.
Coke ovens. Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania: photo by Carl Mydans for U.S. Resettlement Administration, February 1936 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
In the dark time slows, thought
turns in, grows
hermetic; jumbles
cloudy symbols
carved with soft stone
on flaking anchoritic walls.
Wakeful post shelf
life suspense
of animation continued;
still restlessly
counted
the days to come
as cells arrayed in a row,
cave people, the beehive
coke ovens
as little hermit houses.
turns in, grows
hermetic; jumbles
cloudy symbols
carved with soft stone
on flaking anchoritic walls.
Wakeful post shelf
life suspense
of animation continued;
still restlessly
counted
the days to come
as cells arrayed in a row,
cave people, the beehive
coke ovens
as little hermit houses.
Beehive coke ovens near Westmoreland Homesteads. Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania: photo by Carl Mydans for U.S. Resettlement Administration, February 1936 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Beehive coke ovens near Westmoreland Homesteads. Mount Pleasant, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania: photo by Carl Mydans for U.S. Resettlement Administration, February 1936 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Inside the Hermitage, Warkworth, Northumberland. 14th Century carving of Mary I think - a bit blurry as was really dark in there and I didn't have my tripod with me: photo by Hayley Green, 23 March 2008
Eremo delle Carceri (Assisi). Grotta di Frate Bernardo da Quintavalle: photo by Adelchi, 27 August 2006
Ancient Buddhist cave, Jalalabad, Afghanistan: photo by Todd Huffman, 9 April 2009
Cavate cliff dwellings (built by ancient Pueblo Indians, sometimes known as the Anasazi), one walled up, with steps worn into the soft tuff. Tsankawi, Bandelier National Monument, near White Rock, New Mexico: photo by Harrison Frazier, 24 May 2006; image by PDTillman, 20 February 2011
Cave dwelling at Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico: photo by Brian0918, 24 July 2005
Bandelier cliff dwelling features, Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico: photo by Artotem, 4 June 2011; image by PDTillman, 23 June 2011
Puye cliff dwellings, ruins of an abandoned pueblo, Santa Clara Canyon, Santa Clara Pueblo, near Española, New Mexico: photo by Einar Kvaran, 2009
A coke oven at the Dunlap Coke Oven Park. This is one of 268 ovens used by the Douglas Coal and Coke Company and later the Chattanooga Iron and Coal Company in the early 1900s to convert coal into industrial coke, which was used as a deoxidizing agent in the production of iron: photo by Brian Stansberry, 30 November 2008
Beehive coke ovens near the ghost town of Cochran, Arizona: photo by Cygnusloop99, 19 March 2009
Oratorio de San Isidro o Chozo del Cura, El Villar de Arnedo, España: photo by Juanma232, 13 January 2011
Hanna furnaces of the Great Lakes Steel Corporation, Detroit, Mich. Coal tower atop coke ovens: photo by Arthur Siegel, November 1942 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)
Coke ovens at smokeless fuel plant Abercwmboi: photo by Velela, 1976
Coke ovens in Shoaf, an unincorporated community in Georges Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania. The coke ovens are part of the Shoaf Historic District: photo by Jet Lowe, April 1991 (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)
Kokerei der Stahlhütte Völklingen: photo by Rasi57, October 2004
Old coke ovens, Redstone, Colorado: photo by DQmountaingirl, 20 June 2010
Remnants of coke ovens at Neu-Iserlohn, Germany: photo by spantax, 22 March 2009
The Coke Ovens in Wilkeson, Washington: photo by Ben Cody, 19 March 2008
Warkworth Hermitage, Northumberland. One of the passageways inside the building, only visible by taking a flash photo: photo by Graham Horn, 30 August 2009
5 comments:
beautiful hermit houses!
That Damn Painted Cave
I couldn’t find it on the map
but my eyes saw a glowing woman
in a field with her hands
spread out just so.
I ate their spicy food
and cut the plums like my mother taught.
Flattened diamonds. The dog
ate poison when I wasn’t looking
out in the desert. The metal pipes
under the railroad tracks. She turned
into her coyote side and didn’t stop
following me home. Her hips in pain.
I go to the canyon
looking for the stone lions—
the altar of the mountains.
Alone, I hear a bear at night. It walks
across my feet and then lies down beside me.
All crashing and noises. It was four a.m.
and I had run out of matches.
The Butterfly
The fur on your wings makes you a lion
beating, testing the thin air. All the flowers
in the field are men and you go to each one, tasting.
The men flowers sing their song about pollen.
Their eyes are red and their guts
are white marble from the inside of mountains
pulled out from the middle of the hills.
Now you are lifting the skirts
of women and birds and flowers
underneath the leaves of the aspens.
Green drunken curses. The sheep graze so quickly.
Humboldt’s Caves and Lakes
He works on his book Cosmos
a book recording everything observable
to a human German. Humboldt went to a lake in South America.
The lake was named Guatavita near Bogota’, but on his map
Humboldt drew mythical Lake Parima instead
showing the location where a man, a king, rode on a raft of gold.
The king washed god dust from his body, gold dust.
This was not the only confusion.
In addition to the two lakes
mythical lake Parima
and crater Lake Guatavita near Bogata’
there was also a cave
where a gold statue was found.
It was of a royal person
standing on a raft
and seemed to illustrate in National Geographic
that the myth of the king washing gold dust from his body
in a lake
was really a lonely mystery.
El Dorado, Man of Gold
One.
He jumped into the icy lake. Pine pitch
glittering with gold dust
stuck to his body. It kept him warm.
After he jumped out of the water
the gold sank to the bottom of the lake.
The subjects on the shore clapped wildly.
He must have looked like a golden human fish.
Two.
We watched once at Lake Tahoe while
a man scuba dived in the clear cold water.
We sat on the piney beach with my mom
in the golden sand. My mom was topless.
We were so embarrassed. Please
put on your top, we said. That man will see.
She lifted her arms above her head and stretched.
European style, she said.
It took about a minute to get too cold
jumping in and out of the water, ignoring her.
Our fingers were so blue the sun did not warm them.
Three.
On the beach near Nome we took Kathleen Kennedy
and her friend Sophie for a picnic the second day
they stayed with us. My dad smoked a cigarette
then another, watching the topless teenagers
jumping in and out of the waves. Their breasts
larger than the hands that held them. My dad’s
cigarette stub glowing dangerously close to his fingers.
Kathleen trying to pop corn after the salmon roast,
using only salt, no oil, her method. The popcorn
burning black as the abandoned starts of driftwood.
Four.
Mayor Bill Stirling and Katherine Thalberg look so much alike.
Like brother and sister. Katherine has gold chains against
her collarbones. Her bookstore comes alive when Bill
walks in to give her a rose. This is Aspen, where the winters
are often frozen. The rich fly in and out of the icy valley.
The poor live in teepees if they’re lucky. Katherine and Bill
stay warm long after their smiles flash golden.
Five.
He would jump into the icy lake. Pine pitch on his body.
He glittered with gold dust. Underneath the water he opened
his eyes and the coldness and flashing of the water made him
want to linger as long as possible.
Six.
Out in back right next to the hot tub my sister’s in-laws from Romania
wanted their picture taken with my Dad’s golden pistol he always keeps
in his closet within easy reach of his bed where he dreams.
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