tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32482178953075614472024-03-05T11:09:43.083-08:00La Forêt de FlammesTransmissions From The Wooded Void.Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-50386074719604200762014-05-22T14:00:00.000-07:002014-05-22T14:00:20.374-07:00Residual Haunting<div class="p1">
Remember now the fraying of shadows,</div>
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the transparency of hours witnessed through a veil</div>
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stitched tightly with wandering forgottens.</div>
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Time lifts languidly past towered waves </div>
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that roar blackly against sorrow's sands,</div>
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like tears and scratches on the lost attic film,</div>
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or wounded hands clasped against the darkfall.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Now remain indoors, the storm has descended</div>
<div class="p1">
this snow-wreath'd mountaintop,</div>
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and no headlights dare cut the gloom</div>
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as you steer your crumbled way across</div>
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your map of worn, indulgent nostalgia,</div>
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thrust into the arms of regret, of towns</div>
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with stray-dog borders and </div>
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wayward allegiances devouring</div>
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along fire-carved hillsides.</div>
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<br /></div>
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There's gravity in these harrowed fields,</div>
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these slow sleeping buildings and interstates, </div>
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and the glow through the collapsed birches</div>
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where the sun decays its abject half-life,</div>
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a land swept apart by candles in windows</div>
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and hex signs scrawled in chalk on barn doors, </div>
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the whisper of shorelines and skiffs unsailed,</div>
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and the songbird's most desolate call.</div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-55040945711790255102014-05-14T19:47:00.002-07:002014-05-14T19:47:11.626-07:00Night Work<div class="p1">
Your signal fires are paling now, </div>
<div class="p1">
all that luminescent vitriol</div>
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sputtering back to the earth like</div>
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spent catherine wheels </div>
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in the half-lit summer chill,</div>
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or the blossoming of fireworks</div>
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flowers over the high school fields</div>
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of this half-shadowed youth,</div>
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pines lingering beyond the goalposts</div>
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and the looming levees,</div>
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their jagged black spires </div>
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like knives aimed towards </div>
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impossibly distant stars,</div>
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a receding gloom of embers</div>
<div class="p1">
as the rusting years commence.</div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-30396206281116858022014-05-11T19:49:00.003-07:002014-05-11T19:49:34.244-07:00An IncantationGather and join hands together,<br />
this is the autumn of our mountain.<br />
The blindfold is thin protection<br />
against the black winds raging<br />
from the snowcapped peaks<br />
through the hollow eaves of the valley.<br />
<br />
This void stands, precariously balanced<br />
in the talons of shadowy birds,<br />
hunting the gray skies as the<br />
crops erode into dust,<br />
and the windows are shuttered<br />
against the promise of a darkened dawn.<br />
<br />
Scratch each name across a clouded mirror,<br />
and draw an X through every one.<br />
This is the blood season of last things,<br />
and last words to recall them by.Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-30455861050445027162014-04-28T20:12:00.002-07:002014-04-28T20:12:36.288-07:00Wraiths<div class="p1">
In youth there were days of such blinding splendor</div>
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that in each scratched and faded photograph we're wincing,</div>
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as if we were all staring at the sun in our backyards, </div>
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collectively waiting for some fantastic rapture to descend.</div>
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<br /></div>
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In those times I knew every fire road like my own skin,</div>
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every bone and vein of those rutted secret trails</div>
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carving at the forests beyond the neighborhood.</div>
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This was my topography, our permanent abandon.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Now those lines have trailed away into hovering mist</div>
