#jasonarmstrongbeck

Pentimento ( from The Journal of Bison Jack)

.

It is summer;

evening still.

Shapeless amber

thresholds,

half-remembered,

half-real.

Gestural brushstrokes

of ocher and gold—

vestiges of intimacy

and entropy and

the jasmine glimmers

of my memory.

A silhouette

appears in a window.

A light comes

on above the porch.

A car pulls into

the driveway with

flashing lights.

.

Fugitives

.

After all,

perhaps we

are simply

fugitives

running from

impermanence

caught somewhere

between longing

and solace.

The Heliotrope

.

I am sitting

on the front porch

in the idle

breeze that blows

through the

blossom and rust

of things,

waiting for the sun

to find me

and my head to turn;

for even though

I do not worship gods,

I still want to believe

they are here.

This poem is inspired by the spaces between words on the written page and the maps they create .

SALT

In the

silent spaces

that surround

these words

are the pigments

and pulmonary

rhythms that

determine the

hues that color

my thoughts;

ancient roads

preserved in salt,

vermilion paths

unspoken for,

simultaneously

heading into the

future and the past,

searching for all

I could be and

all I ever was.

Alluvium

(in memory of my lovely mom)

.

I am walking,

bent into the wind,

along a dry river bed

in the hinterlands

of grief—collapsing

into the maelstrom

of remembrance

and the luminiferous

dissolution of

your atoms.

The Final Tenderness

.

In the final

tenderness,

may the

quivering

needle in

the compass

point to the

best of us.

At/The Odds (2021)

.

I recently

read somewhere

that the odds of us

being born are one

in four hundred

trillion which would

suggest we are either

a miracle of biological

and cognitive engineering

or a glitch—and that

perhaps it is about time

we decided which.

The Politics of Our UnReason

-

Have we fallen

so far into the

deepest recesses

of our hopes

and fears that the

truth now scares us.

Are we so alienated

from our purpose

that we only delight

in the lies that best

disguise the ones

we tell ourselves.

Time for Us

.

Rather than waiting

to find beauty,

let us learn how to look

at things in a beautiful way

so that when it comes time

for us to leave, something

of our reverie remains.

Joy

-

Perhaps

happiness is

always fleeting

because it asks

for nothing in

return and joy

so all consuming

because it asks

only that we

let ourselves

be vulnerable.

Lost Horizon (from The Bastard Pages)

.

Late

last night,

as you lay

asleep,

I traced the

outline

of your body

with my fingertips

so that,

one day,

long after

you have gone

and the

sun is setting

beyond my reach,

I can once more

draw you

close to me.

Home

.

To find your

way home is

to make your

way back to

this moment,

arriving as both

the end and the

beginning of

your journey.

Pines Grill

-

We are

born of both

limitlessness

and humility;

the unknowable

carved into

knowing trees

like young love’s

initials.

Why That

-

It doesn’t matter

why we are here

only that we are here,

for we are the answers

not the questions;

guardians of this

earthly delight and

all of history’s

good intentions.

With Love

-

How do we

hold on to love,

she asked.

We imagine a

place where

nothing is ever

lost because

there is nowhere

else we want

to go, he replied.

The Drum Room

.

In the melodies

of hope

and the rhythms

of despair

are the harmonies

of the song we

all know the

words to but

haven’t written yet.

Inclement Weather

.

This morning,

I stood in the window

and tried to make it rain

but just as I saw the

distant thundercloud,

you woke up and made

the sun come out.

In Passing

-

After all,

we are but

poems written

in breath

on windows;

memories,

held briefly

up to the light.

In Answer

-

For me, poetry is the search

for a melody in uncertainty;

a reassurance in the crumbling

architecture of my defiance.

It is how I find my way back

to the present and reclaim

my experience.

A Pale Thin Hand

A pale thin hand

flicks cigarette

ash from a veil

of shadow

and retreats

into darkness

as smoke blooms

into a slant

of sunlight and

dissipates and

I try to conflate

meaning and

landscape once

again—for are

we not, each of

us, inconceivable

without place.

When the Day Comes (2021)

.

It is 5am.

The sky is

black with up

and down rain.

There is an

open gate

banging

in the wind.

I can see

my naked

reflection in

the window

and in the

shaking trees.

There is a storm

inside me.

Deep inside

my innocence.

You are

still sleeping.

The day has

not come for

you yet.

The Crossing ( from The Bastard Pages)

-

If one day on this

pilgrimage to dust

you are able to free

yourself from your

sense of alienation

and doubt and see

that all of creation is

a part of who you are,

then you will no longer

need to worry if you

are on the right path

because you will have

become the path.

Fireball ( edition of 3)

.

On unforgiving

mornings like

this, I can’t help

but wonder if my

greatest success

will always be

that I somehow

saved myself

from all my

other selves.

.

Place Stamp Here

-

Years from now,

technology will likely

eliminate disease;

computers the size

of blood cells will

be injected into our

blood stream with

the sole purpose of

hunting down and

destroying cancer cells.

But years from now,

she thought, is not

today and looking

up at the pale blue

sky—slashed and torn

with vapor trails—she

saw the airplane climbing

through the clouds

and imagined looking

down at herself

from a great height

on her way to

somewhere else.

Beyond Violet (matchbook version/ 20x16 edition of only 3)

.

Love is

the measure

by which we

measure the

immeasurable,

but it is also

the distance

we must travel.

The Wastepaper Basket

-

The wastepaper basket

under my desk is overflowing

with the crumpled remains

of poems that never quite

leapt off the page; perhaps,

it is time I learned how

to fold my words into

paper planes.

Gravitate

.

Hopefully

one day we

will see each

other standing

alone at the edge

of our universe

and remember

that we were

once all made

of stardust.

Sing Sing Nights

.

Although we have not met

and most likely never will,

I want you to know that

I believe in you.

Even if our sense of right

and wrong is based on a

different moral compass

and we look at the world

through such disparate

eyes that we disagree on

what love is or why so

much suffering exists,

I still believe in you.

I believe in you despite

our differences and

because if I were to choose

not to believe in you,

how would I know what

It means to believe in myself.

Beyond Violet

.

Love is

the measure

by which we

measure the

immeasurable,

but it is also

the distance

we must travel.

Sailing Down the River

-

Sometimes

I might sound like

I know a few things

but, in truth,

whatever I have

learned along the way

has come from

the collision of my

own self-deception

and some kind of

unrelatable beauty.

Kind of Love

-

On my way to the local grocery

store this morning, I fell in love.

It wasn’t the marrying kind of

love or the fucking kind of love,

but rather the kind of love whose

shadow stays with you for the

rest of your life; the kind of love

that makes your heart skip a step,

but then put your head down and

keep walking and never look back;

the kind of love that takes the kind

of courage you will never have

because it will set fire to your heart

and burn down everything in its

path; the kind of love that, after

buying a pint of milk and a loaf of

bread at the local grocery store,

makes you want to treat yourself

to a jar of fancy marmalade.