The hemlock I sit beneath shadows the
sea, whose currents cool winds that whip salty
spray up to the point, a stage where flowers
dance with deer. Fawns, asleep on pine spills, wake
when a rabbit squeals, then nibble saplings
rooted in dirt lodged in rock as a fox
flops a meal down in front of her pups. While
bees pick up pollen and zip between buds,
troupes of bugs crumble fallen oaks, which, in
summers blessed with youth and saved from age, brushed
the sky of white and blue with green. Below
the woods, grey waves hammer and carve, splatter
their froth on, black-speckled stone; the grains get
bleached in the surf and whooshed back onto the
shore—the colors rush away with the tide.
Michaelyricking
Poetry, Prose, and Photography by Michael L. King
Sunday, September 22, 2024
On a Point (previously published)
Winter Heolongjiang Train (previously published)
Bound in layered winter
gear, the anxious throng,
loaded with New Year’s
gifts, jams turnstiles
to burst into corridors,
bounce luggage down stairways,
swarm across platforms,
and pack the train’s vestibules,
where standees like me pile up
like crushed butt filters.
The concrete pillars of Harbin
creep away. Inside this pleated
foyer, cigarette smoke wrinkles
ice on windows, distorts brown bricks
of trackside slums as speed builds.
Chain puffers chatter; some save
my name on their cells. Between
the cargo squeezed in the haze,
vendors wedge carts heaped with snacks.
Toward reunion we ride
through the fog of sub-zero temps
outside. Trees in straight rows abide
in cryogenic stupors.
At remote stations, rigid
sentries mind empty yards. Austere
villages bare no distinct paths.
Wiping over frozen sands
of excavated hills, squalls cast
snows into mountainside mineshafts,
colossal maws beneath which
monstrous earthmovers rust.
Along with ceaseless rumbles
that sporadic bangs complement,
rhythmic jostles backed
by cushioned jolts quiet,
though drafts chill the huddled,
while desolation remains,
and destinations close on dreams.
Sidecar (revised '24, previously published)
Outside a rec hall dance
in Devon, a Brit invites this Yankee
yardbird in a Harley hat to drink
homemade rum. My hangover clears
in winter air whipped by a Triumph’s
rush through roads carved
into moors. As an enclosed double-
seater sidecar rocks my new
friend’s wife and three daughters—
five, seven, and nine—cafĂ©
racers wheelie past. After
kilometers, harried, the Scottish mom
punches Plexiglas; I’m obliged.
Better than a tilt-a-whirl, the sidecar
bucks while English uplands scroll
across windows. The girls clamber
front to back, climb their guest
in a joyful rumble. At a barn converted
to a pub, we eat pasties and drink
Guinness. Beneath a quilt of kids,
I doze as we cycle into dusk.
Graves in the Woods - A Walk on Wansong Hill (revised, previously published)
Amid the mountain’s slopes, to ponder tombs, I foot
through paths enclosed in understory. Gnarled roots weave
about the rocks that keep the slopes contained around
the platforms; vines draw macrame curtains across
the altars. Olive leaves above screen, spangle sun
upon the scripts engraved in weathered stone, adorned
with shards of clay, palled with shredded fireworks. Provoked
by whistles from the canopy, shadows sashay
on the calligraphy, dyed in hues of eons,
imbued with lichens and mosses. While I regard
these portraits, hikers keep to designated trails,
count steps up granite stairs, take photos with their friends.
The town below is framed in smog, where cranes lift slabs
to high rise skeletons, interred over gridlock.
Absorbed with tending crops, the farmers camped in tarps
or caves near springs ignore, or just don’t see, me. Like
the shrines, the little gardens shelter in the trees,
which drape the dried clay terraces with solemn shades.
Friday, April 7, 2023
Island (revised, previously published)
Swimming toward my intended
landfall; as its trees begin
to sink below the horizon,
veiled in xanthous blur;
I ponder Millay's fatigue.
Stalled on
empty breath,
I diffuse my arms and legs,
roll over for
a final
view of the sun, and tilt
my head back into
the water casket’s pillow.
Tinsel shards disperse
along the
surface, where I laze
and dream,
upheld by the expanse.