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