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between bent branches, disappearing beneath leaves and logs</div>
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or ensnared in the rusted teeth of bear traps yawning metallically.</div>
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Now the timber paths have sung their last refrain,</div>
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and haunted, shrink softly into the horizon.</div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-61957685609734607272014-04-20T21:41:00.002-07:002014-04-20T21:43:22.960-07:00Memory Oval<div class="p1">
As time defeats its half-life,</div>
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the already opaque shades darker,</div>
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a shadowed tree on gray and snowy land,</div>
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bordered in the depths of a mirror made of mercury,</div>
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ornate golden edges crumbling against </div>
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a disappeared realm of peeling wall-roses,</div>
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in a room where seconds dissolve like hours,</div>
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and the years seem hollow and unfathomable,</div>
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all dust and ash and corroded tarnish,</div>
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without human whispers to support them.</div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-25823320953906535312014-04-03T13:14:00.001-07:002014-04-03T13:15:37.154-07:00Early April, Burlington<div class="p1">
Winter's bitter grasp has receded now,</div>
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though lines of faded light still haunt </div>
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the distant hills at evening's close,</div>
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and the trees remain gray configurations of bones</div>
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in the deepening green of waking backyards. </div>
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<br /></div>
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There's still traces of earth and cold lingering in these walls, </div>
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territories of candied frost along windowsills and steps,</div>
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and though the birds have grown bolder in their stirrings,</div>
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we remember the silent cast of snow on unlit streets,</div>
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and the rattle of plows traversing the neighborhood.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Yesterday, the cat brought me a rabbit,</div>
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young and soft as a fallen feather,</div>
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a single claw piercing its heart, staining the </div>
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fresh white fur with the deepest cloak of red. </div>
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At day's, end, she had felled another </div>
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and left it on the porch threshold where we ate,</div>
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and it seemed spring's magnetic orbits </div>
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of birth and death were there with us,</div>
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like a feastbound ghost floating in the margins. </div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-77639756711608490092014-02-27T11:10:00.002-08:002014-02-27T11:10:28.788-08:00Forest Fire, Linville Falls, 2007<div class="p1">
How these dark flames lick at the branches of thorn</div>
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on the trembling hot eve of summer,</div>
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and whittle them to broken gray ash</div>
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with sparks showering orange pinpoints in the gloom,</div>
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each tree cowered helpless before the conflagration. </div>
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<br /></div>
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This horizon was a jagged collection of black spikes</div>
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halo'd with pulsing columns of fire, </div>
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striking lakes to pools of hell and murk,</div>
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instantly fossilizing the quicksilver of life beneath.</div>
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<br /></div>
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There is only open country </div>
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and worried stars beyond this fevered blaze,</div>
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and the frame houses where rural faces float worried</div>
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at yellow-washed kitchen windows, </div>
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the pair of us looming in the sour air </div>
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at the threshold of a church parking lot</div>
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as the mountain crumbles and burns,</div>
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a swath of furious red, </div>
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as if an airliner made an unscheduled landing</div>
<div class="p1">
in the depths of these woods,</div>
