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

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

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

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

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

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 

Renew

Renew

After weather

and the eyes of generations

the white house

reveals its rotting boards,

still withstanding

the winter winds

that pulled the cotton flowers

from their knotted fingers.

Once dressed in unbroken white

she has protected

her family

from the typeset headlines

and dying soil,

but now struggles

in pastel yellow,

blending into the horizon

of grass and grain.

We want to bring renewal,

but only the owner

can paint you.

-Robert L. Jackson III