Weatherbone's Rural Mystique

Driving an Automobile Through Rainfall

2006-09-10T11:07:00.000-07:00

toward a Wisconsin destination,
an artist vacation,
three grown men with Sparklehorse as a soundtrack
merge like a wax ghost union.
Armed with a three day weekend,
three heads swimming the creative ocean,
three hearts drawn into three directions,
makes perfect sense.
The weather, the music, and the common bond,
trinity at the intersection,
a crossroad on divinities roadmap.
Art is sure to be made there.

Apologies from the Music Critic

2006-09-10T10:29:00.000-07:00

Dear sweet prefabricated Gnome,

This is my humble attempt to beg your forgiveness, to back-pedal, to eat my words.
The very last time that I had communications with you I believe that I may have been misunderstood. My skill at speaking Gnome is faint and my talent for a written, literate exchange is chewy at best. So if I may disinfect, so to speak, any of the polluted meanings in my last letter please accept this as my second chance.

When I said your singing voice is in the class of "belching up acid, bitter black coffee, verging on vomit tonality" what I meant was you sing like an angel of the Indy scene.

Also, addressing the second bone of contention, your home recorded CD 'Wainscoting the Senate Regimen”, when I said that it was "the mucus evidence of the mass populace acceptance squirting from B.Corgan's expanding ego nozzle", I meant that in the best possible way.

And lastly, I was unaware of how prominent the dollar amount that is being spent by the likes of your "ethnic background" in today's "alternative" music industry. Please, if you could call off the minions from sending hate mail to the zine, I may possibly get my job back. Really can you blame me? Who knew Gnomes really exist?

Sincerely,
Thomas B.
(A former reviewer with
High & Mighty Music Review)

2006-09-04T09:56:00.000-07:00

My essence moves in a constant flow
Like a pleasant secret
My heart has the similar meanings
As the wisdoms in occult books
Who I am can be expressed in a kiss
Who I am can be held like a universe
With each passing day
Discovery grows deeper
My soul is a wildflower garden
My awareness stands at attention
Oh how difficult it is to capture
A life so fine with only a half of heart
And a page full of broken sentences
It is like the dust of butterflies wings
Speechless like moonlight on snow

Love Can Bridge the Divide

2006-07-19T15:53:00.000-07:00

My mind is divided
into shards of thought
divided with fault lines
and fractions,
warring factions
and strange gravities.
The architecture
of my mind
is flimsy and easily
upset by two big, opposing
thoughts, strong-arming
the structure.
A tug of war -
desire on one side
divinity the other.
When I want to go
my mind is too far gone
dreaming and scheming
a fluffy head full of play.
Like a crow entranced
by every shiny thing.
All that glimmers distracts
my pin point gaze.
If my head were a radio
this poem would be static.
If my head were a steering wheel
my car would be all over the road.
If I were speaking to you
you would have no idea
what I’m talking about,
feeding your head questions
that my mind would be
in no mood to answer.
My mind is a flashlight
with a broken lens
throwing shadows
of scary monsters
on the white washed wall
for my evening’s pleasure.
My mind is the Y split
in a river, I invite you
to stand upon the island it makes
and toss your cares downstream
its best that one of us has some peace.
I’ll turn my mess
into a mystery
and tantalize you
with hints and guesses.
Lead you into
my kingdom of thunderstorms,
down my muddy streets
to the cathedral
that sits at the heart of chaos.

A Mind’s Fragile Trick

2006-07-19T15:47:00.000-07:00

I’ve been holding you
in my memory like a Ming vase,
when in fact you were
the golden calf who trashed
the china shop.
Somehow I recall you
as a clear August day,
when in fact
you were the remaining dust
of an Autumn leaf.
When I think back
you are the buried treasure,
when in fact
you were the dirt
and the hole left behind.
If I reflect to the then
you were the true blue,
when in fact
it feels better today
if I lie to myself.
Life will be so much smoother
when I learn to get the facts straight.

Frost Koan

2006-07-12T11:27:00.000-07:00

If a poet falls in the woods
will the Birches make a sound?