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and burst into pieces upon arrival.</div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-78085112739208104172014-02-20T01:06:00.001-08:002014-02-20T05:14:53.019-08:00The Dirty Truth About Capitalism: A Rare Political Aside<div class="p1">
This is not a political blog, by design. Though I'm a dedicated progressive activist and voter, I reserve this space for more calming dispatches, mostly poetry and the occasional diary-like musings that soothe my nerves between marathon hours of making music and art and basically just functioning. Yet rules are made to be broken, and there's a rather unpleasant reason for such exception today. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Despite the very public (and deservedly-derided) Tea Party takeover of North Carolina's controls the past couple of years, I still know this state to be one of the leading progressive lights of the South. I am more than happy to tell folks from afar that the current governmental situation here is the result of illegal gerrymandering and voter fraud, because it is. I tell them that the voices in power behind the throne don't represent the views of pretty much anyone I know in NC, and I've lived all over this state for most of my life. We're a cultured, rational, diverse place that bucks many of the northern stereotypes of the South. It's one reason I love it here.</div>
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Occasionally though, a hint of ugly good-old-boy Southern anachronistic politics will peek through this pleasant rainbow of ours. Like when your local newspaper, usually a reputable source of impartiality, blessedly free of rightward spin, publishes an editorial in defense of capitalism, citing those hoary old Fox News buzzwords "socialism" and "fascism" as the true evils that cloud capitalism's victory as the best method for the poor to pull themselves up out of poverty. "Don't listen", the article practically begs. "It's all commie lies". Capitalism, we're told condescendingly, is the greatest political system on earth. The myth of the benevolent corporation working for anything but their own greed has persisted since the trickle-down days of Reagan, but its sure seen a real renaissance of late. </div>
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<br /></div>
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So how does a rational, informed liberal respond to such blatant propaganda and big-company apologetics? I suppose he rants to his blog. 2014, everybody.</div>
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<br /></div>
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But let's unpack some of these persistent myths for a moment, if you'll bear with me. </div>
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<br /></div>
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It doesn't take someone with a degree in Poly Sci to see the reality of our current empire in decline, and that such strident denials of said situation are surely evidence that said decline is probably irreversible. The scales have fallen from many of our eyes, after all; we know corporations manipulate the very people they hurt most, through powerful lobbying of their in-pocket congressman and senators, and dupe them into voting for their desires time and time again. We know they use social issues and that classic American fear of the 'other' as a dividing tactic to distract their great unwashed from their own nefarious misdeeds. We know they exploit the ignorance and rural fear of the undereducated to blind them to their bailouts, their Wall Street abuses, their wage slavery. They coddle them with <i>another</i> myth, that myth that they too, if they work hard enough, could be wealthy, and that anyone who isn't wealthy is a lazy 'taker'. In this way, they demonize not just the 'other', but also the poor, and their loyal voters continue to defend them to death, all while seeming to ignore one simple fact: they're the working poor themselves. Meanwhile, the corporate welfare queens squeal at their gullibility.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Far-right conservatism preys on peoples' worst instincts, their inherent selfishness and refusal to understand another's experiences. This chest-beating, knuckle-dragging mentality is built on old fashioned superiority, on a narrow perspective of the world and its inhabitants. <i>My way is simply right, and if you disagree, you are wrong, and a traitor. </i>These 'true Americans' expect to have their political views respected under freedom of speech, but don't believe in the same criteria for the other side. They're easily distracted by outlandish paranoid conspiracy theories and fake scandals. They almost-hilariously believe any attempt to stop them from persecuting others is itself persecution. It's always Us Vs. Them. The cult of extreme-right zombies have no need for verified facts or logic. </div>
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<br /></div>
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In a world where most developed nations have moved towards the logical next step of universal healthcare as a human right for its citizens, here we balk at the idea of a precious few tax dollars going towards something as absurd as saving a child in poverty from cancer. One could argue that this is a form of state-sanctioned eugenics, far-righties feeling that these 'others' deserve whatever they get, while once again conveniently ignoring that in most cases, it's themselves in that position. Let's not forget, these same people are often the ones whining about an irreversible loss of <i>community</i> and <i>morality</i> as the years dance by, all while clinging to their money while the less fortunate die. This is the sad reality of far-right "Christian" values in our modern age. God wants you to look out for <i>you. </i>Our proud patchwork of entitled McMansion dwellers is so deeply removed from the actual horrors of genocide that they'll compare an attempt at universal healthcare to Nazism without blinking an eye.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="p2">
