Flames

Flames

With shelter

a blaze,

we close the door

to control its spread,

but as your halls,

timbers and trusses,

emit slivers

of flame,

do not lock

the latch,

leaving me

to only smell the smoke.

-Robert L. Jackson III

No title

Celebrate

stagnation

or even a slight decay?

The water 

does not stay

confined 

in the reflective lake

forever,

it is evaporating,

freezing,

expanding against boundaries,

and flowing

into deep grooves.

The landscape 

Is not flat, 

but ripples 

under motion, 

and feeds flames 

with wood and oil.

Celebrate 

the sun

warming our souls

from afar

and incinerating 

broken orbits 

and resurrecting bodies

as an incendiary. 

-Robert L. Jackson III

Meteorite

Meteorite 

1.

Falling stars do not fall,

they consume,

in blinding temperatures,

bending reality

to guide the heavy rocks

together.

2.

Leaves,

lost minerals

on cosmic wind

gather to form

the soil of a planet.

-Robert L. Jackson III

Always

Always

The new moon

still pulls

without a face

or a body,

walking

across the dark.

So we wait

for celestial progress

and the light

to narrow our pupils,

remembering,

how to walk 

in the dark.

-Robert L. Jackson III

Symmetry

Symmetry

The fruit,

bruised on one side,

was then dropped

on the other.

I cut the original 

damage away,

and it was flat

on one side,

but just before 

it perished

you removed the other.

This continues

until

it is consumed,

but the seeds remain.

-Robert L. Jackson III

A Coast's Return

A Coast's Return

The vacuum

of the storm

drew all blood

to reveal 

the teeming floor.

In the cyclic path,

the ocean

refills the basin

completely,

following the edges

of each island,

and contour.

-Robert L. Jackson III

Written for the Poet's United Midweek Motif of 'Reunion'

https://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2017/09/poets-united-midweek-motif-reunions.html?m=1

Hurricane Irma

I don't have a new poem today, but would like to ask that you keep in mind the people of west Florida and Tampa Bay. As you may have seen from the Life of a Poet earlier this week, Clearwater is my hometown where I grew up. There are pictures in that blog;

https://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2017/09/life-of-poet-rob-jackson-iii.html?showComment=1504748715275&m=1#c5578810126167903854

Hurricane Irma looks to be headed directly for this area. 

It may look much different after this.

Yeast

Yeast

The mixture of grains,

eggs and milk,

lie flat

and sterile

until infinitesimal beings

emerge,

and conquer 

the harvested fields,

exhaling 

and shrugging

to stretch  the fibers

into a precarious state,

only to be subdued

by metallically contained

energy.

-Robert L. Jackson III

Obvious

Obvious

Holes

appear in the wall,

from both bullets and corrosion.

Both light

and water flow through.

If the metal is peeled away

and the containment breached,

will the land flood

or be enlightened?

-Robert L. Jackson III

Written for the Poets United blog's midweek Motif of 'Flood.'

Catching Wind

This post is a little different than usual. After recollecting my high school days, I asked my mother to find this essay which was written for Mrs. Roby's English class about twenty-four years ago. I remember it because it was entered in some state writing competition, but did not win. After an extensive search, it was found (thank you!). This is a scan of the original, with errors and all. 

Placement

Placement

Cracked shells

are never found

on the souvenir shop shelf,

but their cracked edges

are unique

and savored

among ancient ruins

and repaired in veins of gold

among the terrestrial,

while their counterparts,

the matching edges,

are lost in the ocean

and ground to sand.

-Robert L. Jackson III

Entanglement 2

Entanglement 2

Control bars link 

to each other,

and equalize

the marionettes 

and the masters.

The strings

pull in tension

on both ends

but buckle

when pressed

and cannot repel

until frames touch.

Each part of existence

-each particle in fabric

wood, bone, flesh and skin-

reacts

instantaneously

to their tangled lives

through theoretical fibers.

-Robert L. Jackson III

Magnetic

Magnetic

The erosion

of many ages

has removed loose soil.

Debris

has washed away

from dark showers.

Soft minerals

have dissolved

under undulating rivers.

Remaining

are columns

of cooled lava.

Dense iron

bends the fields

and behavior;

focal points

on barren planes

of perception.

The calloused hand

liberates

a tarnished

brass compass

from a pocket

and holds it parallel

to the tuned

horizon,

as it pivots.

-Robert L. Jackson III

This one was actually partially inspired by a show on shark week about sharks apparent attraction to volcanoes.

Tilt

Tilt

Two statues

carved smooth

from settled marble,

layered in seasons,

shaped to interlock

but apart,

held vertical

by gravity

from Earth

and horizontally

by each other.

Cracking,

their foundations 

tilt.

-Robert L. Jackson III

A picture of a Nathan Sawaya Lego sculpture from the Art of the Bricks exhibit.

Adapted

Should the twisted tree

be chopped down

to the ground

and the stump

removed

because as a sapling

it followed

a river of light

that curved

around larger trunks

and spliced

clusters of leaves?

-Robert L. Jackson III

Mr. Hall

Mr. Hall

The alligators

nipped my toes

while I learned to swim.

But the teeth

felt like fingers,

and with time

the predators

returned to their form

as ants,

that my instructor 

embellished.

