Archive for the ‘Poetry’ Category

Words Cut The World Into Pieces   1 comment

Douglas Springs Trail — Image by kenne

We believe language explains reality,
yet it only sketches its outline.
Those who cling to the sketch
miss the miracle
standing before them.

— kenne

Clouds Floating Over The Catalinas   Leave a comment

Clouds Floating Over The Catalinas — Image by kenne

This is not drama but clarity:
mountain and cloud
locked in mutual definition,
each made real
by the other’s presence.

—  kenne

Burrs, The Original Velcro   Leave a comment

Burrs, the Original Velcro — Image by kenne

You cling.
Let’s start there.
Not affection—
need.
You grab my sock
as if it owes you something,

as if we were once intimate
and I forgot to call.
I stand still,
arguing silently with a plant
that refuses to let go
without taking a piece of me.

— kenne

Varied Bunting   2 comments

Varied Bunting on a Mesquite Limb — Image by kenne

He sings from the mesquite,
not for us,
but as if the air itself
needed a name
to keep from vanishing.

— kenne

Death Happens   Leave a comment

Death Happens — Image by kenne

Death happens
the way rain does—
announced by no one,
soaking the afternoon
until even the living
forget when it began.

— kenne

Turkey Vulture In A Mesquite Tree   Leave a comment

Turkey in a Mesquite Tree near the Tanque Verde Wash on a Cloudy Day — Image by kenne

Vulture at the Wash

In the mesquite,
a vulture waits above the wash—
morning barely warmed.

A jogger passes,
dust rising around his shoes.
The bird doesn’t move.

Only when the sun
slides one degree higher
does it open its wings,

slow, deliberate—
as if remembering
why it came here at all.

Then it lifts,
a shadow folding
into bright desert air.

— kenne

Remembering How To Endure   Leave a comment

Cold trail at night—
even the stones remember
how to endure.

— kenne

Cactus Face   1 comment

“Cactus Face” — Image by kenne

Walking past,
I swear it whispered—
not in words
but in that way
a crooked mouth of bark and thorn
can suggest a whole conversation.
I nodded,
pretending I understood.

— kenne

São Paulo Freeway Painting On Corner Book Shelf   Leave a comment

São Paulo Freeway Painting on Corner Bookshelf in Study — Image by kenne

A motorbike stitches between lanes

like a bright needle,

mending the frayed fabric of the day.

Somewhere, beyond the press of engines,

a street vendor sings out

names of fruits that no longer grow here—

cupuaçu, graviola, pitanga—

and for a moment, the entire freeway

smells of rain in the Amazon.

— kenne

The Wall That Breaths   Leave a comment

Mommoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park — Image by kenne

The Wall That Breathes

Steam rising—

cold air catching the warm breath

of a deep and restless place.

Colors drift and shift—

ochre, pearl, saffron, rust—

a slow glacier of chemistry.

Things we call “walls”

are just slow rivers

that forgot how to move.

— kenne

Door That Sings of Dust   Leave a comment

Old Farm Junk By a Shad in  Willowsprings, AZ — Painting by kenne

The shed door sighs open,
its hinges trembling
with a worn vibrato—
a reed instrument fashioned
from stubborn wood and time.

That wavering note
brushes my chest,
and something inside
loosens, answers.

I step into the dim interior
where shadows keep company
with the tools no longer needed,
and I feel the strange comfort
of being admitted again
to the places I’ve outgrown.

 

Old Tucson Backlot   1 comment

Backlot props — Image by kenne

I wander the dusty backlot of Old Tucson
where a broken wagon wheel leans
against a wall the color of old adobe.

A sign reads Props, but really,
who can tell?

Everything here looks equally retired—
the wooden crates, the tin stars,
the barrel with no bottom.

I stand there wondering
if this is what happens to a life too:
all our moments stored behind a door
labeled with someone else’s handwriting.

— kenne

Sandhill Cranes   3 comments

Sandhill Cranes at Waterwater Drew — Image by kenne

The cranes croak and rattle in the dawn
like rusty hinges on the world’s back door.
I like their honesty—
no pretense, no apology.

Just hunger, cold feet, long flight,
and the ancient duty of returning.
The desert approves.
So do I.

— kenne

Rock Musician   1 comment

Rock Musician — Painting by kenne

His face is half-shadowed,
half-light,
like he’s straddling the truth
of every song he ever wrote.

You can feel the old road in him—
the miles, the mistakes,
the sweet redemption of a single clean riff
cutting through the dark.

— kenne

Self Portrait   1 comment

Photo-artistry by kenne

There is a thin, vibrating line
between breaking and becoming.

Every life presses against it.
In the quiet,
you can feel your own edges—
the places where you diminish,
the places where you bloom.

Fragility is the instrument,
transformation the music,
survival the performance
no one applauds
yet everyone enacts.

— kenne