I mean, does it get more self-loathing than women who vote for old, rich white men who consider them nothing more than baby factories? Folks who care a great deal about an unborn cluster of cells, but care less about that child's well-being as soon as actual birth is commenced? It's a startling pattern with the far right; if it's rational limitations to guns so more children don't get their faces blown off, say, well that's tyranny. Small government for all! But when big government is needed to interfere with the private sex lives of citizens, to try to enforce theocracy past all church and state boundaries laid out by the founders because some people are just <i>too obsessed</i> with what other people do with their bodies, then big government is just as dandy as a dewdrop! The far-right constituency is fooled into this schematic time and time again, this demon hypocrisy, and they'll never stop being blinded by such tactics. We've even reached the point of vilifying higher education, which should be the goal of most of our citizenship for their children; the far right knows damn well that the increased education, culture and exposure to people of different backgrounds found in higher education inevitably leads to progressive ideologies. No matter that those in charge attended college themselves. They need their voters dumb and misled, and working for them in Wal-Mart for scraps from the table without complaint. They encourage <i>pride</i> in the stupid, through cultural exploitation of white-trash culture as "True America" and its celebration of backward, harmful views as a natural cross-section of our nation. This is the kind of idiocy that keeps a vastly beneficial and largely harmless plant illegal (best not to threaten those big pharmaceutical and paper companies, after all), while alcoholism is essentially openly encouraged by our society. This is the upside-down land we live in.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Socialism, a buzz word dutifully parroted by those on the right without ever realizing what it actually means, is the enemy of capitalism, this is true. Socialism hurts class divide by expanding opportunities for all. Socialism encourages community over the caste, the true access to an American dream rather than the petty illusion of one based on blind consumerism, ignorance and fear. Still, Tom Q. Tea Party will gladly drive on public roads and send his kids to public schools that his taxes fund, and will gladly pony up for needless and xenophobic wars to line the pockets of defense contractors the world over (with their children as cannon fodder to do the rich folks' bidding), all while bitching up and down about the tiny ration of funds PBS and NPR are appropriated each year. This is how education and culture is being eradicated in our country. This is how we excuse the murder of citizens, often black, by insecure cowboys with the tiniest of rationalizations justified as 'self-defense'. This is how we keep stocking prisons with people of color press-ganged into jail cells on petty drug charges (the prison-building lobbies also need to keep raking in the funds). This is how we ignore an epidemic of gang violence in Chicago because it only affects those poor, dark-skinned people. This is how we feel no guilt in executing potentially-innocent prisoners but rant and rave about the sanctity of all life.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Capitalism encourages division and judgment, not unity and mutual understanding. It encourages the heedless rape of the planet and a shortsighted, ignorant view of the future and such destruction's consequences. It pillories scientists via extreme-right religion in order to avoid environmental regulations that cut into the hallowed profit margins, it denies the overwhelming evidence of global warming to steer us from considering clean energy and keep us continuing to worship oil and coal, feeding our addiction with desperation measures designed to squeeze every last drop of resources from a swiftly dying planet. And it encourages theocratic patriarchy to keep the people subservient, those kind folks who use religion as the most convenient of moral shields to rationalize their fears and prejudices.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Capitalism exploits any person or thing it can for the benefit of those at the top. Factory workers in China throw themselves to their death to escape productivity hell, rainforests are plowed under and more suburban sprawl is built…all so someone can buy a third yacht when two isn't enough. Empty possessions they think will fill some hole that they'll never fill, and that cease to mean anything upon death. Capitalism is a mechanism for this alone, and its cost is brainwashing those at the bottom into protecting them while turning on each other with pointed fingers. We're still the most powerful country in the world, and this affects people <i>globally</i>.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Fact is, American exceptionalism based on capitalism is not brought to bear by statistics. One only has to glance at the ways we're bettered by other developed nations - in education, in finances, in infant mortality, in any number of ways - to see that's the case. Our softer-minded citizens pine for a 'good old days' morality that never existed instead of moving forward into a more harmonious future. Capitalism is the late party where everyone is refusing to get their keys and leave, and it will be our downfall, unless we make some very necessary paradigm shifts.</div>
<br />
<div class="p2">