2006-07-12T11:17:00.000-07:00

These July nights
when writers meet
in cafes, on Tuesdays,
when the sky
rightfully refuses to shed
it’s well deserved garments
of slow fade light,
from loud lemon to summery tangerine,
delicately like silk slipping
off the lover’s tender thigh.
The gathered muses dissolve
like liquid ghosts
into black ink directions,
down white paper highways.

On A Summer Evening

2006-07-12T11:16:00.001-07:00

Let us set laughter free
unshackled, unfettered
from forced hibernation
in caverns hollowed out
from deepened human psyche’s.
Carved by the rushing
of worldly cares like
water over stones,
chiseled by moving moments
on the downhill race
to collect at the foothills of faith.
Trapped in the box canyon
where phenomenon holds
captive, eternity’s best intentions.
Laughter is the antidote
for this poison-weed garden,
of this blossom and blooming
called human suffering.
Every little laugh that slips
from tightened hearts
attracts firefly sized lights
that flitter like hope
on a summer evening.

Lynda Sleeps

2006-07-12T11:16:00.000-07:00

Her drowsy breathing
when she sleeps
calls to worship
outside our bedroom
window screen,
fireflies on a summer evening.
Amply enthusiastic
to bring luminous praises
in honor of this slumbering
Goddess,
yellow glowing prayers.
Each one is answered
when she exhales.
I drift off dreamily
beside her,
keeper of the temple
blessed as I am
in her nightly presence.

Bad Gamble

2006-07-12T11:15:00.000-07:00

All bets are off
when the slot machine
of astronomy
scatters the richness
of the Milky Way
like stupid starry-eyed coins
across four lane traffic
on a Wall Street afternoon

All bets are off
if every kiss that has
ever been kissed
is counted and collected
canned in Mason jars,
sucked of all their passions
settled with an endless shelf life
of plastic and neon commodity

All bets are off
when God is shrunken
down to matinee prices
and the fire engine red Devil
insists on serving extra butter
added to the nuclear family sized
bucket-o-popcorn.

A Poet’s Silence

2006-07-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

A poet’s quiet act meshed
with a priest’s sacramental wonder,
form a spotlight which in turn
illuminates the darkest corners of the fallen world.
Only to reveal in the simplest of manners
the clockwork precision
of a living heart saturated
with a love of life,
and a weaving mind
drunk on one part god’s silent language
and one part holy imagination.

The Proper Tools

2006-07-04T07:09:00.000-07:00

I would never invite the dentist
to perform dentistry
with a concrete jackhammer.
Nor expect a surgeon the perfect incision
with a bricklayers trowel.
How could I ever expect a boy
to gaze a strip of the universe’s
starry wonder through a Styrofoam cup?
If I didn’t have a heart full of poetry,
a spirit full of wisdom,
a head full of delightful thoughts,
and a being full of boyhood.
I wouldn’t have the proper tools
needed for loving you.

Green Trees and the Darkening Sky

2006-05-14T13:59:00.000-07:00

-(in a voice of a spring storm-)

Cinematic, overly dramatic
rain cloud formations tumble.
Earth shaken vibrations.
Scope resembles a pretend Illinoisan range -
peak beyond peak hidden by
a lofty wisp of Japanese mountain fog.

Light changes from overcast grey -
to rotted yellowy lemon -
to tempest soup pea green.
A sky to ground mixture
of weather alchemy and wind blown wishes.
I imagine that my soul flies
to blend into stormy horizon
like atmospheric stew
with bird wings.

A crazy artist’s thinking,
a painting alive with spring leaf trees,
and the all black band of rain clouds
become electric, energizes
like a lightning prayer delivered.
Thunder replies quickly
as if God
has an answering machine
and phone with an itchy redial.

Sunday May 14, 2006

A Plan for Easter

2006-04-13T16:51:00.000-07:00

Daybreak,
outdoors,
alive on this living Earth.
Here is my cathedral where I can ingest
the sacrament of sunrise,
and my breath will become sweetened.
Sweet like a new poem recited with the tongue
of a virgin, and my heart will blare like a trumpet.
Blast a three note symphony of joy as a strong testament
to my brief years in this natural world.
I’ll follow my memories like a crumb trail
through out the threat of darkened woodlands
until I reach a safe home.

