Magpie @81 Rusty Ford in Back Forty

heaviness
looms
weighed down
by fiercely restricted
movement
overdressed in muddy galoshes
the overkill seen at the abattoir
set in
motion
this endless moment of linger

speak easy
noisy memories
who's
wrath or ruthlessness
did sour grapes
those found rose-coloured spectacles
demanded respect and positive spin
but cast
serious
doubt as life's dormancy
had a dubious nature

hand-me-downs
give all of us a hand-up
left-overs
Mother Mary
feed all of us

See him?

I can still sense his essence
even after seventy years of being buried
as iron-smelling sweat imbues
every tight fibre of his being shirt
transforming matter supernaturally
as mortals do so making man into motor
as oil does not mix with water, really
the two do combine sometimes
as the reaction recreates
a new found creation
alight! in a bright flash of ball lightening
a storm of frenzied proportion raising up
questioning and distilling
ideas akin to fireworks
passion left on the backburner
maybe sat on the kundalini too long
rekindled and never wore out
the old flame
a keeper who
keeps on keeping on

the rainmaker danced the rain dance
last's night's storm-a-long-a-ding-dong
only a man made of mortar
could be a man made by-hand
this unmortal mortarman made marble into a god
for worshippers sent all their energies to this place
which was only a stone throw from here
left stone statuary to replace the epithet
"I Live" with "I Die"

And only paid attention
when
it started to rain liquid love upon the place beneath
as the dust bowl prairies' particles
penetrated the plains of Iwo Jima
the Brazilian Butterfly and WWII soldiers
raised the flag then a glass
to good ol' H20
their sweat brought the needed rain

as he was a child of alchemy's-reactionary revolution
as ever-there-was to be
this iron-clad-man girded by the gridlock
fueled by liquid love and lightening flash
he walked thunder from every pour
into the earth as she opened
to swallow whole
at least part or all of him

when he brought forth
and
he did bring forth
as
he poured forth his own blood
in the form of freedom halleluia

whenever he has his fill
he filled to the brim
chock full of nuts the radiator
to cool-down the over-heated block
once sitting on blocks
this knuckle-head of cubic displacement
this iron-clad-man
former cowboy farmer
sitting there
not doing anything

now being that
we think
he is
found again
"I've been found"
so resolved to solve the problem of life
that pesky little question;
"Whay are we here?"
deep within every mortal fibre
being shirtless
being shoeless
being shorn like a sheep kept apart
from life's missing-in-action answer
the only remnant remaining of his lost tribe
hiding deep within the deepest woods or jungle
mugwumps need not fear fearless
or manifest fated destiny

heard the talking of tree creak
the croaking of frogs
the chirping all night of crickets
and the odd deer's bleeting churl
and the fledgling flapping of angel's wings
it's a bird!
No!
it's a crop-duster!
Yes!
Come alive again!

this golden bird of paradise
is really a live tropical plant
that acts more like an animal
supplanted near Galapagos
figuratively
literally
and
anthropomorphically speaking
reborn in some form of other
this certain liveliness returning
once known only to the ancient elderberries
taken to heart and diffused across the Universe

as the old cowboy continues to rust away

in an abandoned field a way back
in the distance
before breakfast
down on the farm
this boy stays home
permanently afixed
only occasionally
returning to sup

I can still see him standing there
in red and white gingham
tee shirt
the tight Levi jeans
his vintage James Dean good looks
American fleshpot sexy

adored and adorned on the homestead wall
his picture so perfect
i can feel his testerone
now respected more than before
as legend and nature has always had a way of making love
larger-than-life spectacular
with peachy no end plum love
awakened from the deepseated sleep

no proof!
of existence?

this pro offering
of the subsequent
consequence
of sequential events
did reek of leeks
and
cosmic consciousness
our paradigms
once
only knew
perimeters
and
the dread and fear of kings
their hardy thought-forms
toil from the soil
no more
where all saints go
to find foil for their souls
that only now know better
ipso facto
as no bitterness from vinegar
smmmmmooth as butter
the transition to transfiguration

played out our lives
it all did fold eventually
like Saturday's card game
beside the hillocks to ramble shackled
broke the record of
take-it-in-stride

as residents of loamy
earth-filled cedar-scented dreams
we pioneers of the affirmative
found vestibules off camera
blinking
way back to the back 40

depression era glass
shines light upon the tilt of time
drives transport truck clear through
residuals for slim pickens
and crew

turn on
silent running motor

turn in
sleep under starry hand-made quilts

turn over
a new leaf of a new book tonight

dream the old dreams
past soddies' survival
past sputtering last
breaths
past rutted-beyond-the-frays
past points-of-no-return
past rotting everlasting
past sealed fateful harbingers
past death; past lives
past all pasts

this most peaceful and serene repast

burgeoning burdens lightly
bearing weightlessness
denuding truth's nakedness
strapped sassafras to boot
iconographic photography class
meanwhile it was a mean while
the best and worst of times
as all tried to unstuck time
make space spacious
battled with the duality of opposites
dragged a thin comb through the muck as the FBI
searched and i found employment
a dragnet for this demigod named Rusty
buried in the past imperfect
sitting docile and dormant now
almost completely unravelled
yet somehow still incomplete and incomprehensible

the total process of oxidization
could be or was buried in the blueberry patch
kitty-corner to the barnboard
which may have prolong
the subsequent pain of form
which enjoyed fame as formlessness
due to the anti-oxidization effects


who-so-ever should find the found
is said to be better than berries from heaven
for heaven was suppose to be an opening in the solid thing
like water yet never kept moving like this
unless by some unknown dimensional effects
always away from town
always going to town
and from a long-lost distant cousin named Beetlegeuse
We all heard the subconsicous roar of a newborn star
this distinct ripple of celestial triggers
set loose into a series of supposedly non-events
by practitioners of the third dimension
which is us

so you see as

atrophy these are dead beasts that hardly breath
to silent for their own good or ours
chasms fold upon
crinkling like cellophane
bolt upright sit the quick and the dead then
dead designed by rot?
life designed by root?
as all ends well
as all is still a'sitting pretty
as all is a junk heap of a planter now

jj

Thank-you Tess Kincaid of Willow Manor for this Magpie Tales prompt...got me to magpie-ing all over town! "Rusty Ford in Back Forty"

http://magpietales.blogspot.com/2011/09/mag-81.html