1
The only thing here in the traps was a very crisp frog. There's a bit of a breeze. Only some of the grass has grown, only some of it needs to be mowed. The rest is fried—if it isn't dead it might not grow again this year. So there's one upside to the heat, to the lack of rain: less mowing. If I can stick out the balm, I can spend my time here the next two days doing more of this, and maybe a little reading...
Today was mowing. Hours of mowing the grass surrounding this old farmhouse. After timely rain all summer the ground has dried out as September lurches on, dateline Traderight, Missouri.
I arrived here late this morning, some dew still in the grass, the moisture bad for mowing. But that was fine because first priority was to get the well’s jet pump working better. When I left here two weeks ago the water was running but the pump would not reach its cut-out pressure; it would not kick off. A pump can’t run like that. If it does, it’ll burn itself out...
Click here to continue reading...
I gave praise
to steel you confidence.
You gave welcome
to feel me love.
Rooster sang crow
to share us morning.
Eugene broke fast
so we'd build house.
Water washed clean
so we felt ourselves.
Earth sprang mountain
to keepsafe sun.
Wood took flame
so we'd have fire.
Wind gave owl wing
and we had night.
And then this
A spring, the water
feeding on air
I thought,
Let the world be replenished
But, no, the world
replenishes itself
Loud current, green leaf
The fallen log
be runneth over
until rock:
Nature smoothes its future,
becomes hard as a fossil
in the tumbling flow
We are warned.
A funnel, an umbrella
The reverse of an umbrella
The force washes me now
downriver, everything
important
left behind
and I cannot
go back
to get it
Over this side
And steel.
Most moisture
We’ve seen in months.
Rusted linoleum
Tractors cowed
By the slender whim of God.
Banks?
There are no banks.
This is why you don’t wait.
People gonna make mistakes, sure. But
This is p’cisely why you never wait.
Waitin’ for rain, for the aqueduct.
Waitin’ for the war to end,
For interest rates to move.
Nobody in this family waitin’ for a goddam thing.
Well, sure we dropped a well.
And dropped it,
And dropped it.
We found that, ah, cone of depression —
Some bottles of dirty water.
Our poor Mother, ya know.
She loaned us udders of water,
Buried deep down in her soul, like.
Sandstone-lined. All she had.
We was just children then.
So
We gone back to readin’ the clouds.
They’re beautiful really.
Cirrus curling into nothing
Way up there. Just ice crystals
Casting down white light.
There ain’t s’pose to be such a thing as white light.
But I tell ya: I seen it.
I’m going on record with this
Because I’m in plain need of an elegy.
Sawbones gave me, oh, a few months.
Don’t matter much.
I came from this land
And I’m going back to it.
Now I’m telling you:
I want a Viking’s funeral.
If you can find ‘em, throw a thousand husks
Of corn onto my pyre.
Take fish from the hole I leave in the ice.
Despite everything I’ve said,
Regardless of whether there’s snow on the ground,
Whether the crops rise,
Whether anyone’s left to see me go.
1Hello at the margins.Hello Inuit suntan.That feels very dense to me, water.Grilling heat, goon of history.The ceiling fills with iceBut falls as rain.Oil is the new old gold; again. 2My legs acheWith the memory of beerThis time last night.Altocirrus when I close my eyes.In October it's still too hotFor a comforter. 3Man has changed the … Continue reading Icebergs
I do not expect revelation. I do not expect dawn to make much sense.I look off at a temple and wonder— what religion; and, who is praying at this hour.East, a fire burns, the smoke visible; all that remains of an abandoned warehouse, leaving behind a hole in the old city center.The fire trucks sit cold in their silos, their hoses … Continue reading Ninety Percent of My Body is Water
The Writing of John B. Randall 