A Lifetime Unread

2006-04-13T15:30:00.000-07:00

Vowels lie decaying upon the ground
consonants half erect like the walls
of ruins, whole paragraphs in shards,
sit in disrepair, unread. The universe
winding down is a library
of yet-to-be written books.
Life flitters by like a fly
leaving a rotted apple.

Prayer to the Rekindler

2006-03-29T17:15:00.000-08:00

Rekindle the fire
when disbelief douses
with a fluid coldness.
Gather a handful of sparks
to ignite dry kindling.
The foundry flames,
a white-hot sun
liquefies the gold
and to the fiery surface
the dross buoyant.
The imperfections
melt away, the sins
the flaws are red hot
cleansed, remolded
a second chance
rekindled by fire.

Quiet At Daybreak…

2006-03-26T12:39:00.000-08:00

this alphabetic monk
practices the silence of ink.
The notebook page
attempts collaboration
between author and alive.
A captured hymn -
A whispered wisdom -
A blessing from God’s lips,
like the lift of wind
moves the decorated
paper kite,
skyward.

String Arrangement for Occasional Cornfield

2006-03-26T11:04:00.000-08:00

The violin and viola
Took the melody
Ripped straight out of
Americana’s songbook.
The cello laid out the borders
Like the view of Midwest farms
From an airplane;
Deep, green, early cornfields.
The double bass
Took the heartbeat
As if Illinois, Iowa,
Michigan, Wisconsin
Is the driving engine
Of the entire nation.
The quartet’s rhythm
Drove strong
Like a four day road trip
Thru the center of eternity.

Through This Forest

2006-03-26T10:51:00.000-08:00

On a Sunday morning
Like a sojourner
I blaze a brand new path
Across my brain’s synapse
With the reading of a poetry book
Black ink letters
On a white page landscape
I travel thru this forest
And come out changed
From beast to angel

A Small Part of Anatomy

2006-03-26T09:35:00.000-08:00

I find it humbling
And puzzling
That a body part
Less then one foot
Can wreak daily havoc
Over ambition
Over art
Over spirit’s growth
And nothing else
Matters but satisfaction
Of flesh
Of lust
Of putting pen to paper

Curious Light Divining Rod

2006-03-26T09:18:00.000-08:00

Under the canopy of tree leaves
Sunlight sifts downward
Like Christmas decorations
Stirring in my emotions
Like a sacred presence
Like an animal sermon
Like divining wonder

Musician’s Muse

2006-03-26T09:17:00.000-08:00

On my morning walk
Through a Midwestern wood
I heard other worldly sounds
In my everyday ears
Orchestral fancies, a chorus ethereal
And a sylvan ensemble rehearsing earthen hymns
Composed on a parchment of breath and heartbeats
My spirit became a listening device
And my entire life an instrument

Instruction

2006-03-26T08:35:00.000-08:00

“I took the apple, you take the egg, please”
said the woman
as if the world were being born anew.

Just In Time For Easter 2006

2006-03-20T17:05:00.000-08:00

Two Saturdays Before Easter Sunday

Seven a.m. grease stain
breakfast in a white wax paper bag
appearing like late night cable psychic’s prediction
sandwiched in between tasteless infomercials
Solitary donut
obediently sits sweetly beside
along for the ride,
on the passenger side
faux leather car seat.
An insanely tall sized dark roasted,
gymnastically balanced
between driver’s legs.
Slowly cooling like a secret,
warming ones groin
gas station coffee
like remembering a surprise, crack of dawn
lovemaking between wife and husband.

Roadway traffic as thin as ghost town rumors,
1991 automobile motoring to a Saturday destination
as smoothly as a perfectly written sentence.
Verb moving noun through a show and tell setting.
Most of today’s town folk still indoors
practicing early morning sleep dreaming.

Outside, keeping me company
grateful birds in new bud tree top perches
are allowed without fear
of dozing bedroom pets
to freely compose the jazz
of this fresh squeezed soundtrack…part Mingus – part Miles – part Jehovah praise.