Soon I learned

to cross the sterile pool,

but then knew 

that no river

or moat

or ocean channel

would ever contain me

again.

-Robert L. Jackson III

Peaks

Peaks

Men in the valley

stack pillars 

of pebbles,

and grains of sand 

into cones,

amid the mountains.

The terrain

seems unaltered,

and always returning

to smooth

from rain and wind;

Until some rocks,

alter the flow 

of a flood,

to collect the silt

of a new island.

Inspired,

men in the valley,

climb

to leave stones

on the apexes,

leaving them taller.

-Robert L Jackson III

Still

Still

Grass grows up

from shadowed soil

past sinking treads

and into the mechanisms,

following thin paths

of sunlight,

twisting past belts

and linkages.

Seals dehydrate

and crack,

returning petroleum

to the earth.

Live ammunition

bleeds black powder

from corroded

holes in their skin.

The barrels

bend under heat

and humidity

toward fertile mud.

Reeds engulf time,

leaving creatures

to detour 

around the mass.

Robert L. Jackson III

This poem was inspired by the Midweek Motif of War and Peace by Poets United:

https://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/2017/06/poets-united-midweek-motif-war-peace.html?m=1

Convex

Convex

The only buoyancy

is sometimes a lake

rather than an ocean,

where our bodies sink deeper

and are confined

by a concave shoreline.

The storms 

grow unrestrained

over the salt;

able to consume us

and digest us

on jagged reefs.

But through waves of energy

we can now see them

over the horizon,

and plot a safe course.

Yet the fresh water

and humid land

can nurture concentrated 

tornadoes,

that splinter

the ribs of our hulls

without warning.

-Robert L. Jackson III

Deep

Deep

Looking

for the hole

In the ocean floor

revealing the organs 

of the Earth

through a pixelated

image of the solid

measured from a device

marketed for finding fish

in the murky waters

of the churning currents,

voyagers spend their thoughts.

Only the fragile 

glass-bottom boats

floating on the clear water

of saintly springs

allow us direct sight

through the hull.

Only on unconfined vessels 

on the ocean

are the great depths 

and jagged topography

accessible,

yet only seen

through transcendental eyes.

-Robert L. Jackson III

Foothills

Foothills

Perhaps the fog should stay

and not reveal

the teeth of the mountain range,

a lying creature,

breathing shallow,

waiting on my path.

-Robert L. Jackson III

How man spread earthworms

How man spread earthworms

The stabilizing ballast

lowers the hull

and my eyesight

below the revealing horizon,

a blinking marker

lost in the mist.

Yet, I do not dare 

empty the belly 

of the living earth, 

and lose the ability 

to digest 

the consuming world.

But others have

already regurgitated 

their ecology 

onto the virgin land, 

once controlled by 

layers of the vivid fall.

The worms' appetites

free the thick brush 

to blind us 

of the lost civilizations.

-Robert L. Jackson III

Oblong

Oblong 

The wheel

struggles to stay round

as the spokes 

decay and pop

over time;

leaving no tendons 

to keep the mind

from collapsing

and becoming oblong.

-Robert L. Jackson III

This was written for the Poets United midweek motif of Bicycles, Tricycles and Unicycles.

A Warning

A Warning

Some wait

for the living ripples 

to return

from across time,

but their intensity

becomes lost

beneath the wind blown breakers

after too many reflections.

-Robert L. Jackson III

Transparent Desires

Transparent Desires

On this finite journey

is any energy left

to generate the heat

that will melt 

our fissures together

and repair holes

in the filtering gut

while burning skin

to a crisp crust,

brittle to life's waves

of electrons

and photons,

transversing our boundaries,

as if we were glass,

to heat our core,

to boiling magma,

soft and malleable,

just below

the soles of tourists.

-Robert L. Jackson III

Treatment

Treatment

Quicken

the sun's rise

and the moon's fall

with medicine,

so the scorched 

cedes

to the resurrection

and the earth

erodes

to the precious

under clean skies,

without noise

and color,

as tomorrow

is pure

and the past

is a photo

with bruised edges

and scratches of regret,

lost in our mind,

until neurons

polish it

to a Seurat,

but the pills

leading back

have long been digested.

-Robert L. Jackson

This poem is the synthesis of two sources. First, my body has been battling itself in illness, and I just want time to pass until I am well (hopefully). However, am I then not relishing these moments in time as they should be. The second source is the motif of "nostalgia" posted by the Poets United blog (http://poetryblogroll.blogspot.com/search/label/Midweek%20Motif). They seemed to fit together into this poem.

Entropy

Entropy

Do

the poles of our souls

lose alignment

following 

the spirals of the world

and the meandering

motion

of hardened feet

-numb and lost-

across the terrain,

-constant through time-

unable to find

north?

-Robert L. Jackson III

Faith in Light

Faith in Light

The assembly line

installed

with pristine edges

and mirrored shines,

operated 

by newly trained workers,

slides, pulls and presses

the raw materials

into identical

functioning forms.

In the repetition,

the workers age,

the corners nick,

and the reflecting

faces

from surfaces

dull and disappear.

Many are born,

that fail to glow, 

and no one recalls

the design,

tearing on

thin yellow paper

in a corroded

file cabinet.

We arrive at the store,

with faith,

but find

no bulbs. 

-Robert L. Jackson