But I still have hope. After all, if a conservative is outraged and spewing inherently-factless diatribes, you can tell they're frightened of losing. Those ignorant of history, those who believe this country was founded as a capitalist theocracy despite all evidence proving otherwise, will never look back far enough to see their own follies spelled out for them in the pages of the past. They fail to see, for example, that they will lose the fight to legislatively enforce their obsessed hatred of LGBTQ citizens just as their parents lost the battle to do the same to African-Americans (all attempts to paint our current president as a tyrannical monster as a convenient cover for glaring racism aside). Or that women will never, ever lose the right to choose what to do with their own bodies and sex lives. Or that just as their ancestors were allowed to come to this great country to work and build a life, there will continue to be a place here for those who want to join the fray. Progressive politics mean just that, progress. Conservatism is frightened, retrograde resistance to change, and everyone knows how unhealthy that is in the scheme of things. Liberalism will forever be painted by those on the other end of the spectrum as naive and immature, but history rings it true: conservatives may win battles, but they never win the war. Progressive ideals and pushing things forward for the betterment of all…that's what always emerges triumphant in the end, no matter how alarming our political future may seem, and no matter how many shills there are covering for their bosses along the way. </div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-49211976846443072502014-02-15T18:03:00.002-08:002014-02-15T18:04:04.088-08:00Fathoms<div class="p1">
Now the seasons cast their worried stones against this wall</div>
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where we're burnished gold by a drunken, sagging sun.</div>
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Here's the glow that haunts our celestial acreage, </div>
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darkening, quickening, a knife's edge pressed against </div>
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the trembling hands of descending dusk.</div>
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<br /></div>
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These are seawashed bones upon a foreign shore,</div>
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where sand and soot plot passages away from tumbling waves,</div>
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and pine-tops crumble like the dust they secretly </div>
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know they are, the weight of a hawk settling with </div>
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furious, beating wings, hazarding a view of a distant expanse. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I am alone at last with little but light and thought to keep me,</div>
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time for few regrets and to muse upon even less, </div>
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an outpost untroubled by spirits or more earthly concerns,</div>
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beyond the rocks, beyond the stacks of burning sulfur, </div>
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with only the fog for companionship's sake at my table.</div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-29400269108228374652014-02-07T17:33:00.001-08:002014-02-07T17:34:08.023-08:00February Burlington Lament<div class="p1">
Oh, smallest hint of spring in the wayward currents,</div>
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pause for awhile in our brick and winter-battered town,</div>
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light upon branches with the softest breath of warmth and hazy sun, </div>
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so that we might endure the grim finality of these grayest months,</div>
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and how they strike out with frozen fury at the houses and the street-corners </div>
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where we pile space-heaters and blankets </div>
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as battlements against the fierce young year.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Earliest sign of approaching gentler seasons, </div>
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walk with us through the black pine and sumac trail, </div>
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and stir them to sing with your yellow-green fingertips; </div>
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this winter's been so cold, we seek your kind reprieve,</div>
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so cast down your lot in our little city, </div>
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that we might emerge from paralyzed sleep once more.</div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-82654377974482893902014-01-25T23:25:00.001-08:002014-01-28T14:14:09.941-08:00The Permanent Departures<div class="p1">
This silent elegy is fashioned </div>
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from bones dissolved in a sanguine summer field,</div>
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and bits of cold metal rusting in a pallid rain,</div>
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stitched idly by spider webs and thick bird's nests, </div>
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these ancient, lurking ruins. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Or torn seat fabric singed with black flame,</div>
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now half-submerged in the reedy bog,</div>
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the once sun-shimmer of seatbelt buckles</div>
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now rubbed and scratched bare </div>
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beneath these patient currents. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Here, where the news crews trampled </div>
