March 21, 2005

lonely little badger

I attended a poetry-off with a few family members. The second round's theme was "the [a] lonely little badger." After ten minutes or so of scribbling, I read them this:

Undiminished recessive chin;
A gaze that ends where it b'gin.
Spurs clinking at his waddle,
He's easy on the saddle;
Stands gnawing in the sturrips,
Silver star jumping when he hiccups.

He's the lonely little badger;
The mammal with a badge, or
Affidavit, subpoena, habeas whatever.
His hand [paw?] is on the engine's lever
Of the train of law abidin' men
Which howls across the moonlit svenn.

Oh, fericious, hairy one,
Guarding legal tender with your trusty gun,
Where have you gone? Will you come back?
We need your fearless stripes of white and black.
We long to hear your sniffling inquisition,
Holding the high ground from a low position.

This badger, it seems, is the quintessential lawyer-lawman of the old west. Cut to wide shot: our badger on horseback, his stetson silhoutted against the evening sky, rides toward the sunset. Fade to black (with a white stripe), aaaaaaaaaaand cue credits.

I'm not crying; it's just allergies.

Posted by joel at 08:18 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

March 02, 2005

the alpha wolf

The alpha wolf is out;
with jaws, and throat, and tooth of grout.
He burns a slender track upon the heath
and catches up the foundlings in his teeth.
He passes in a hungry blur
the horse's hoof, the cowboy's boot and spur.
His knotted belly is all hair and reproduction;
a wary glance and growl is his seduction.
His fate is in his glands;
his chartered firth leads forth to barren lands.

He pauses at the ridge's peak
to scent the frigid darkness and to speak.
The elk, the moose, the mountain cat,
startled in their distant habitat,
knuckle to their knees,
moan and gaze white-eyed at the husky trunks of trees.
He haunts the creekbed plans
and harries grizzled claimers at their pans.
They hush their conversation out,
ease to the saddles, seize a bolt of thunder and turn about.

© Joel Helbling, 03/2005 (all rights reserved)

Posted by joel at 09:11 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

December 08, 2004

here i am

Here I am,
Hungry, strong and restless,
Unemployed and feckless.
My ship's come in in a bottle;
My hand uneasy on the throttle;
I'm reckless under sail
I cross a barrier reef of jacket flap bio hooks
To lagoons of dusty nooks
Where I read my mail.

Here I am,
Vision of charity,
Verifiable fan of verity.
Certifiable fanatic;
Chronic chronicler of the frenetic.
I advanced my case to the panacea,
An alarming throwback;
Odd fish
On an odd tack;
Too small to keep,
Too big to throw back.

Posted by joel at 11:02 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

October 28, 2004

she is cool

How cool would you say she is?

She is cooler than a low rider that scrapes the road all the time.
She is cooler than all the city's lights going out at once.
She is cooler than the loud cracking noises your chiropractor can make with your neck.
She is cooler than chrome on a Harley.
She is cooler than satin on a rock star.
She is cooler than that moment after you pull your chute's ripcord, but before it opens.
She is cooler than sand in Maui.
She is cooler than television.
She is cooler than the mournful sound of trains, when they call out in search of you on a summer night.
She is cooler than taking steps three at a time.
She is cooler than 40 wild horses running through shallow water in slow motion.
She is cooler than cigarettes in the face of peril.
She is cooler than rock videos look like fun to make.
She is cooler than having your teeth stuck together with jolly ranchers.
She is cooler than vampires.
She is cooler than teeth on a prehistoric bird.
She is cooler than the gleam of new hardware in a brand-new toolbox.
She is cooler than nuclear submarines.
She is cooler than vigilantes wearing mirrored sunglasses.

Yes, but how cool is she?

She is so cool, that someday other things' coolness will be measured against hers. But they'll only be almost as cool as her.

Posted by joel at 04:02 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

a short poem

are there enough songs in this life
to occupy my mind
to guide me through a tangle of resonant images
snapping back to childhood, and forward to the abyss

{color saturation frying my eyes
shading my shoulders with doubt
the spring in my step grinds like salt beneath my heel}

i need to forgive myself, but what if i do it too soon?

Posted by joel at 03:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 20, 2004

harvest time

The grist of labor turns;
Love's hope burns
An arc around the mill.
Some wheat may spill
From time to time
And tragic rhyme
Is dusted on the floor.
Pay no heed, for at the door
Are workmen and a wagon.
They pause to drink the harvest flagon.
They laugh, and stack their wain with flour
And pay us in an hour
The travail of a fortnight;
And joy will set our aches aright.
What we shall make is greater than our loss;
What we shall reap is greater than the cost.

© 1994, Joel Helbling. All rights reserved.

Now see "The Making of 'Harvest Time'" in my Pictures of Everything photo blog.

Posted by joel at 11:34 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

October 16, 2004

2

Two fevers,
two minutes,
two helix' hopes,
two choices,
too many promises
too quickly broken,
two tragic heroes
too many (et
tu Brute?)
to taste my own bitter tongue,
to trust you
to begin again.
Two years later,
two saner heads with
two more strands of gray hair are
too sad to speak, with
two point two billion seconds
to spare.

© 2002, Joel Helbling. All rights reserved

Posted by joel at 08:25 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)