haiku 3 Sep 2018

The dry riverbed

Led us down to where Nature
Made a rocky heart

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

haiku 29 Aug 2018

Rocks falling at dusk 
Droppings as thick as my wrist 
A brown bear lives here 

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ] 

haiku 16 Apr 2018

Cut from living rock
Eclipsed but not forgotten
The cold, dark Paw Paw[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ]

hollow but pretty

It was daytime, and I was making my way along the side of a lake. To my left was said body of water, to my right a high bank with low green plants of some kind growing upon it. From up ahead, I heard voices. Then, through a thicket of partially submerged reeds to my fore, two people came walking my way.

The first person I saw was a stunningly beautiful and raven-haired maiden who looked similar to a young hoppa actress. I felt a strong love for her but little sexual desire. Unlike in previous dreams, her full face was visible to me, yet her gaze was averted from mine and she never made eye contact. I could tell, however, that she was conscious of my presence. The man behind her (who was wearing a baseball cap on his dark-haired head) was droning on about something trivial, hollow but pretty-sounding words that annoyed me. Judging by the maiden’s body language and facial expression, his mindless talk annoyed her too. Just before stepping onto dry land he paused to lift up and wipe off his knee-high wading boots, which were white with black trim.

The pair moved to my left, onto what could have been an outcropping of rock. I had not noticed it earlier. They ascended, their tones and presence rising above my own sense of self in the dream’s physical space. Faced with the same bed of submerged reeds the two had just exited but having no watertight footwear I started climbing up a jumble of rocks that had appeared upon my right-hand side. I started to pull myself up it as best I could, the reddish stones a type of granite. Behind and above me, I could still hear the man’s droning speech and still feel the maiden’s watchful presence.

Sometimes, I could only find purchase for one or two fingers within the rocks. But, grunting and laboring upward, eventually I reached a level spot. To my right I discovered a walking path of hard-packed earth that was bordered by a low wooden fence. It appeared to me that the path lead straight through the rocks into a dark wood, up ahead. Then, I awoke.

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑麥

on blocking DAPL

Warriors allied with the Standing Rock Sioux successfully engaged in peaceful protest thwarted efforts to dig up and otherwise violate some of the lands they hold dear. The pipelines will go in, the oil will flow, but at least the greedy bastards who stand to gain immensely at the expense of this planet’s long-term livability will have to wait a little longer for their already vast fortunes to grow further. The rest of America goes about its business in uncaring ignorance, burning up old sunlight in its cars and getting fat on nutrient-poor food-like products - prepared snacks, fast food, and candy. Some argue that every life is precious, that we must fight to protect even the weakest among us. What about the greedy and the gluttonous, though, those people who just eat and eat and take and take until there is nothing left to eat or take? Those lives are worthwhile too, mostly because they serve as a challenge to those of us who reject the modern economic notion that the fortune of each man is carried solely by the bones in his back and the sweat on his brow. We who reject this notion, who think that humans work best when living in mutually supportive and multi-generational groups that pursue their happiness through artistic expression and ritual celebration, we stand against the isolation and loneliness that manifests when people work all day to afford a home they don’t have time to enjoy, their regular debt-payments enriching the top executives of distant banks. Let us take as an example the various tribes of the Sioux, who were subjugated, tortured, and disenfranchised before being moved into concentration camps in what was then unwanted land. Slowly, the Sioux rebuilt their communities and strengthened their connective bonds with the land and each other to the point that they can now protect their waters from a heavily-armed and militarized police force whose job it is to protect not lives and liberty but the profits of multinational corporations. Let us Americans of European Descent wake up, come together, and join the battle to ensure that all persons the world over can be free, happy, and safe. Mahalo.

© JPR / whorphan / americanifesto / 場黑麥

whence they’ve come

There blasts from the bottom of that lava rock some dark seeking tendrils that gave me a shock. I had picked it up to check its taste and flavor - to see if its power I could hold and measure - but soon I did place it back down on the floor for I couldn’t hold it for one moment more. My left hand did ache it had taken the brunt of the screaming forces that the rock had spent and weak was my vision and my deep resolve for trying this puzzle to dutifully solve. Such rocks can’t be taken from their home, you see, especially not from the likes of Hawai’i; they must be returned to the place whence they’ve come in order to lessen the damage they’ve done. I then placed the rock between two temple dogs and asked it for patience whilst ‘round go the clogs of thinking and planning to get it back to the place where such damage it’s not wont to do. Oh ye goddess mighty oh ye goddess wise ye who doth alight wearing many a guise please help me to remedy this tipped o’er cart so that can be made a fresh and uncursed start. Mahalo.

© JPR / whorphan / americanifesto / 場黑麥

Batu Bolong, south coast of Nusa Penida, Indonesia - 2015