Photos – Page 3 – Via Negativa

February 10, 2024February 10, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Microcosmic

like a bloodshot eye
with a black pupil

crab-walking across my knee
a blacklegged tick

oh lovely horror
i take three photos

then decapitate
with a persistent thumbnail

the meek are inheriting the earth
with increasing speed

last night i came home
to an old cocoon

from one of the giant silkworms
lying on my doorstep

fabricated from a single leaf
like a dolma tied with silk

long since vacated
and weathered to old gold

and now the wind has taken
some interest in it

this empty shroud
that gave birth to wings

and to think i almost didn’t
crouch down to look

where does it come from
this disinclination

to get down close
and attend to the details

where the devil is said to dwell
among the flies

forefeet coming together
like prayerful hands

that’s what will finish us off
the piety of carrion-lovers

i tell a clump of sagging puffballs
on a stump beside the trail

their blunderbusses pointed
up down and sideways

i give one a tap
the smallest gray cloud of spores

spurts out and rides
off on the wind

Plummer’s Hollow, February 9, 2024

February 5, 2024February 5, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Self-Censorship Ritual

This entry is part 5 of 8 in the series Rituals

this fragile midnight
its rich veins of blood

let a tooth take root
in a soft skull

at the end of the earth
this very crescent

a high C
guttering in a puddle

or lodged like an eyelash
under your island

at another end of the earth
a drone army

firing tree seeds
into clearcut mountains

if you have a price
you’re not a prophet

go self-censor
for the bathroom mirror

between sleeps
knowing they no longer knock

February 4, 2024February 5, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Gone to the Pine

in the stories i tell myself
i am sour milk

good for pancakes
or a cat if i had one

sitting somewhere warm
fur shining white

i am empty-handed
and approximately dressed

but look how much pine
can be knit just from sunlight

evergreen needles
barely moving

though i feel an icy breath
on the back of my neck

coming out of the rocks
where i’ve arranged my seat

just below the crest
of a high wooded spine

the tall pine is hollow
with a stripe of dead wood

from a devastating flash
severing the present

from the past with its absence
of woodpeckers

i follow the shadow
to a seedling pine

on a small carpet of moss
laid out on the rocks

the stories shed
their owl pellets

time to hunker down and scavenge
the best bits

Rothrock State Forest above Barree
Feb. 3, 2024

February 2, 2024February 2, 2024 by Dave Bonta

This Land is No-Man’s Land

a clarinetist crossing
the country by bus

gives his instrument
the window seat

locked in its case
dreaming of a sea of reeds

old ice dull as the eye
of a dead turtle

yellow stumps of alders
carved by yellow teeth

where waterlogged oaks
grow skirts of moss

and a thorn forest reclaims
an abandoned pasture

a school bus has graduated
it sports a satellite dish

encircled by the sighs
of half-dead pines

the musician’s fingers
grow restless on his lap

caught in the clarinet’s
clear net

January 30, 2024February 5, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Bad Faith Ritual

This entry is part 4 of 8 in the series Rituals

you rise and then what
whose hand will throw your stone

there’s a shape in the sand
that’s got your name on it

a cartoon heart perhaps
or half a castle

let’s snort the headlines
and see who sneezes first

play a game of hashtag
among lifeless bodies of evidence

and collect our empties
for deposit only

five cents for a jack boot
ten cents for a child’s shoe

twisting our tongues as she sells
spent shells by the seashore

i’m not waving but droning
unmanned and wired
to go off

January 18, 2024January 18, 2024 by Dave Bonta

January Blues

shadows on the snow
stretched out as if in prayer

the sound made by a spring
as ice smothers it

news that breaks and breaks
on slow snowshoes left right

here the urgent leaps
of a white-footed mouse

there a coyote pair
taking turns breaking trail

squirrels in heat
their labyrinthine urges

skeletal feathers of frost
where a vole is breathing

all just uphill from the interstate
a thing shown on maps

and a town in the mountains
taken over by mountains of snow

in every parking lot
another white peak

the pigeons rise
become a flock of rock doves

revolving in the blue
like a stuck tire

January 12, 2024January 12, 2024 by Dave Bonta

Chionophile

a connoisseur of oblivion
i begin with small omissions

goodbye to the twigs of my fingers
farewell to the far in my feet

my neglected face goes feral
till i’m lost in a forest of fur

closer and closer to the color of snow
as i grow colder

away from any furrow
burrowing into the twilight

catching flakes on my tongue
that taste like nothing else

Chionophiles are any organisms (animals, plants, fungi, etc.) that can thrive in cold winter conditions (the word is derived from the Greek word chion meaning “snow”, and -phile meaning “lover”). These animals have specialized adaptations that help them survive the harshest winters.
Wikipedia

January 7, 2024January 7, 2024 by Dave Bonta