Chicagonia, Part 2

Do not be deceived.  It got really cold up there.  I stood outdoors in -7F & -11F temperatures.

Smoketree Serenade

 

 

Pathways to Enchantment ... or danger.

 

Western Texas

Flagstaff Arizona

Allegedly Haunted Gettysburg

East Coast of Florida.  Actually an inlet.

Thousands of miles from Spain.

Gettysburg: Where the guns are forever silent. Version 2

                                               The most historic battlefield in the United States
                                           is now an expansive field of peace and contemplation.
                                       You can actually take a perceptive on life and re-evaluate
                                          your priorities as you walk throughout the battlefield.

51,000 Americans died here in three days.  58,000 died in Vietnam in nine years.

The feeling of peace was tremendous, on a background of serious reflection.

A farmer literally came out of his house and joined in the battle.

Having your horse shot out from under you was par for the course.

Union artillery would target one row of Confederate canons and fire away, until
they were out of action.  Then, Union guns would target another row, systematically
decimating Confederate artillery units.

Barns and large houses would suddenly become hospitals.

This was before the implementation of barbed wire and razor wire.

Capturing an enemy flag was a major accomplishment.

A historic battlefield becomes an even more historic cemetery.

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The town of Gettysburg, itself.

The town has not been modernized.

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Meanwhile, Beneath the Strawberry Skyline

by Steve Sleboda and Pat Pontillo
(Steve wrote the even numbered stanzas)

The ace of spades held deeply within a conspiratorial sleeve
floated downward, through the mass of clouds that pushed
the continental plates of a strawberry skyline
into a dark gravity that once held the moon over an ocean's balcony.

The maps lay frozen under camps of the enemy where friendly fire grew wings.
Spotted birds delivering porridge to the ancestors weep tears of a frayed greenery.
Courage scampers across borders of arrogance, in pockets of disgust & fame.
There was a sound coming from the well, along with a light only the cricket knew.

Tracer bullets at midnight and then pistols at dawn, followed by flash bulbs firing off
in the minds of the survivors who see encores of the tragedy in a theater of fear.
A distant solitary planet, posing as a star, clears a granulated sky
during another cricketless night.

There are no borders to conceal the glow coming from the starless distance.
Energy given to the language where voice is a sand dune
and where thought has no spike under its tongue,
as it grapples with the snail in the mirror.

Gravity turns its head back toward the scene of the accident
where, within its perimeters, rain puddles reflect the pulse of red lights.
Everyone crosses the Do Not Cross line in a disheveled motion
that resembles a mud dried trench coat which once sat under a Christmas tree.

The owl lands in the oak above the tarp covering the memory of cloth.
Trying to find a priest in this century is forbidden and will not be tolerated.
Deliveries to the warehouse out back startle the innocent one.
Let's call it a day and welcome homeless a new generation of dissonant strangers.

Eyes of Blue Seas

 I once felt your steps,
as we walked past the midnight crossroads of the stars.

Upon occasion, in a crease of the same crossroad night                                                                                   open wounds would silently reflect the sky.
Once upon a time, the sky predictably opened
and silver watches fell out of pockets of time.

During daylight hours, upon the same terrain,
birds of smoke suddenly dissolved upon crashing headlong,
into a faintly familiar slate-blue sky

The cracking of wooden percussion instruments
in a broken processional rhythm
generated a slight vibration
and then an apprehension,
which caused a mountain lion to turn his head and walk away.

Yet, the sound that you hear in the distance
shouldn't be any cause of concern for you,
because it is nothing more than collective voices
crossing a battlefield, crying out loud "Mine! All mine!,"
atop the rumble of mechanized war horses racing to their riders' deaths.

Perhaps, just perhaps, we can run against the currents of destiny's thunder
and resist the temptation to wash ourselves away in the rain.

Maybe, just maybe, we can avoid the pox-marked road
that lead to the scratched-out address of ruins
once written upon splintered street posts
that lines rows of storybook fields.

Possibly, just possibly, we can veer away from the obvious
and go in the direction of what was first seen so very long ago,
during leaf droplet dawns, by eyes of blue seas.
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