Self Portrait

One of the things that I try to remember to do wherever I go is take some kind of self portrait -- this is the self-portrait from the D.C. trip. Click to enlarge.

The bird man

Today's photo is of a man feeding the pigeons from -- yes -- his car on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. I guess we all have hobbies. :) Click to enlarge.

Security

Today's photo is of the Capitol and the Capitol police. A very friendly bunch, but everywhere these days. Click to enlarge.

For Josh

This one's for Josh -- he loves to shoot lamps. This particular lamp is outside of the Library of Congress. Click to enlarge.

Napping

Today's shot is a candid of a man napping in the shade of a tree on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Click to enlarge.

Grand Canyon

Been' scanning some of my old slides -- this is a Velvia shot (can ya tell?!) from the Grand Canyon a couple years back:






They're actually sitting on a precipice -- after the edge of which, it's about 1000 feet straight down before you hit the first rocks (and then another 1000 or so feet if you bounce off of that.) Click to enlarge.

Just one more

...just one more shot from the last photo trip. This is a shot of Lydia in the vinyard. :) Click to enlarge.

Caution

Today's photo is just something that I saw while I was wandering the interior halls of the Jefferson Memorial looking for a bathroom. :) Click to enlarge.

Busted camping trip

This is one of those posts that'll probably only be an interesting read to friends & family. :)



A couple of weeks ago, Josh, Lydia, & I were going to go on a camping trip. We ended up aborting that idea after some jonesing jackass busted out the window of Josh's car and skipped off with Lydia's purse, but we did salvage the day by going on a photoshoot out in the wild and at James Arthur Vinyards. My digital camera is in the shop to help the tech repair one of my lenses, so I was stuck using my old EOS-3 & a 50mm for normal stuff and my mom's old OM-1 with a Vivitar 80-205 for the telephoto. Old school! :) Now, the thing is, when inspiration won't strike me or Josh, we resort to taking pictures of each other -- and that was definately the case for me this go around. So, here's a bunch of photos of Josh, his wife Lydia, and Lanette. I like the shot of Josh kissing his wife -- if that's not a sweet moment, I don't know what is! The feet are Lanette's, and the upside-down photo of Lanette is the result of me giving her the camera and asking her to use up the rest of the roll. :) Click any of the photos to enlarge them quite a bit in a new window.

Jogger

Today's photo is of a jogger in downtown Washington, D.C. Click to enlarge.

New Smithsonian

Today's photo of the day is an overview of part of the new Smithsonian Air & Space hangar near Dulles airport. Click to enlarge.

Supreme Court interior

Today's photos are of different parts of the interior of the Supreme court. It's actually a lot larger in there then you'd think! Click to enlarge.

Honest Abe

Bonus 3-for-1! Today's photos are from inside the Lincoln Memorial. Click to enlarge.

Rubbings

Today's photo is of a family making a rubbing at the Vietnam War Memorial. Click to enlarge.

Neverending story

Today's photo is a shot out the window of a 727 somewhere over the east-coast. Reminds me of the clouds from "The Neverending Story". :) Click to enlarge.

Old article

I got this in the mail today -- it's a photocopy of an article I wrote just after 9/11. I'd forgotton that I'd even written this; rereading it now, what surprises me more than anything is that we're just as afraid today, now, five years later, as we were two weeks after the attack. You'll have to click the image above to read the text.

D.C. Impression

Today's photo is the reflection in the windows of an office building in Washington, D.C. Click to enlarge.

Pops!

This is a photo of my dad standing outside of the Smithsonian Air and Space hangar near Dulles airport. This is actually an HDR shot that I decided to tone completely funky for the fun of it. :) Of course, this was taken with a superwide lense, so pops is distorted quite a bit, but I still like it. Click to enlarge.

For Lanette

Someone pointed out that I missed posting a photo on Sunday, so here's one to make up!



I took this thinking of Lanette, who has a big thing for shooting feet. :) With a camera, of course. When she's using a gun, she tends to aim at other appendages. Click to enlarge.

