Jon Thompson
POEM REFLECTING ON HOW THE WEST WAS WON
just seeing at a great distance
the “fine high country of Montana” the ravines
gulches& grassy plains with the dandelions
waving in the breeze
is enough; no denying it—there’s grandeur--
inexpressible mountain ranges—inexpressible high country air--
but what
is enough? The great horizontality of place
refuses fine measurements
greenness has spread, is spreading
midst waste & ruin–
the blackened frame of a burnt-out cabin is
situated in it–
at a great distance anything can be forgiven, forgotten–
how the big country swallows up everything
big & small
as if the only history was now dandelion seeds taking to
the air the Missouri getting flashier
the faster its currents go
sun-spangles on the water
“What shall I say? I was seized by a distemper…”
(The Missouri Breaks)
ON THE LAND QUESTION
The way afternoon sunlight fills the land with light
is the way
the mind tries to take in the fact of beauty. The wind
ruffles the back of wheat fields,
a waving expanse of gold moving in unison,
swaying back & forth to the horizon.
The landscape’s limitless–shimmering–lives in constant
motion, responsive to its own ends. It’s hard
to take in the unanimity of such luminosity.
There’s a radiance to the vastness, a sense of secret lives,
a shine to the world above the loam.
It’s 1916, it’s 1978: labor versus capital again,
harvesting & profiting from the harvesting,
the tale of people who’ve only themselves to sell,
the old story of sectioning
a life into days, short-term loss reckoned
against the ledger hope of long-term gain.
Over & above the gentle undulations, a soft light plays out:
it’s late afternoon, in the permanent evening of August’s end:
who gets to see the land as beautiful?
The sun never whitens, never lessens its labors in luminosity,
never delivers less than
a dazzling optics of the land ripening at its richest hour.
(Days of Heaven)
FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF DISAPPOINTMENT
story of disappointment, living in plain sight
of the life wanted, pain
of failure as familiar as the pang of desire…
Manhattan skyline at night bejeweled & strung with lights
Every word, an innuendo
Sheer, pathless, the Palisades, “a fence of stakes,” rises rock-stiff
out of the wilderness (still wilderness) above the Hudson
magnificent
anywhere but here
(Cop Land)
BRIEF CHRONICLE OF DESIRE
From the hills, the city
spreads out against the dawn, an achieved thing
vast against the desert. At night, it’s
red, yellow & green dots bright against the darkness.
_______
Days repeat themselves again & again
but they’re different, as the light is different
from day to day,
sometimes brighter, more brilliant
more declarative, urgent,
rarer.
_______
Unspoken losses
that accumulate hour after hour.
_______
Waste unheard of, unknown–
epic, & unbelieved.
_______
And disconnection:
it hangs in the air with absolute deniability.
_______
Moments in which nothing happens, just
the slow recognition of the strangeness that’s overtaking your life.
As in cello arias
drifting onto suburban streets.
_______
Elsewhere, speed & motion: life in a highway-crossed land
means traffic is the new landscape.
_______
The vastness of the city, its sprawl, is
a kind of wish-fulfillment version of happiness, unselfconscious.
_______
Or a new form of ennui,
terrible in its unselfconsciousness.
_______
What do you do when you can’t bear
the achievement of your life, your time?
_______
That you can be granted this singular, block-by-block vision of the city,
stock-still in the morning light, “bright & glittering in the smokeless air,”
arrives like a hope achieved,
like a pain in the heart.
(Short Cuts)
THE WILDERNESS BECKONS TO THE SELF UNKNOWN TO THE SELF
Wilderness rivering;
mountain-top forests running
to winter’s lodge (Overlook Hotel) winter-fastened:
snow-drifts drifting to gables.
Spruces crusted in snow.
Outside the vastness is keening; wind-howling, wind-crying.
Whiteness blizzarding, whiting-out roof-pitch & paned-glass windows.
Past murmuring, past whispering, past halting–
pastness living on in the living,
hush-a-bye-ing,
not knowing,
but trauma-bearing & wearing & worrying
all the while,
scree below snow-capped cliffs & snow-silenced crags.
Overlooking the past, the wilderness
inside: a cold whiteness
pitched past knowing
(The Shining)
Wilderness rivering;
mountain-top forests running
to winter’s lodge (Overlook Hotel) winter-fastened:
snow-drifts drifting to gables.
Spruces crusted in snow.
Outside the vastness is keening; wind-howling, wind-crying.
Whiteness blizzarding, whiting-out roof-pitch & paned-glass windows.
Past murmuring, past whispering, past halting–
pastness living on in the living,
hush-a-bye-ing,
not knowing,
but trauma-bearing & wearing & worrying
all the while,
scree below snow-capped cliffs & snow-silenced crags.
Overlooking the past, the wilderness
inside: a cold whiteness
pitched past knowing
(The Shining)
SPENCER TRACY'S SILVER TRAIN TRANSVERSES THE DESERT OF DEATH VALLEY WITH JAGGED MOUNTAINS IN THE DISTANCE
“such a
heartless
immensity”
(Bad Day at Black Rock)
Copyright Jon Thompson 2013
In the last two years, Jon Thompson has had poems published or accepted for publication by American Literary Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Colorado Review, 1913: A Journal of Forms, The Common, Jacket 2, Map Literary, Quiddity, Shearsman Magazine, The White Review and Witness. Thompson's first collection was The Book
of the Floating World (2007) and his last book was a collection of lyrical essays, After Paradise: Essays on the Fate of American Writing (2009). The poems here are from LANDSCAPE WITH LIGHT, a manuscript that reflects upon landscapes (whether rural or urban) in iconic American films.
