Standing before a large map on the wall, I trace serpentine lines with my left index finger across all the places I’d goif only I had the time and freedom to roam.Maybe someday I’ll see these places as more than red and blue arteries stretching across oddly shaped borders.It suddenly occurs to me that I’veContinue reading “Mapping”
Author Archives: Mark Alden
Out Here
What are we doing out here,somewhere north of nowhere,our feet sunk in the shallowsof a cold river bed? We were yearning and young once –memories come rushing downstreamas clear and rocky as this river bottom,glinting gold in the summer sun.
Coming Home
The flood of austere streetlights cuts through the black of a moonless, starless night,projecting monstrous shadows onto fresh pavement – the row of tall oaks yielding to a stiff north wind.But just up the hill, a half a mile or so,is where the single well-lit porch,the faintly glowing front window,the well-worn red door,the well-loved facesContinue reading “Coming Home”
Jailbreak, 1988
Dead truck slouched deep in a ditch. Stern sun glaring down over the hillsupon wide empty fields.Dirt road yawning out toward somewhere in between. Foul mouthed kid peddling along, blowing off steam and dust from his wheels, riding away from homeand the litany of injustices under that roof, toward a taunting, ever elusive horizon –oneContinue reading “Jailbreak, 1988”
Sight
This is where I begin,by tuning out to tune in,shutting my eyes from the light,opening the cage of my mindfor imagination to fly. All perceptions are suddenly ruled by rhythms,little flourishes of sound,and through this voluntary blindness, I’m unboundfrom what might otherwise be diminishedin this moving mosaic behind my eyelids.
From The Back Of Beyond
I found inspirationbehind death’s door,within the walls of a musty roomon the ground floor,scattered amongst the tomesof displaced thought.From this cemetery of old booksrose a simple turn of phrasethat shook meout of my malaise,moved the handthat clutched the penuntil a shallow breath of lifewas breathed again.
Fishing
The thought I thought I’d lostsuddenly swam back to the surfaceof my mind one night.I shot out of bed,groped for the light,groped for a pen,but before I could find oneit flit away again.That slippery thoughtI’ve yet to hookinto the netof my nightstand notebook.But each night I cast my line once moreinto a dark sleepy pond,Continue reading “Fishing”
Dreamscape
The little yellow bungalow on the hill,I saw it once in a dream that felt so real,though it’s a place I know I’ve never been.And what if I never have that dream again?Does such a place in the world existoutside of my own head?Somehow, I hope it does,and I hope to find youstill paddling forContinue reading “Dreamscape”
Night & Day
What is night but another burned-out dayclad in dancing shoes and a sleek black party dress,hair down, rife with life and drunken laughter,swaying gracelessly and uninhibited to the floor pulsing beats. Until at last, the music stops. The bands and the DJs pack up.The raucous voices gradually fade –the laughter, always the last to die,asContinue reading “Night & Day”
Proof
Just an old shed is left to standagainst the slow invasionof termites and weeds and time.The house is gone,and has been for years. Once I drove past where it used to beon my way to nowhere in particularand nearly drownedin a flash flood of memory. We lived in the apartment upstairswhere the fire was saidContinue reading “Proof”
Ascent
Once while standing at the base of a steep spiral staircase,a fever dream stole my equilibrium –the pinpoint of light above appearing like the tiny aperture at the end of a camera lens as my fluttering eyelids attempted to bring it into focus.Heights have never felt quite right, yet that bright white eye at theContinue reading “Ascent”
Industry
Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.There’s a dam in this riverwhere logs used to floatand jam up downstream,a rusting reminder of a once booming industry,like the billowing smokestack of the paper mill today, tainting our blue skies with toxic plumes of gray,the air stinking like shit whichever way the wind decides to takeContinue reading “Industry”
Haunted Avenues 