Reading together

Today's photo is a candid of a couple reading together on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Click to enlarge.

Waiting

A homeless man waiting for change in Washington, D.C. Click to enlarge.

Couple

Today's photo is a candid of a couple near the American Indian museum in Washington, D.C. Click to enlarge.

Do not lean

Today's photo is from the observation tower at the new Smithsonian Air & Space hangar near Dulles, Virginia. You can watch plane after plane come in for landing here -- pretty cool! Click to enlarge.

Genesis with Emily just after waking

This is another poem from around 5, maybe 6 years ago.



Genesis With Emily Just After Waking



Emily, it is not only that

I drink to hollow out my body.

My body hollow, I drink

to fill my body.



Why God chose to make me, Emily

I will never know.

I was made in a glass dish.

When I drink, I unbecome

That evening which unformed the voice of the ocean--

And your morning body

bridges the firmament.



Look at me Emily.

I have spent the entire morning watching

Your head rise the crest of my body.

Beneath the cathedral of my bone

The ocean notes gather-- firm

As the glass under the stars, the whispered

spirals of a conch

call out--

The bag lady

Today's photos are of a lady I saw going around collecting trash from the city wastebins. She was almost surreal to me. Click to enlarge.

Floating under only the dusk

This poem was written almost 5 years ago as a companion to "At the Graveyard".



Floating Under Only The Dusk In Bridgeport, Nebraska

For B.



I



To swim here is murder.

The lonely eddies, flowing silt

the quicksand of the sandhills.



And when you sink, nose stopped

with mud, look up into the sun

drowned into brown, to night, to nothing-



II



The willows swap shadows, crickets

rolling in from the North.

There is only the dusk

between us now.

Above me, your abandoned sandals,

more dust than leather,

grow into the grass.



III



You were not there when they found me

my chest slumped in folds, like a fault

after the last trembler.

I drifted down like the stone Indian

perched on the Missouri

And storms marched over my grave.



IV



The underground makes home for none, but you

burrowed out your stake.

You, the quiet sentry,

crouched in stale air

And giants roam the earth.



You are the stone at the end of the world.

Beyond movement, the sand

carves lines along your face,

biding time

before the final fall.



V



My flowers sewn into the soil

You stoop, three months

into the dirt, to kiss the stone

my day of birth.



I have died empty, never trying you.

Capitol

Today's photo is of the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. This is a photo that would be, I think, really cool at night! Click to enlarge.

Your first love

This poem is from a couple years ago. I haven't written much recently, though hopefully that'll change some time in the forseeable future.



Your First Love



You find her again by accident

crouched under the socks

in your nightstand.

It’s not really an accident.

You remember exactly where you were

when you took it,

what you were wearing,

what was on your mind.

You even remember

the brand and the make

of camera,

a Kodak Tourist II

your father bought for you

at the World’s Fair.

You run your hands over the glass.

You wonder if you’ll ever be able to bear it,

the weight of your own history.

You have long since given up

dusting her photograph, or even

remembering

just who it was who first slipped her

into the glass frame.

In your hands she is still and flat.

It is late and the room is too cold.

Somehow you know:

it’s like this everywhere,

all across November

the slack hands are digging out the old loves

from nightstands,

turning them over

and over again,

and wishing themselves

under glass.

The Enola Gay

Today's photo is of the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb in anger. Click to enlarge.

Ramp

Today's photo is of a ramp in the Smithsonian hangar near Dulles airport. Click to enlarge.

Another poem

Here's another. This one is from a good 5 years ago... it blows my mind how quickly time rolls by.



At the Graveyard



I hated God.



She frowns saying it, words

sharp periods above us.

The ground does not split.

To the east a floating hawk,

blue paint, white canvas curls,

Renae.

Against the sky. In a camera's cross,

Her hair sleeks forward, cuts air,

Black, flapping thunderbolts.

I have no camera. I wouldn't dare,

We may as well be on our knees.