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their way to the grimmest of scoops,</div>
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where dazed passengers wandered </div>
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bloodied and torn-clothed in the grass, </div>
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shrieking, batting at halos of sparks </div>
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in their tangled hair,</div>
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there's still jet fuel staining the land,</div>
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a harrowing old memorial.</div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-12013554189401228542014-01-13T14:49:00.001-08:002014-01-13T14:52:17.448-08:00Polar Vortex, 2014<div class="p1">
To dust and ashes, the late season's gusts,</div>
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whipping about the house as if feverishly</div>
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seeking out some mystery tucked beneath its beams,</div>
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whistling through the upstairs halls</div>
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to stitch a veil of chill along the posts and the staircase. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
This end-of-day blue at the curtain of our southern sky</div>
<div class="p1">
is stretched taut like old paper over the night swelling beneath,</div>
<div class="p1">
bleeding like a bruise capsizes worried bones,<br />
a stain of wine pooling on a littered tablecloth.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
These are the half-awake days,<br />
grasping for purpose and reasoning<br />
in fogged alleys between the mills<br />
and down the shattered cobblestones,</div>
<div class="p1">
a bourgeoning of something pale and shadowed</div>
<div class="p1">
and gathering like magpies on the traffic lights. </div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-59154059391127391732014-01-04T18:10:00.002-08:002014-01-04T18:10:48.766-08:00Continental Divide<div class="p1">
How long until this winter's over? </div>
<div class="p1">
Last week it seemed the streets</div>
<div class="p1">
bled dust like forgotten attic trapdoors,</div>
<div class="p1">
a grit so solid that a thousand </div>
<div class="p1">
lawn sprinklers failed to carve its surface.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Now the streets run cold and black-ice slick</div>
<div class="p1">
clear out to a snow-hill'd horizon, </div>
<div class="p1">
all ribbons of frost like the powdered ash</div>
<div class="p1">
of ancient mammoth volcanos,</div>
<div class="p1">
far out beyond this corridor of sagging </div>
<div class="p1">
houses and tangled, crumbled fields,</div>
<div class="p1">
sleepwalking like a trance into an aether. </div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-17907843677288801062013-12-29T20:53:00.002-08:002013-12-29T23:49:14.577-08:00The Outsourcing<div class="p1">
Now I have joined you, fair fortune,</div>
<div class="p1">
a last wandering descent </div>
<div class="p1">
through a netherworld of </div>
<div class="p1">
fast-fallen summer days, </div>
<div class="p1">
blank as an avalanche against </div>
<div class="p1">
gray-swept hillsides of years and youth,</div>
<div class="p1">
in a thousand June backyards struck </div>
<div class="p1">
beneath the weight of soft ambitions.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
We have been found wanting,</div>
<div class="p1">
fallow, misshapen souls</div>
<div class="p1">
floating the tree-lines and jagged roofs</div>
<div class="p1">
of our dread cutout wilderness,</div>
<div class="p1">
our blood which stains the blade</div>
<div class="p1">
in the rust and tarnish of black centuries </div>
<div class="p1">
and off-years, moments spent </div>
<div class="p1">
wandering lost behind </div>
<div class="p1">
the Interstate noise-wall.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
This saltwater in our ragged lungs,</div>
<div class="p1">
it stings like the thoughtless fury</div>
<div class="p1">
of phalanxes of dark-faced hornets, </div>
<div class="p1">
an outpost along the edges of endless outskirts.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
These days remain in malformed erasure,</div>
<div class="p1">
not even static to bless the bones of the weary house,</div>
<div class="p1">
or the tangled sheets on a sour-stained mattress. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
We, wounded immortals, </div>
<div class="p1">
who flung rocks against the barricades</div>
<div class="p1">
and expected all of Babylon to drop </div>
<div class="p1">
to quivering knees at our approach!</div>
<div class="p1">
We who clasped hands with spirits in sleep,</div>
<div class="p1">
only to release them in curse and spell-craft</div>
<div class="p1">
in the washed-out sun of regretful dawn.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
I find I still have eyes to see with,</div>
<div class="p1">
fingers that still grace skin,</div>
<div class="p1">
or the torn vinyl of the frozen car seat.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Our lives cracked like a luck-starved mirror,</div>
<div class="p1">
at the very tremble of half-touched hearts</div>
<div class="p1">
in the weight of all these ashen mountains.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
These were the finest hours,</div>
<div class="p1">
traced with thin gold lace and amethyst,</div>
<div class="p1">
but now they're burned through</div>
<div class="p1">
by candles tipped against the windows,</div>
<div class="p1">
the wax rotting away the the thread,</div>
<div class="p1">
the glass warping and melting </div>
<div class="p1">
in miniature inferno.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
And the spires and stacks of this </div>