Magically I imagine this happens for an audience of one,
my fat ego believing a spell cast solely for myself.
An uplifting choral music sung, as an April warm weather hymn.
Two lane country road giddy, traveling above the speed limit
I turn the car stereo down to silent,
making an attempt to memorize the melodies.
A symphony to cleanse a cares-of-the-world stricken soul,
like the mercy act of forgiveness.
Feeding me as a mother Robin feeds her hatchling,
bite-sized morsels of courage, of grace.
Enough pure food to face an undeserved bright clear day gift,
like an eloquently wrapped birthday present,
my very own divinely stitched quilted comfort,
spring first casual
come out to play, weekend day.

Crow Seeking Passage

2006-03-19T16:23:00.000-08:00

crow seeking passage
into portals of dreaming
night sky, a man's mind

Walt Whitman, Astronomy and the Broken Hearted

2006-03-08T14:27:00.000-08:00

Walt Whitman, Astronomy and the Broken Hearted

Another fact like being born, dying and falling in love
is the fact that you will have your heart broken.
That’s just what humans do
love and break hearts.
As many billions of ways there is to get a heart broken
there is a trillion ways to attempt to mend one.

1) There is beer and booze, I know, they only muddy the waters.

2) There is television overdose, I know, I have the image
of a TV remote emblazoned on my eyeballs.

3) There is the self sacrifice of throwing your soul into
the arms of world religions, I know, though wiser
and a tad bit more at peace, I still sniffed after love’s behind.

There are only two stories that I know firsthand
of redemption from the dreaded broken heart.
Two stories that have been successful at salving
the wounded organ.

One was learned from Walt Whitman
that alone I can celebrate myself!

– And the other is that he threw his entire
humanity into an ongoing relationship
with the night sky and her heavenly bodies.

Possibly these two reasons
are what may have made their
broken hearts whole again

…and oh yes…

just maybe the very real fact
that they both found great women
worth their weight in gold and diamonds.

Matinee Prices

2006-03-08T13:56:00.000-08:00

Full On Life at Matinee Prices

A half priced ticket to a cinema daydream
Popcorn and a cool drink
Thrown in for good measure
And holding the hand of your best girl
Playing like it’s the first date
Even thought we’re six years married.
No better deal then good love at matinee prices.
Except maybe the promise of forever
At bottom basement cost
Without selling your soul.

The Night Without Stars

2006-03-08T10:49:00.000-08:00

The Night Without Stars

The night without stars
must be a crime
in some celestial court.
For a thud gray clouded sky
to veil such artistry
is a mockery to wonder.
To block out the Milky Way,
Orion’s Belt and winking Venus
is to close the gate on Eden’s Garden,
again.

Why I Read A Poem

2006-03-08T05:40:00.000-08:00

Being a poet, and here’s the shocker…I read a lot of poetry! Like others may read the daily news journals, or a favorite author's newest novel, I devour poems. I go to poems for the news from the ever-wonder filled universe, to connect to other human beings. I go to view life from the angle of Louises Gluck, Robert Bly, Ted Kooser, Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry and Lisel Mueller. Of course Ray Bradbury, Dan Chaon, Tennessee Williams and other fine short fiction writers color my world. Yet nothing compares to “having the top of my head torn off” by a poem. Last night before bed I was reading from “Risking Everything 110 poems of Love and Revelation edited by Roger Housden” and came across these lines from T.S. Eliot’s We Shall Not Cease:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

For me that is one reason I need poetry, it is like the refresh button on my computer. What is found in poems refreshes my awareness which has been deadened and dulled by the repeated waves of the mundane monotonies of life on earth. The unecesary necessaries of the day-to-day that weigh us down like stones in our pockets. Poetry for me is the kiss in the center of a bad dream, is the answered prayer in the middle of the struggle. Poetry’s power is to help me “know the place for the first time” however many millions of times I have visited there. “There” being the ability for me to observe another person expression of happiness or suffering as if it were my own, or to feel the presence of the natural world all around, knowing that I am a part of this living force. Not a god ruling above it. I can feel the whimsy of a child’s mind seeing existence anew. I can learn to crack the code of the invisible, which is what real life is all about. The invisible of love, faith, spirit, goodness, imagination and the river flow of eternity that flows under this brief bridge of flesh in which we daily stand. So please try it once, read a poem or a few and sand blast the veneer of a sluggish mind content on sleep walking through another vanilla day.

