Paint & Poetry
"I have not tried to reproduce nature: I have represented it." –Paul Cezanne
Shakespeare wrote “thy breath be rude,”
but I think thy breath has little attitude.
Dullness, neglect, but not vulgarity—
of emotions you haven’t even slight sincerity.
While your chill betrays some tempered winds,
your stillness renders still their sin. Read more >>
The last of the geese have frozen over in my backyard,
covered in a foot of snow. I dig one out each week
and thaw it in the fridge—with a high success rate;
even the runt is able to take flight after a few days at 50 degrees. Read more >>
Ahead of me Hardscrabble
cracks knuckles against clouds.
Behind the Bridgers splay
crags in the oystery air.
I move to a tango.
Skies and poles glide, cut, break.
I am partnered by the wind
against whom I tangle, kick. Read more >>
Roads of the West refuse to end, they waver over
rivers, roll sleeves up cityscapes. Comb hair in
windows of downtown breakfast joints or fancy
looking cowboy bars. They shuffle hooves with
wild horses, cross wood bridges over dried up Read more >>
Mountain peaks shiver, breathe
and wiggle their foothill features,
pee behind a cloud, maybe shake
up some starter-sprouts, yawn,
cough up a couple leftover winter Read more >>
I hate this.
Goddamn spring.
Sloppy streets mock
Muddy trails evict you.
But then, the sun shines
So clean and warm, teasing.
Dreams of red, sunburned bellies
And cheap laughs on the Madison.
Days where dark doesn’t mean cold. Read more >>
Oh Dawn, bringer of light,With eternal vision deliver us from night.And color the world, not black, not white,But ambiguous grey, a beautiful sight! Read more >>
I love to touch wood that’s beaver-skinned
and worn to glass by flowing water.
There are willow saplings that startle.
Bent low by winter snow load
but still rooted to the bank
they get pulled downstream by the current Read more >>
Sculpted in the snow,From whence they rose to the sky,The wing-tips of birds.
The ermine freezesAs the winged shadow passesOver snow on snow. Read more >>
In your confounded struggleFor originality, nights lengthen.The snow falls…Heat departs. Read more >>
One snowflake said to another,“You’re a real dick, you know?”Taken quite aback,The other flake replied,“Really? What makes you say so?” Read more >>
Art by Michael S. Maydak
When weather won’t hold and clouds
turn snake down skies too bright to stay,
you blame the ducks and think bad ducks
then fisting skyward shout bad ducks
at Vs that waver but don’t quit coming.
Read more >>
Come spring I am starved for a fix.
I tremble like an addict
fumbling with my head kit:
blood knots, surgeon’s loops, clinch knots,
longing to get bent, baked, jacked up,
amped to find the perfect jolt
of energy
from a perfectly drifted nymph Read more >>
Art by Will Pope
A young robin stares at the bud of a tree, waiting
for it to open. He thinks it will be in the next
seventeen minutes. “Wait for it, wait for it...”
he sings (not being able to say the words with
the normal slow brevity required). Read more >>
We’re all falling down We leaves on the lam Spinning like sailors Walking on land And land where we may Any land at all There’s a place for each Bright leaf of the fall Yellow, orange And deep, bloody red Read more >>
That brown, tailing in the tail of these riffles, strikes my attractor, my sick joke: black hackles then white rubber legs and a piece of red yarn for a butt. Now here he is, wallowing in the shallows, flashing his Read more >>
The cows watch from the high point of the river,
bulls, even buffalo are curious to see what the strange creatures are doing
in the middle of the Madison,
wading, some floating with guides. Read more >>
A languid horizon beckons the obliging sun to their ephemeral interludethe golden funnel softens as the dancers find their placesmagenta, azure, and crimson swirl in a tryst with cirrus nymphs,slowly the couples spiral toward the yellow-orange funnel of fire. Read more >>
This information was published summer 2011. Visit our events calendar for updated events. Read more >>
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