Hierophany

Sky chopper
Knows all the traffic.
Barges float on,
Down the river,
Under bridges.
The clouds signal weather;
The banks give time and temp.
And I find yet another reason.

This entry posted by J Rand : 18:13

21
Shy but rugged stars
Have hiked the hills
But never walk the streets.


22
I could spend all night
Viewing the moon and writing.
Or I could sleep-dream.


23
The cop who stops to weep
On the shoulder of the road
Slows a thousand speeders.


24
Caught on the tracks
After tagging a train car.
Second coat still wet.


25
When a cry for help
Is hard on your health.
Saxophone doth wail, wail.

This entry posted by J Rand : 13:12

Home, going back home.  To
Where my parents live, still
Live, on the other side of my old
Room.  It’s filled with treasures
Of forgotten days, the
Treasures now forgotten themselves,
Sunk to the murky floor of my life’s ocean
Along with pencil-hearted notes
And the odd extra-base hit I managed.
I go home, look around.  I always
Expect to find something.
A twenty stashed away in a spare copy of
Walden, a perc cracked in half and left to rest
In a piece of bad pottery from high school ceramics.
I open a closet so quiet and cold,
So grateful to see me—to see anyone.
I read again through old writings
And I try to believe I’ve found something
I can use.  I tell myself I’m in those pages,
I’m somewhere around here.  Playing hot/cold
With the past I get warm, warmer, waaarrmmerrr,
I’m burning up!—I find myself
Balled to a crisp in the sock drawer,
Where I’ve always been hiding, mixed in with the
Mexican coins and a dead man’s cufflinks.

This entry posted by J Rand : 14:46

The law has found
A nick on my soul.
And begun to lick reasonably,
Like a cat on the porch in late summer,
cleaning its clean paws.
It believes it’s helping
But that’s not the point.
The nick becomes a cut,
Becomes a gash, a wound.
Their maws dripping
With green compunction,
More and more laws
Throw themselves
Into my righteous abyss.
They sink to the bottom,
Always deeper.
They drown in words ambiguous,
Looking back up to the surface
In hopes of spotting someone
Who will shed his robe
And dive on down to them.
Who will know exactly what they mean.

This entry posted by J Rand : 06:49

11
Whatever he does,
he can’t walk him here—
oh, God, he hit him…


12
Ray and I
call him Joe Table—
José Mesa.


13
Who cares how much
money he makes—
All-Star shortstop.


14
No need to
finish the inning—
walk-off homer.


15
“On the run, on the run:
he can’t get it—!”
Batter waved on toward home…

This entry posted by J Rand : 10:28

          along the long, tidal river
                     an indian word meaning
               college towns
                     a good use of land
          evergreens
                          pine and droopy fir
                          pinecones growing thick
                                 this time of year
               hike anywhere
               hike in your backyard
               up one of those hills
               see a warehouse from there
                                                                  a pond
          industry then forest
          forest then industry
          subdivisions before subdivisions
               advent and yellow buses
               bright as the low-hanging moon
                                 trucking its way through winter-white
                                 & brown/green
          undisturbed trees are islands
                     in a tobacco farmer’s fields
                     red barns for drying
                     long as a runway

          europe colony connecticut

                     a highway knowing where to go
                     a river not dammed
                                 happy with ice
                     its fish headed south
                                 for a night
                                 in the sea-borne city.

          They swim with the lights of disco in their eyes.

This entry posted by J Rand : 08:24

16
Stars make faces
When they tread the spaces
Between themselves and Earth.


17
Full summer-moon
And arch of garden hose—
You too can make a moonbow.


18
Mississippi
And Ohio confluence—
Almost an ocean.


19
Spending a summer’s night reading—
June bug fights the window screen.


20
Can I love everyone at once?
Moon shrouded
By only a bit of haze.

This entry posted by J Rand : 08:49

I spoke my last word
Before time began
But still I wait to hear it.
It’s nothing
To get paranoid about—
Wondering if the word, heard,
Would take me back
Before the beginning,
When the brittle word was all I was,
And maybe my mind would come,
Maybe it would not.
I worry that if I hear the word wrong
My face will come out different,
My spiritual DNA will twist
With someone else’s memories & fears—
But, I tell myself,
It is worry alone
That makes the word brittle.
As long as I am not listening,
I will hear it fine.

This entry posted by J Rand : 18:01