the street and just keep going. I wouldn’t know where I was going. But, most of the time I would get up, pour another cup of coffee and wait. Wait for what I knew was coming.

Bogdanov Art

2008-12-14T13:23:00.002-06:00

2008-12-13T11:49:00.001-06:00

MONDAY MOON

You rape the nude darkness
Pink on the wet earthen edge
Lowdown southern fingernail moon
Slender devious parthian smile
Xactoed from black & battered sky
Your tiny sidekicks Venus & Jupiter
Act your sparkling eyes tonight
Your bare live oak arms dance up
To confiscate the snowflake frown
Your white teeth chattering down
Dominoes of shattered diamonds
You light the billion unlit candles

The Screamer Company-THREE

2008-12-08T08:42:00.010-06:00

Over 200 drunken guests (and a few uninvited strangers) recently joined The Screamer Company in Austin to launch THREE, our latest art publication. THREE is the fourth edition of our employee-conceived and inspired international publication. Its only purpose is to provide an outlet for artists and poets to publish work, and to allow a group of crazies to gather and drink barrels of wine from our kitchen sink. (That means you Alison with an i) After we ran out, I personally made two trips to the well-lit 7-11 next door to the tune of $158.57 to buy various flavors of the grape for the well-lit. The first edition of our publication was titled “Zero” and each successive zine and party has grown in size and scope. Although Austin is well represented, submissions came from as far away as California, New York, Australia, Canada, Wales and Italy.

You can go home again

2008-12-03T10:50:00.005-06:00

My daughter wanted a darkroom. She shoots a lot of images, with her cell phone, her digital camera, her Holga and the K1000 I bought her. She also processes film in her high school photo class. But she wanted a place at home where she could play. I found a complete darkroom on craigslist for a ridiculously low price so we spent the past two weeks setting up in a spare bedroom and bath. It's a nice little rig that can be up and running in minutes. College was my introduction into the darkroom and really that first photo class was a turning point in my art career. The magic of processing film and making prints was life changing. I talk to a lot of fellow creatives today who had the same photo epiphany. Maybe that's why so many art directors form lasting friendships with photographers. So as you can guess, I spent a bunch of time playing over the holiday weekend. I found some old negs, but it sparked me to get out and shoot some new work or dig deeper for my stash of negatives. After just a short time breathing the chemicals, I felt like I had come home again.

New Photography-Kyla Witherspoon

2008-11-16T20:37:00.006-06:00

As many of you know, one of my favorite photographers is my 16 year old daughter Kyla. This is some of her latest work.

HOTPOINT!

2008-11-16T20:09:00.004-06:00

Rogue River Farm

2008-10-19T13:12:00.006-05:00

My friend Theresa lives in Rockford, Michigan. She's starting a small nursery there on her 1800s farm along the Rogue River. She really has a passion for growing things and has the perfect setting for her new business Rogue River Farm. Visit her new site at http://rogueriverfarm.com/ It's just a front page for now, but will soon blossom into a full blown site. Send her an email to encourage her please.

Hello Goodbye

2008-10-05T11:31:00.012-05:00

My little girl isn’t so little anymore. It seems like only one cold February or two ago that I looked into her tiny eyes for the first time falling instantly and unconditionally in love. Now she is sixteen and finding her own way in life. Last night she attended a homecoming dance complete with shopping for her dress, getting ready with her friend at our house, a last minute trip for new nail polish, a pre-dance dinner with the boys and, of course, proud parental photos. We fathers are hardwired to protect our children and especially our baby girls. I have taken my preordained job seriously. But, over the past few years I have been preparing for the inevitable as Kyla says goodbye to childhood and hello to womanhood. She has been the center of my life for the past sixteen years. We have always been together through good times and some rough periods. She has been my friend, my travel partner, my fellow pollywog farmer and explorer of life. I have to say that I am a much better person for knowing her. I consider it a deep responsibility and humble privilege to be Kyla’s father and I look forward to many more loving hellos and goodbyes.

