Compulsively Aimless

Bluebird Fish Dinner #3 The silver grey scales of the Whitefish I ate at the Bluebird Bar matched the color of the county road I drove since Cadillac leading up north through a sea of pines to rent a cabin at the end of a peninsula. The day before my fresh water fish swam beneath Lake Michigan white caps under hard blue aurora skies and popcorn clouds its shimmering scales dazzled the sun for a moment like the halo of a tilted Milky Way I would watch that night with a friend from Indiana The Whitefish is a cold water fish making me think maybe the glaciers that carved these shores and filed these lakes not so long ago would return like a neighborhood of angry fathers to restore their defaced work but not until I ate a few more summers of fish at the Bluebird Bar. Leland Panorama The green and grey Janice Sue is moored at her dock on display at Fishtown, There’s a yellow sea plane on the north lake skimming the water moments before lifting into the air. Nothing moves on the surfa...

TV Test Pattern It was the end back when TV stations shut off and went to bed like the rest of the civilized world I would watch till the last of the late, late movies ended till the flag waving star-spangled banner or the poem having touched the hand of God I looked on helpless until my last companion turned away posting a sign on the door a test pattern of lines and numbers commanded by determined Indian in a head dress You knew it was the end because after one last desperate twist of the dial through thirteen UHF channels there was desolation and off you went to dream under a blanket of white static.

Misty Mountain Review: Two poems by John Kropf

Riding the Rails Riding the 6pm Acela from New York to Washington under an overcast May sky can be like living a life. You emerge from a dark tunnel crawling through open spaces soon leaving them behind picking up speed moving into new scenes until you’re traveling at 90 mph *** Outside Philadelphia worn out row houses under tired skies list like the hulks of stranded boats that once floated on a vibrant ocean long ago evaporated. Neighborhood streets still lead toward decrepit brick factories falling down like abandoned temples places that once promised a new life to someone’s immigrant grandma and grandpa remembered in family stories after the generations moved on but the houses remained sunk on foundations in neighborhoods colored only by brash graffiti painted at night and green sumac consuming black iron bridges and chain link fences over the decades as silver trains blow by on the hour past dead stories of old lives the tr...

Human Autumn Inspired by Loren Eisley's All the Strange Hours Human autumn before the snow last attempt to order meaning before a spring breaks in the rusted heart and dreams and memories fall apart in irreparable ruin. Oncoming age is a vast wild autumn   country strewn with broken seed pods hurrying clouds abandoned farm machinery and circling crows family countenance leaping from place to place across oblivion.

  A Dream of a Thousand Heroes Poem after finishing The Hero with a Thousand Faces Cast out on the waters at the hands of the gods to everlasting chaos Ego shattering initiation over a sea of pangs and discovery of evil Double monsters need twin heroes Have faith father is merciful Open the sun door and return home with the wisdom of an eternal spirit and the cosmic dance.

My sleep is all wrong even my dog can tell when I walk her in the neighborhood twilight she hurries me past the houses and the birds hidden in the trees trading their evening songs. My dreams don't flow except when I'm awake and I see them as shadows on the lawns. I slept too long to have a nap but not enough for a night's sleep and now it is near dark it was the birds outside hidden in the trees that woke me confused I did not hear their morning songs. I wonder what will it take to fix my sleep Maybe I need to tell time by the birds.