Category: Photos

See also my Woodrat photoblog and my Flickr account.

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Ritual of Capitulation

This entry is part 11 of 11 in the series Rituals

 

first a festival of gestures
and some time to genuflect
to a higher hierophant

as if anyone still puts stock
in stick figures
unlikely ever to leaf out

unlikeable to lichen
too glossy for moss
untender as tinder

but sticks in the mud are needed
to feed the smoke machine
and please a little siezer

some might be ham-
fingered fecklusters
while others must be utter
butter-fisted tooltips

but all stick to their figures
and abandon their posts
on highway signage
and warning lables
who will coddle the muddle-
headed now

their everyman act puts actual
everypeople to shame
the deep state’s
deepest fakes

their winter of discontent
comes with the best
most luxurious fireplaces

till ashes ashes
and an insurgent May

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Beachhead

putting my phone away
the plushness of the moss

at its greenest now
at the end of a hard winter

a butterfly dances past
like a lost carnival float

the naked trees sway
gray and weather-eaten

i find a habitable hush
in the shade of a pine

though from time to time
a moan interjects

the sound of friction
with a too-close neighbor

a wild lettuce seed drifts
on a pompon of down

up over the mountain
and out across the valley

where every raw patch
of plowed or scoured earth

calls to the migrant killdeer
as an unclaimed shore

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Thaw

a chaos of paths
stops me in my tracks

tumbleweed AKA windwitch
stuck in the icy crust

while moss and lichen
nearby are melting free

touseled but upright
with gray cups upraised

a crushed plastic water bottle
rests like a saint in its icy crypt

the ground shakes
from a coal train

one piece of passing graffiti says
in gothic letters GET OUT

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Meanwhile

crown shyness as they call it
saves the trees
from foreign entanglements

as shrinkwrapped
in ice they glitter
and shed dead limbs

now in my woodstove
a tongue of flame makes
a knot explode

smoke from my chimney
sinks to the ground
and ghosts off into the forest

where i soon follow
over the ice
with chains on my feet

seeking patches of snow
left behind by the wind
for news of spring

chipmunk forays
out of hibernation
the braided tracks of coyotes

bright green
scraps of moss
dug up by a squirrel

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Winter Visions

what snow reveals
in hiding the ground

is no less than the lay of the land
under her fur of bare trees

the curves become clear
their geologic easier to follow

plain as a line of tracks
snow’s other revelation

how the land does in fact
belong to many others

who happen to keep
largely to themselves

as witnessed by hoarfrost
forming at the mouth of a burrow

from some deep breather
in a dreamless den

or the snow angel left
by an owl’s midnight raid

the splay of featherprints
a few drops of blood

disappearing in a squall
the snow showing its truest face

and when it stops
the air smells cleaner

a junco pours out his song
beside the spring

its dark water a refuge
from all this seeing

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Ritual of Crying Wolf

iron storm grate with a pattern like a Medieval shield and the word STORM at the center
This entry is part 9 of 11 in the series Rituals

 

iron storm grate with a pattern like a Medieval shield and the word STORM at the center

wolf down a dog’s
breakfast of hype

cry in unison
use every lost key

feed the feedback
pierce some eardrums

that’s how unutterable
this wolf is

hold haters in contempt
be holocaustic

inspire fear
freeze in the headlights

disbelieve that anyone might choose
the actual wolf

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Snow Day

whither the snows of yesteryear
if not in this very weather

stand under a conifer’s fur
and begin to understand

absence prickling in the nose
no good or bad scents

furrows drift over as if
the storm were a harrow

aches forgotten i’m agog
at snow falling through oaks

inevitable snowflakes in my tea
taste of the ineffable

Posted on by Dave Bonta

Giving Thanks

You can be anything now, I whisper to the corpse — an approximate truth in the approved manner of motivational speeches. Outside, the obnoxious brightness continues, unmitigated by any warmth, pouring through the naked oaks and birches. The news comes on, replacing the golden oldies with dispatches from a world where unlimited growth is possible, and a violent dying empire can only be a force for good. Grandmother sighs and settles deeper into her mystery.

November sun –
an owl-shaped shadow
opening its eyes