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

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

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

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

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