John Jackson

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Paper Airplane

A love,
once crisp and fresh,
follows the passing of time.
Flights of fancy
become flights of fantasy,
as the sharply folded pleats
slowly come undone.
Plummeting earthward,
crumpled on the ground.
Irreparable,
and ironically 
recyclable

Tempe, Arizona, 1963

a scent of sunshine
baked  into sheets on a line
certain smells take me back

a little boy, eager, struggles to keep up
her gentle admonitions oft repeated
"don't let them touch the ground, honey"

methodically we folded
longways, longways
toward and back, toward again

every week, just her and I
while the girls were in school
all her troubles subsided

and for that little while
my world seemed right
longways, toward, and back

        rem

        disjointed vignettes
        in early morning slumber
        the passionate nothingness
        so nonsensical and disturbed
        colors the coming day
        within a subliminal world
        of no dark, and no light
        just every shade of gray

Haiku

stoned in solitude
memory evaporates
before it happens

                     Horses

I'm thinking of Horses
                                                         from memory              
I can hear them talking
                                                         quietly
against the early light of dawn                                   
                                                         silhouetted
milling and moving together
                                                         effortlessly
their body and spirit
                                                          carry me

        Blossoms

            nature yet lives
            in a small town
            the apricot tree blooms
            like so much popcorn
            this bittersweet spring
            it's fragrance a memory
            of warm sunday cobbler

   Micropoetry

    dark familiar pain
this mental flagellation
     the light, elusive

              soft, subtle movement
              tiny cones make healing sounds
              joyously, she dances

                                    contrails from
                                    my flights of fancy
                                    dissipate and disappear
                                    another dream
                                    unborn

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