the rattlesnake doesn’t care, has heard the stories about sucking out venom and survival, how the young can’t control the release of poison, sun is out, languid, or perhaps curled up as if, but no, the rattlesnake doesn’t care, sits there on the trail, the protagonist in your story, the one where you fear the fangs, as if that would actually happen, and it could, you claim, show everyone the video of that one man, his hand swollen, they are dangerous, see, i told you, but the rattlesnake doesn’t care, the ground is just the ground, dirt, rocks, summer heat on hillside home, your story is just your story, the rattlesnake doesn’t care, slithers away
Tag: Stories
The Screen Reaper
The screen reaper has taken all the books away. The ones we used to read by the fireplace, or on the rug, or in bed, or underneath a tree. The screen reaper doesn’t care about your memories or narrative works assembled on page after page, plots, characters, all those stories shaped in your head. No, instead it offers the everything/nothing, of videos, tv shows, movies, colorful clothes draped on dancing bodies, never-ending updates, snap maps, instagram images, and tiktok temptations. The screen reaper wants it all, all of you, your eyes, brain, mind, and time.
And most of us never fight back, we open the computer, clutch the clicker, scroll with our very own fingers, authors of our demise. The screen reaper has taken all the books away, and yet we let it stay, perhaps forever, it will be this way.
End of Camping
one night i sat
up trying to count
tent time, evenings in
lean-tos, sleeping bags
on dew covered earth
after backpacking, hiking, driving
away from city streets
to forest trees, mountains
summer storms, coastal sunrises
and there were dozens
maybe two hundred of
these star-filled moon
skies with campfire sparked
memories of younger days
when injured vertebrae were
stronger and slumber more
easily arrived, now nearing
50, i feel the chapter’s
end coming, but a story
written in god’s nature
will always dwell within
Romantic Viewpoint
we talk about buying wetsuits
and surfing, all the things
said and never done, like
reading the Bible cover to cover
these stories journey with
us year after year like so many
unread Shakespeare plays, tragedy
our romantic viewpoint, these
lies we tell ourselves, all the
constellations never named, but
with luck we still see some light
in darkened sky, so when we
leave this earth, we don’t have
to ask, why? why?
Daniel W. Polk 