<div class="p1">
aching nest of city streets</div>
<div class="p1">
sliced the sky like solemn knives,</div>
<div class="p1">
beaten back by the arctic glare</div>
<div class="p1">
of a billion aching stars,</div>
<div class="p1">
of light pollution lingering around </div>
<div class="p1">
the blinking code of radio towers.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
You whom I've known since childhood,</div>
<div class="p1">
you whose serpent's breath </div>
<div class="p1">
and doubled-over mirth </div>
<div class="p1">
had swept me in your tempest,</div>
<div class="p1">
do you not stand today amongst</div>
<div class="p1">
the graves and gallows of a </div>
<div class="p1">
haunted continent,</div>
<div class="p1">
and shout at me from</div>
<div class="p1">
topographies unimagined?</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Dusk catches us sleepwalking again</div>
<div class="p1">
and follows us home,</div>
<div class="p1">
showing up in the dead hiss of </div>
<div class="p1">
tape recordings or the howling shift </div>
<div class="p1">
of images lurking in the VHS.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Sometimes, beyond the flames</div>
<div class="p1">
that lick and jump in anxious fervor,</div>
<div class="p1">
there's a face without expression,</div>
<div class="p1">
wrapped in solace and in shadow.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Breathless and struck, we still continue, </div>
<div class="p1">
with memories strewn behind abandoned.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Ask: what will map our silent crossings when we're gone?</div>
<div class="p1">
Last night the crows fell like a shroud on wings</div>
<div class="p1">
of brutalist charcoal, </div>
<div class="p1">
and swallowed the barn whole in their icy cries.</div>
<div class="p1">
This doorstep is peeling away like a false awakening,</div>
<div class="p1">
a wake held beneath the churning waves of spent woodgrain.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Oh, how the painted yesterdays sway with drunken footfalls,</div>
<div class="p1">
entwined in heady mist of spilled wine and hoarse cheers,</div>
<div class="p1">
as we, scythe-like, mow apart the autumn age of remembering.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
There is no more distant wavering shoreline,</div>
<div class="p1">
no lapping surf to hide your clawing wants,</div>
<div class="p1">
they are leaving in a line towards the veiled orange gloom,</div>
<div class="p1">
and they will not soon be returning.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Whatever was loved is permanently sunstruck,</div>
<div class="p1">
statuesque and paralyzed, left to devour away </div>
<div class="p1">
on a tide of furrowed countenances,</div>
<div class="p1">
of heads glancing backwards in sorrow recognition,</div>
<div class="p1">
of hands dragged beneath the surface of a love </div>
<div class="p1">
that never found its shining season,</div>
<div class="p1">
and lays drunk and dazed, half-alive,</div>
<div class="p1">
in the vined ruins of a disappeared evening.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-55903326481702298402013-12-21T23:27:00.002-08:002013-12-21T23:27:43.144-08:00Solstice On Twin Mountain Road<div class="p1">
Old friends, winter has arrived </div>
<div class="p2">
pale and shivering </div>
<div class="p2">
on our splintered gray doorstep,</div>
<div class="p2">
brushing bits of snow from his sorrow cloak </div>
<div class="p2">
with red-raw, gnarled hands,</div>
<div class="p2">
black eyes gazing inward</div>
<div class="p2">
through frosted fields of stalks and wire,</div>
<div class="p2">
and contrails traced through </div>
<div class="p2">
the piercing yawn of Christmas skies.</div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p2">
Let's wander these wooded labyrinths </div>
<div class="p2">
beyond the house's reach,</div>
<div class="p2">
the thrum of the far-off cars reaching us</div>
<div class="p2">
like trapped spirits lingering past our vision,</div>
<div class="p2">
and press frozen arms around the limbs </div>
<div class="p2">
of the trees we find most haunting,</div>
<div class="p2">
with their freight of abandoned</div>
<div class="p2">
squirrel's nests in a rafter </div>
<div class="p2">
of brown-clustered branches.</div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p2">
We'll watch that somber evening blue descend </div>
<div class="p2">
like a sudden silence each evening, </div>
<div class="p2">
and mark the house-lights</div>
<div class="p2">
through the evergreens across the meadows,</div>
<div class="p2">
bathing the scarred earth in golden shadow. </div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-20452862085893197942013-12-14T13:03:00.001-08:002013-12-14T13:03:25.409-08:00Sofa Set On Fire Beside A Derelict Warehouse<div class="p1">
A tattered sofa in gray-burnished winter</div>
<div class="p1">
collapses softly into itself near </div>
<div class="p1">
the boarded-up warehouse, </div>
<div class="p1">
unmoored in a nest of untidy shadows,</div>
<div class="p1">
yellow stuffing hemorrhaging through </div>
<div class="p1">
the split seams in filthy cushions,</div>
<div class="p1">
stained by generations of unnameable </div>
<div class="p1">
ghost drinks and fluids,</div>
<div class="p1">
discarded decaying in the faded entropy </div>
<div class="p1">
of the Queen Anne's Lace,</div>
<div class="p1">
with the styrofoam scraps and the shattered glass.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
The seizing electric flames lick chemicals </div>
<div class="p1">
from the combustible surfaces,</div>
<div class="p1">
sending pillars of exotic spectrums </div>
<div class="p1">
and vivid smoke skyward,</div>
<div class="p1">
through frosted dusk air,</div>
<div class="p1">
to evaporate into a black starless void. </div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-6431447078098189722013-12-07T19:22:00.002-08:002013-12-07T19:22:45.007-08:00Haiku 5<div class="p1">