New Writing

2008-09-08T21:56:00.005-05:00

THAT NIGHT ON THE FARM

All night that owl perched on the razor
peak of our 100-year old farm house,
feet bleeding, dripping into our creek,
gloating with nocturnal x-ray vision
and old wives-tale wisdom, head floating
270 degrees ‘round, those citrine eyes
laser-like in rodent grass. The forest
of bones just beyond, hiding all those fresh
truths, flesh and plasma in tangerine leaves.
Safe inside my pillow, I soared in dreams
of youth and expectation, waking
only to his foul breath burning my neck.
I realized then that he had heard our fight
earlier, wondering if he knew that you
didn’t mean half of what you said, again.
You lay there quiet, although you often
cried out in our cold sheets, your insatiable
past preying. You frightened me when
we first met, before I learned you were just
serrated feathers and hollow bones,
sometimes swallowing me whole, but always
spitting out enough to keep our love alive.
You’ll never know how close we came
to steel talons, to a bloody beak
of pain, the lust of blood that night.
At first light I watched your soul
and the dark rockets of your nipples
lift off from deep inside your life
over and over again. It was then
that I knew this is all we may
ever have, the cockscrow
swooping in, our fragile wings
still damp from midnight love.

New Poem

2008-09-08T21:52:00.004-05:00

ATTENDING AN EX-LOVER’S ART OPENING

It’s OK that you have drawn his bedroom
more detailed than mine, that your hand
was loose that day and that you use fine words
like chiaroscuro when you talk about the way
he smiles. And the purple. Perfect, power
and virility, king of his small domain.
I understand unintended overstatement.
I once wrote a poem about another woman,
that read, “Her love is like a clock ripening
on the wall. I wait for her to spit out time’s
twelve magic seeds one tongue at a time”.

All your lover’s bedrooms? What a great
idea for the body of work you have held so tight
since your last divorce, since us. And now here
it is splattered out like those nights we created
in our bed, sheets pulled tight, like the canvas
stretched along these albino walls tonight.
I could stand here alone like an unused brush,
or perhaps have another glass of cheap chardonnay
and pretend like I’m enjoying the hors d'oeuvre,
or maybe flirt with the dark skinned art student server.
Look at your entourage hanging on your
every word, like you just painted a chapel ceiling,
or chipped away everything that didn’t belong
in a block of granite the size of the Mini Cooper
you now drive recklessly through the streets
of this flaming city we once owned.

Home Sweet Home

2008-09-06T23:57:00.009-05:00

Under the Influence of Friends

2008-09-06T23:08:00.016-05:00

On my recent summer trip to Michigan I had lunch in East Lansing with my best friend Theresa, my old friend Jack Helder and his incredible wife MJ. It reminded me of a story from a few years back: I was visiting my photographer friend Bob Neumann at his cabin in northern Michigan along the Manistee river. Bob, being the consummate host, placed a few books on my pillow so I could wind down before going to sleep. I picked up a book of poems by Michael Delp, “Under the Influence of Water”. The poems seemed familiar. I flipped to the inside front cover and suddenly realized it was my book! There, inside, was a handwritten note from Jack who had given the book to me years earlier when my daughter was still a baby. I think I must have told him about some of my fears surrounding being a father - protecting her from the unexpected storms that life can send. Kyla is sixteen now, a junior in high school and an incredible kid. I must have left the book at one of Bob’s houses over the years. The next morning while everyone was packing to leave, I sat at the picnic table under a giant white pine, near the fire pit, and began, again, my quest to write. I started thinking about how Bob and I had drifted apart and the heartache and loss of that inspired a poem. Years before, Jack’s kind gift had set in motion a series of events, that sparked something in me on an October Michigan day that has kept me writing, exploring, examining love, loss, fears and this mysterious trip we are all on.

