Splendour of snow blown sideways
through the penitentiary yard,
plastering the brown scissor-blade legs
of cattails in the ditch, filling keyholes
& every available crack,
razor-wire softening into white ropes
when the bang of an unfastened corncrib door
brings everyone — the guards
& the guarded — to a full stop.
This was once an ordinary farm
with ordinary livestock.
Ghostly pigeons arrive
from a blurred-out depth of field.
“Splendour of snow blown sideways…”
I love the sound of that. Needs to be read aloud. Good crunchy winter poem.
I love that this feels like encountering a stack of Flickr photographs. After reading it, I had to go back and check to see if there was a photo in there somewhere. Vivid! I feel like I’ve thumbed through an entire NY Times multi-media pop-up from a news event.
I rate this tequila an ” anejo ” (as opposed to “reposado”)
Thanks, Natalie. Evan, that’s an interesting reaction. I wonder if my poetry has been influenced by my photoblogging — or did I take to the latter simply because I’ve always been a visual thinker?
(And why did I use the British spelling for “splendour”? Hmm.)
I’m not sure which way the influence runs, but certainly there’s a deep link between your photography and your writing. Your words tend to be meditations on image or epiphany, while your photos are the sort to be ruminated over… “the way that shadow falls is like…”, “that tree has such an attitude of…” .
O.K. Well, if I ever need a blurb for a book derived from this blog, I guess I know who to ask!