Taylor Creek
Footprints. Polka dot residue
stagger along mountain trails
to a world beyond stadiums and letter grades.
It burns. The forest floor on fire and up the
haggard walls.
The sun still casts a
—spotlight—
on trees that shiver. The leaves applaud
as we walk along pink sands
of Arabian mist. Juniper.
A vision of Van Gogh sprouts
toward the sky like yellowed claw.
Twisted, papery white bark dissolves
under delicate fingertips.
Their knotted eyes watch on.
(Tree) Fallen. Bridge.
Like a lizard; like the starving trees
we soak—not in water, but in rays.
Rays that guide us to the bathhouse of
a goddess.
May she wash her hair in this eternal beauty.
***
Inspired by Netflix’s “Godless”
In a land of grit and melted sunsets,
tumbleweed crossings and scorpion tongues,
the red rock tells of a legend.
Abandoned saloons weep grains of sand
across rotting floorboards.
Wooden stalls collapse to set mares free.
The land is bone, the air sipped through a straw
and still the Joshua trees turn toward hope.
Phantom screeches haunt such
desolate
times. There is nothing left.
Gunshots ring into the air, fire devours,
consumes splintered walls and rooftops.
There is no mercy in a Godless place.
Just a faded sign pointing due-South,
And a rusted key—skeleton key—
to open the myth
one drop of blood at a time.
***
Scars
These trees are barren,
but there was a time when the golds
held more worth than the Benjamins
in your pocket; than the vibrant
fires, sunsets, rainbows plastered
against the mountainside.
Then the cold rolled through. Branches
naked,
shivering without the warmth
of a colorful coat. Alone—carelessly exposed
from the breath of winter.
Now the freezing water—
not frozen—pierces the skin
like a blade. It burns the flesh and
leaves it raw, agitated, red like the
fallen leaves now ground to a petaled dust.
All color has drained like a disease
in the midst of this seasonal limbo.
Fog drifts through city streets
and poisons the cragged road
and warm-tinted streetlamps.
And now the sky is pasty
white. A sheet of paper.
The ceiling of a bedroom.
The healing tissue of these
ragged scars.