Sunday, July 30, 2017

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.




Sunday, July 16, 2017

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.


Sunday, July 9, 2017

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


Wednesday, July 5, 2017

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




Sunday, July 2, 2017

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