Like Chartre, the dusty ghosts

Scrape shins for hours, each endless

a closing loop, the cloister

Still out of reach. Renae drags up

The gravel slope, up, and into a blue

Yawn. Just this morning

I think of us, seventeen in the Sioux

Tri-State, home of War Eagle,

Tossing milkcaps into the Missouri.

Past purple clots of Iowa deep

in Louisiana, who knows, maybe

They found open water. Few escape

Iowa, the running joke. Renae's father

Found Nebraska with an arc-welder

And a thousand tons of methane.

His shadow spinning small over the river,

And each black bone covered

By Con Agra, Blue Cross.

The hawk sails into the sun.

Knees rough into the gravel,

Renae clambers down her slope,

A handful of daises, and a white cross

sprung from her father's arm.

Mounties

Today's photo of the day is of a couple cops patrolling the national mall in Washington, D.C. I was hoping these guys would have to run someone down (wouldn't that be an interesting photo?), but they mostly just chatted with each other. Click to enlarge.

Another poem

Someone mentioned in a comment that they'd like to see more poems, & I'm happy to oblige! This is a poem that a friend actually asked me to write. She was contemplating breaking up with someone, and wanted a poem called "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do". How the space shuttle ended up in it, I dunno, but it seemed right. This is actually a revision of something I posted earlier. Not sure if I like the revision more than the original or not.




Breaking up is hard to do



You clamp down your helmet,

a fireball in the deep.

Your belt forms a cross across

your chest. If you have been falling

for weeks, you couldn't know it:

Your circle carves a pivot



anchored in void.



There is no safety net,

the weight of your bones

tipped into cloud.

This was the time to end it,

time to come home.

You couldn't have known



This poem ends like a snowflake.



It is easy to ignore the way your wings

yawn back, the pinch of fire

under your chest. Soon you

forget it all; the scent

of melting wax, the alarms,

the quaking sky. The nagging



deceleration.



The wind opens you up.

You explode somewhere over Texas, your bones

snapped on the knee of the sky.

Your helmet is found melted into the grass

of the only abandoned Seven Eleven

in Sandy Creek, Texas.



Two children stand hand in hand in a wood,

their tongues outstretched.



You are coming home.

Swing

I suppose if you're going to play softball, playing it in a cute pants/dress thing can't hurt. Unless you're a guy, of course. Click to enlarge.

Reading

Today's photo of the day is of a man reading in the shade on the national mall in Washington, D.C. Click to enlarge.

Teenagers

Today's photo of the day is of some teenagers sitting on a bench on the mall in Washington, D.C. Click to enlarge.

The least of these

Today's photo of the day is of a man on a bench on the mall in Washington D.C. He was feeding the birds. Click to enlarge.

Touching the stone

Today's photo of the day is from the Vietnam Memorial, a very emotional place. Click to enlarge.

A poem that Google Desktop found on my computer

Apparently, I wrote this four years ago. I then inadvertently buried it on my computer, and Google Desktop found it for me today. Despite the fact that it was one of the poems that I wrote back when I wrote poems that were far too obscure and impossible to penetrate (read: way too pretentious and self-gratifying), it really amuses the hell out of me that Google is now mining interesting stuff from my own freakin' hard drive. Is there anything the Google nerds can't do? Anyway, I can't access my pictures right now, so I'll post this instead:



Running Away



In my dream you are running away

West, through the silos

of Nebraska,

where our fathers still crouch



in pressured holes.

You are running west and

Brian is there, waving

from Bridgeport lake, that carved edge



of dusk,

You lift through Rushmore.

The wind works on the dead men

with blank, powdered hands.



In my dream

You wave back.

At Crazy Horse, selling cigars,

At the blasting teams,



swinging their arcs in time.

You always land here

at the end of the world.

You trace the whorls



cut deep into rock, like

fingerprints.

I lay my staff down.

Even here, the wild Jasmine



push up through shale,

and Daisies,

white as ghosts,

bend in long light.



The clouds over Valentine

Rise up on fighting legs.