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