NEW POETRY

2008-06-19T11:11:00.001-05:00

FEBRUARY 13TH

The recipe, a stained gift from your mother’s
flour coated heart, the yeast, the fermentation,
all there on the table between us. And the butter
reclined soft on a dish, waiting a turn to be loved.
And the perfect loaves on top of the fridge rising,
like us. You leading me to your 425-degree bed,
hands on the headboard, apron jilted on the rug.
That was the beginning of us, and the end of us.
At sundown, we watched snow sifting the trees
from garden walls, two tongues making love
to the bread, devouring the time we had.
And butter ran like rivers of salt down your chin.
And there were rusted flowers in the green vase
you took from your father’s hermit house.
And you trusted we had until morning,
that last morning, the oven moaning away.

New Art-Kyla Witherspoon

2008-06-01T20:05:00.005-05:00

New collage art by one of my favorite artists, 16-year old Kyla Witherspoon (my daughter). This is a school project to alter a purchased book. Kyla chose a 1963 year book from Richardson High School in Richardson, Texas. The year book belonged to student Ann Anderson. Her name appears in the front of the book along with all the handwritten notes from her classmates.

MJ

2008-05-05T23:20:00.010-05:00

Whaddaya do when the best oncologists tell you that you won’t live a year?

There’s no script, but you take something with you that one of the oncologists – the one you elected to work with, by no coincidence – shared: Cancer has only one upside. “It can give you the gift of relishing every moment you have left, and every person you care about.” And so it has. A life long nonsmoker, retired art teacher MaryJane was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer in April of 2006. Two years and five months later, in August of 2008, she will be showing her latest media, felted art, at her favorite gallery in East Lansing, Michigan - Mackerel Sky. With the help of friends and her copywriter husband, she has gone to her studio regularly, except when most ill from the chemo or cancer. Six weeks ago she received her most recent diagnosis of 6 months to live, and then she and her husband left for a week in Napa and Sonoma with friends, and she has plans to attend dogs shows with her Salukis in several states and provinces over the summer. Currently, “MJ” feels the best she has in 18 months, and is on a roll. Her greatest pleasure is working in her studio, playing with wool, connected to something primitive and traditional in a new way. She says she could not have kept going without the love of what she does, the love of friends, the love of her life, and her love for life.

New Writing

2008-04-11T21:38:00.005-05:00

RESURECTION

A hardboiled egg peeled at 4:33 am,
a week past Easter, purple, cardboard salt
shaker and full moon rising over Vanderpool
in a musty log cabin. The crystal river holding
the gift of the hills together like silver ribbon.
I was thinking about my daughter and how
I could have been a better father and asking
myself why work was the center of my life,
knowing it was too late for change.
I felt like the lost peacock wandering our street
every morning, all dressed up, plaintive call,
but nothing answers. The occasional squall
rolling in to wash life clean for a few hours.
Over a bridge the roar of two-wheeled
chrome and flame penises in from the city,
a rooster crowing somewhere in the bamboo,
but I wasn’t ready to wake up, not yet.

In Vanderpool Texas

2008-04-07T20:03:00.015-05:00

Just recently I treated myself to a long needed working weekend vacation out to one of my favorite places on earth-Vanderpool, Texas. Near Lost Maples State Natural Area. This spot is an inspiring mixture of limestone cliffs, deep canyons, 2500 elevation, dense woods, and gorgeous clear streams. And, it’s home to Texas’ largest stand of bigtooth maples. Spring is my favorite time here, but when conditions are right, the maple leaves put on a show of fall colors rarely seen in Texas. For a Michigan boy, that’s like pure heaven.

I rented a cabin on the Sabinal River and spent the entire weekend writing, eating simple food, drinking wine, taking photos and napping. I took a couple of hikes down the creek and cruised the blacktop too-one of my favorite things in the world to do. My dad turned me on to back road cruising as a boy. He always liked getting off the beaten path and heading down a two lane shortcut. I love it to this day.

It was an incredible weekend communing with nature and moving some writing along the path to hopeful publication. And, my cell phone read, NO SERVICE all weekend long. (Enjoy the photos)

Flowers Love Dirt

2008-01-11T16:02:00.000-06:00