Sunday, December 21, 2014

Air

Air

In the crowded room
at ten meters apart,
electrically,
we are separated
by a salty ocean
100,000 light years wide,
the diameter 
of the Milky Way's disk,
spiraling
with 200 billion stars.
However, if gazing across
an earthly ocean
we are separated
by not even an angstrom
of air,
and the particles
leap to touch
across the gaps of nothing.

-Robert L. Jackson III


Sunday, December 14, 2014

Vision

Vision

Digital statues
gaze down 
at windows, 
but no landscapes 
lie beyond the glass 
covering reflective veins 
of pure silicon
falling into a grid 
without hierarchy 
and branching regeneration.
These contemporary visions 
evolved from crackling flames, 
to charcoal drawings, 
to indigo symbols, 
to electrical sounds, 
to pictures in light, 
to pure information.

Robert L. Jackson III



Sunday, November 23, 2014

Misplaced Poem

This poem was found hiding in a unrelated folder in my office.  I am not sure when it was written, but it was a while ago.

Adventure

We shoot for stars
with air powered bb guns
and try to bend gravity
like the gods used to do.
Now those days are gone
with only traces left
at the exotic locale
of mythical rocks and legendary seas.
So we travel
to outer space
through the dreams of children
but not to Earth.
The destination is in question
when places do not exist.

Robert L. Jackson III






Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Ragweed

The yellow flowers
pierce my lungs
in the wait for winter
to ease breathing
from this last gasp
of fertility.
The leaves
will coat the land
and obstruct many seedlings 
from hunting the air
in the thick warm blue.
From beneath,
rescue will come
in the form of worms 
reducing the sails
to brittle scaffolding,
and releasing
the soldiers to conquer.

Robert L. Jackson III


Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Lists

Lists

The glass under the full spectrum of energy
will sag, scratch, and cloud;
but keep the boundary intact
between the two atmospheres.
The impatiens and ivy may unravel beyond
above the window box and pot rim
or be sheared by teeth,
but still keep the roots watered.
Let the gypsum dry wall warp
and pale paint peel,
while the grass grows high
around a rusting mailbox,
but do not let
the timber beneath rot and buckle.

-Robert L. Jackson III



Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Spin free


This is actually a slightly older one that I just felt like posting.

Spin Free

Smash the compass,
shattering
the whirling
viscous sound,
so gravity cannot
hold its needle
on a pivot,
and air cannot
dampen its spin,
and light
cannot reflect
its directions,
and the metal
cannot feel cold
in our hands,
and the magnetic field
becomes invisible
again,
leaving
our souls
as the only map to follow.

Robert L. Jackson III

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Spinning Seed


When spinning
the earth sees
the days continuing to flare and dim,
the bicycle tire
balances more easily,
the escaping rocket
flies straighter
and pierces the darkness more deeply,
the leaf and seed
take longer to reach the ground
and spread their species farther,
the atmosphere organizes
into a storm,
and the mind
thinks of analogies
and correlations.

-Robert L. Jackson III



Wednesday, June 25, 2014

June

Somewhere there is a meadow
that has never met
metal, herbicide,
or the soles of bare
and rubber covered feet.
Each bloom located
by the wind or the animal
with severed blades
never bagged in plastic
but digested in grazers.
Somewhere the sounds
of speed and electrons
has never resonated
stalks to follow
invisible dances;
Instead they sway


-Robert L. Jackson III



Friday, June 20, 2014

13

Ringed stalks
knobbed from the gnawing 
of mammals
and browned in droughts
can bloom again
from beneath the decaying straw
in the wet Summer.

-Robert L. Jackson III


Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Patterns

Usually the sand spires
and hardened bridges
succumb to the rhythmic
and predictable tides,
but today it is the pattering rain
that pelts the surfaces,
slowly texturing the walls
into uniform dimples
that lower it to the horizon.
The deep moat fills
and slowly erodes the walls; 
fracturing off and filling themselves in
until the confined liquid reaches the banks 
and overflows into the gate and courtyard.
The realm of crustaceans,
quartz, and salt 
fall to the sky,
that awards it's subjects
with sintering embers each dusk.
Awakened by the lapping sea,
the warriors observe a flat beach,
rippled only with wind blown dunes
and the debris lines of tides,
piled high in rusty barbed wire seaweed,
bleached broken shell shields, 
and the spears of mangrove seeds.

-Robert L. Jackson III




Saturday, February 15, 2014

Workshop Triolet


Today was an unusual day as I went to a poetry workshop held by the Southern Humanities Review:
http://southernhumanitiesreview.blogspot.com/2014/02/discovering-shr-is-this-weekend.html

It was at St. Dunston's church which was 
different than what I expected on the inside.  
It reminded me of a cabin at a mountain resort. 
It was a good program and it made me think.  I heard lots of good poetry.  Here is one of the results.

The triolet equation

I think in equations
is a power that cannot be gaged
and that often we shun.
I think in equations
of solutions to nations.
Math was taught as my language, so
I think in equations,
a power that cannot be gaged.

-Rob Jackson



Thursday, February 6, 2014

Expansion

Expansion

Spring water
guided by
extruded metal 
solidified and expanded,
cracking the seams
In the molded plastic
so that the sequenced valve
would never close.
The ungoverned flow
moves past the frozen,
holding open
the prison door
through the tubing
to exit and fly and layer,
onto leaves and fibers
bending under the weight
of curving beauty
freed from the laws of man, 
and allowed to follow
the instincts of nature.

Robert L. Jackson


Saturday, January 4, 2014

Sand

Sand

Sand is born
from protection that has failed
for the shells 
of crustaceans and mollusks,
and ground from rock
in the tumbling waves 
and swirling wind.
It is abrasive
to those not yet hardened
by the salt and and sun.
The grains traverse the world
in the soles of shoes,
the metal joints,
and folds of skin;
contaminating societies.
Rarely do we realize
that it polishes metal
to a revealing mirror finish,
and cleans and melts to silicon;
the critical substance
of modern communication.
-Robert L. Jackson