Strange Who You'll Meet at the Twilit Diner

2006-02-16T15:21:00.000-08:00

She’s my lack of blue skies
Acid burns and valentines
Trouble comes with two faces
Betting on the resting places

I met her at the twilit diner
All smiles and thick eyeliner
She called it her disguise
To hide her from dangerous eyes
She sat down and spilled her history
I’m a sucker for fish bait mysteries
We went back to my place after
And rewrote a brand new chapter
We awoke the next morning with a stranger’s laughter

I was a salesman in a faceless town
A five o clock shadow weighed me down
I was sporting an agenda of the senses
Always willing to peek behind fences
I was a bad boy peddling good times
She was a preacher’s daughter in her off time
Some of the best poetry starts with rotten rhymes

She’s my lack of blue skies
Acid burns and valentines
Trouble comes with two faces
Betting on the resting places

River Games

2006-02-12T08:13:00.000-08:00

I awoke early
From a wood thick dream
And went down to the river bank

The flow of waters
Melodious and muddy sang
Over stones and sunken tree branches

My mind so created
Of dreams and poetry interpreted
These sounds elemental as voices ancestral

Again full of life
Of wisdom, and of instruction
A marvelous reward from this river’s game

Learn By Heart

2006-02-12T07:41:00.000-08:00

If I close my eyes
I still know the way
Through blinding snows
Or pitch black nights
Wild wilderness paths
Can’t scramble the way
If wolves track where I've been
And beasts hidden in caves
Threaten to devour me
And still my journey
If prayers go unanswered
I’ll be safe without guide
All I know of love deep
Inside I know I learned by heart

Folklore of Twilight Illinois

2006-02-09T18:39:00.000-08:00

Black wing song
crows discover earth
alight on a soft ray of morning sun
pray until they become men
men who fed on divine secrets
and fly off into eternal skies:

Oak trees shiloetted across the countryside horizon
stand tall like the rumors of an arriving new earth

Is it real or Is it fantasy?

2006-02-09T17:48:00.000-08:00

Life Imitating Art

In a local bookstore
I bumped into a couple I
knew on their way to
the local cinema.
He’s a friend from
writers group,
she his wife.

(insert small talk here)

After goodbyes
off they went to
watch celluloid fantasies.
I back to my
mortgaged three rooms (and some cats),
and a work in progress
asleep in a notebook.

(that I hoped one day
to win the Sundance film fest with,
a film that would change the lives
of cinema couples everywhere)

I back home to a quiet evening dinner

(soup and pasta and sugar free Jell-O)

with my Lovely Wife

(who prefers videos to crowded movie theaters)

and the nightly news,
just before sleep
and dreams
of box office success.
I awake in the morning
and go to the J-O-B,
where I daydream
about being a writer
of notable esteem.

Since we're feeling nostalgic

2006-02-09T17:07:00.000-08:00

Career Plans

When I was a small child
what I dreamed I'd grow up to be,
depended on the day and the mood I was in.
It was always difficult to choose
one of the various occupations or from myriad of vocations.
I could be launch pad rocketed to orange Mars
after reading a few of Ray Bradbury’s pages…
or become CEO and head inventor for Milton Bradley or Parker Brothers…
I could be a number one K-Tel recording star.

Then there was the promise
of astounding friend and family
with my Doug Henning flamboyance,
or Marshall Brodien sleight of hand.
As fate would have it
I would end up with the dream come true
of a life’s calling, stocking empty shelves at the Ralph-Mart
for minimum wage and an endless supply of low self esteem.
How can you put a price on that?

Another Era, Another Day

2006-02-09T16:22:00.000-08:00

If only I lived in the days when men wore hats, women sundresses. Everyone traveled by train and couples danced away the evenings at supper clubs. In days when one would get their news from a paperboy hawking fresh print on street corners and radio was the main source of entertainment, a tickle for the imagination. Reading meant Bradbury, Fitzgerald and the Sunday funnies. Saturdays were made from Friday paychecks. Everything closed down on Sundays. And most importantly to kiss and hold hands really meant something special.

To hesitate is to think...

2006-02-09T16:03:00.000-08:00

Pause is the remedy for fury.
But the thievery of cold hard cash
is the fuel for an angry moment.