In fallow meadow,</div>
<div class="p1">
the rust clings to the withered blade, </div>
<div class="p1">
a pagan embrace. </div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-65494814894293516242013-12-03T18:12:00.002-08:002013-12-03T18:13:01.870-08:00Haiku 4<div class="p1">
A thin latticework</div>
<div class="p1">
of ice on the dawn windshield,</div>
<div class="p1">
as winter descends.</div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-87728966412887290742013-11-30T13:50:00.002-08:002013-11-30T13:50:50.374-08:00Haiku 3<div class="p1">
Falling birches roar</div>
<div class="p1">
like a piece of missing time </div>
<div class="p1">
as they strike the ground.</div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-12268500056612933012013-11-28T18:54:00.001-08:002013-11-28T18:54:13.619-08:00Haiku 2<div class="p1">
These lights are pinpoints,</div>
<div class="p1">
trailing off into the dark,</div>
<div class="p1">
never to return.</div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-87196933657870425032013-11-27T20:11:00.003-08:002013-11-27T20:11:15.155-08:00Haiku<div class="p1">
I am alone in</div>
<div class="p1">
the roaring circumference </div>
<div class="p1">
of twilight shadows.</div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-3871483853531378822013-11-23T14:48:00.002-08:002013-11-23T20:14:54.748-08:00The Weight Of Years<div class="p1">
The weight of years</div>
<div class="p1">
all collapsed and broken in the yard,</div>
<div class="p1">
left to corrode in a ruinous winter rain</div>
<div class="p1">
between many draping stalks,</div>
<div class="p1">
all stuffing-sprung and leaking</div>
<div class="p1">
days months hours like black-tipped toxins, </div>
<div class="p1">
to ferment along the crumbling</div>
<div class="p1">
banks of the drained and fallow stream-bed,</div>
<div class="p1">
evaporates to fine dust when touched,</div>
<div class="p1">
yet lingers like a hand pressed against</div>
<div class="p1">
a curve of shoulder at the blue hour. </div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-83094511342555094672013-11-17T11:32:00.004-08:002013-11-17T11:32:33.305-08:00Across Causeways<div class="p1">
I have left you behind, old ocean,</div>
<div class="p1">
blithely erased your midnight churnings </div>
<div class="p1">
from down wind-tipped streets</div>
<div class="p1">
of empty wood-panelled sandboxes, </div>
<div class="p1">
like typing a fence-line of black X's </div>
<div class="p1">
across a misspelled word on the page. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
These were summer nights</div>
<div class="p1">
where bright-banded constellations </div>
<div class="p1">
seemed vast enough</div>
<div class="p1">
to swallow our youth whole,</div>
<div class="p1">
as we lazed drunk and bewildered</div>
<div class="p1">
in the rickety lifeguard watch-stands. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Or the blue mornings of February</div>
<div class="p1">
walking to the corner for the bus,</div>
<div class="p1">
rifles booming hollow and black</div>
<div class="p1">
from the duck blinds out in the reeds.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Past hundreds of miles of </div>
<div class="p1">
snake-crawled swamp and </div>
<div class="p1">
woods and yawning fields,</div>
<div class="p1">
I still wake sometimes and feel</div>
<div class="p1">
you lapping your fragmented shore,<br />somewhere out in all that darkness.</div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-40927154222037127172013-11-08T08:01:00.003-08:002013-11-08T08:03:59.580-08:00Lonely Places<div class="p1">
The wind-whistled Siberia of mall parking lot</div>
<div class="p1">
that stands vacant and weed-strewn </div>
<div class="p1">
save for shopping holidays,</div>
<div class="p1">
and where it meets vast tides of </div>
<div class="p1">
gray fields racing into a distant nowhere.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
A pool crusted over by a billowing tarp</div>
<div class="p1">
in the seasons of staying indoors, </div>
<div class="p1">
crumpled leaves clinging to the rusted cyclone fence,</div>
<div class="p1">
the blue fabric flapping like a dazed ghost</div>
<div class="p1">
as the gust lazily stirs its edges. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
The sense of absence between two homes, </div>
<div class="p1">
glancing resigned over your shoulder at </div>
<div class="p1">
whatever you're treading away from,</div>
<div class="p1">
rather than a future's beckoning. </div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3248217895307561447.post-11891582195790843192013-11-05T22:01:00.001-08:002013-11-06T09:23:21.520-08:00Afterimage<div class="p1">
You and I, we've known the feeling</div>
<div class="p1">
of stumbling across black and depthless woods</div>
<div class="p1">
towards where a fire still churns listless smoke</div>
<div class="p1">
into a pallid, dusky sky, </div>
<div class="p1">
chairs left empty moments before,</div>
<div class="p1">
some tipped over as if in sudden flight.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Or, the lasting sense of disturbance</div>
<div class="p1">
after all the players have left </div>
<div class="p1">
the baseball field,</div>
<div class="p1">
and the last machine having towed its burden </div>
<div class="p1">
of shattered wreckage from</div>
<div class="p1">
the cold nightmare of the highway accident. </div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
A bare intuition that something has happened</div>
<div class="p1">
just moments before your graceless intrusion, </div>
<div class="p1">
now left haunted and lingering in</div>
<div class="p1">
currents of force at the unsettled margins. </div>
<br />
<div class="p1">
This is what Burlington feels like in November.</div>
Zachary Corsahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04944415439556161479noreply@blogger.com2