For what person who has toiled
at a dead end job only to have
what little earnings saved
stolen by the price tag
of channel after channel
of cable entertainment.

Whole channels dealing with murder,
24-hour stations of deception and trickery
and that’s just George W. Bush
on the nightly news.

Almost every channel
up and down the broadband
serves up lust as love.

Truly if one would hesitate, think
and delay turning on the flat screen,
cease the wasted hours in front of
the family plasma,
surely anger would dissolve.
Ignore the pixilated world.

Read a book!

Second poem

2006-02-05T15:39:00.000-08:00

Snow Falling on the Front Balcony

A slow drift of Sunday afternoon sky
brings about this transformation
from dreary simpleton day
into first of season magical blanket flurry.
Covering the last few brave fallen October leaves,
this snowy grace covers a sin of
plastic snack cake wrapper that some clown
carelessly cast onto a drowsy earth.
A wonderment stirs my lackadaisical soul
the suburban equivalent to snow gathering in the woodland
here which is not the city, here that is not the country,
a somewhere place strange and in-between.
This version of my 2nd floor scenery
all condo fashionable in the numb suburbs.
Real like monopoly money is real,
like the lead dog and thimble,
plastic like red houses and green hotels,
these surreal fringes I now call home.
Makes my lifespan feel silly.
me without ownership of an inch of earth to call my own,
no forty acres and a mule here.
Just a simple pleasure of snowfall on the front balcony
a miracle moment
which mercifully town hall
hasn’t figured a way yet
to price and tax.

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Two new poems from this season

2006-02-05T15:29:00.000-08:00

A Frost On Late Harvest

The October backfield of soybeans is brown and wasted away, row after row of sweet corn, Indian corn stalks bent over with the dead weight of rotted ears like old folks with bad backs. Fruit trees destroyed this far from August; apples in decay at the last days of November chill, pears near frozen. There’s a frost on the late harvest. Milk cows undernourished, chickens with nearly no feed. Inside the farmer’s wife is at rest in recovery. Her husband seated bedside playing nurse, reading poetry aloud, Wordsworth, her favorite this far past autumn.

For more Weatherbone\Frank Rutledge poetry and Planets & Stars music go to...

2006-01-29T13:08:00.000-08:00

www.cropcirclecollective.com

At the first signs of greeting...

2006-01-29T11:19:00.000-08:00

A greeting to all,

Weatherbone here, let this be my hand held out in greetings. Brew a favorite cup of hot caffeinated beverage, sit back and peruse my musings and create communications. This blog will only feel successful to me if I receive the reader's feedback and participation. I would like to begin with a brand new poem...

Days of Sackcloth and Ash
or Invites to a Pity Party
or Another Woe is Me Session etc.

My emotional weather forecast for today is…raw and exposed. I foresee a cold front on the horizon, with such a chill in the air I just want to throw myself into a few good novels and fill up a couple of blank composition notebooks with mind rambling and heart blather.

It’s time again to do some soul searching.

I comb the universe for my “you are here” locator arrow. This is like my life…

My life is like a return from the concession stand with armfuls of snacks as I struggle to find my seat in the darkened cinema; just after missing the pivotal moment in the film I have anticipated seeing all year long.

My life is like a drive in the countryside where I become lost, but because of the gorgeous scenery I don’t realize I made a wrong turn and end up far from where I want to be.

My life is like spending Valentines Day alone in a hotel room, while I strain to listen to a favorite song coming from next door only I can’t quite hear it over the sound of a passionate couple.

My life is like fishing for whale in a goldfish bowl filled of water from the Thames.

My life is like the amnesiac mailperson wrongly delivering my sexually explicit love letters to the convent on the other side of town.

My life is like a sports car with all four wheels on an ice-covered road, downhill.

My life is like a blueprint plan to tunnel through a granite mountain with marshmallow hammers.

My life is like a fat man on a treadmill lusting over a Twinkie commercial on the gym’s public T.V.

My life is like god bringing on an early sunset so that I’d hush up and get my rest, except I think the almighty is overlooking the fact I talk in my sleep.

My life is like a Father’s bottom drawer unmentionables.