Serial

Erik Nelson

April 23, 2017 — Leave a comment

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Crossing Willow Creek

Parts 1-4

Parts 5-8

Parts 9-12

Part Thirteen: Going Nowhere

Though once a hub condensed and packed

With people far and wide,

Behold the city’s pavements cracked,

Each one, from side to side.

 

Her loyal subjects slaved and shopped,

Where commerce slowed but never stopped,

Where prophets and saints were slain in the land,

Like Brother Abel by Cain’s sinful hand.

 

Looking in vain for a brook where the crane,

Raven, heron and owl lay low,

These offspring of Cain are clouds without rain,

Blown and carried by winds to and fro.

 

They’re waves of the sea that no one can tame,

Raging and foaming unnatural shame,

Wandering stars for whom is reserved

The blackness of the darkness they serve.

 

They’re late autumn trees, barren of fruit,

Commoving over a desert of despair,

Dead and groundless, pulled up by the root,

In a pinch, inch by inch, going nowhere.

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Part Fourteen: Throughout the Land of Nod

Will they ever find a home,

A stable place to lay their head,

Or will they always have to roam

And more or less beg for bread?

 

Underneath the starry dome,

Will they someday make their own bed,

Or will they always have to roam

And fight death till they are dead?

 

Will they always bear the curse

Of their distant ancestor Cain?

Will their lot keep getting worse,

Until nothing of them remains?

 

How long will they have to traverse

This most treacherous of terrains,

As wretches who suffer the curse

Of their distant ancestor Cain?

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Part Fifteen: Running Themselves to Death

They don’t want to remain on the brink

Or spend all their days buying time

But long for aught higher than instinct,

Some end both profound and sublime.

 

They try to placate, although in vain,

The ghosts that haunt their minds;

They try to scrub and blot out the stain

And break the chains that bind.

 

They’re haunted by all they left behind

And can’t make out aught ahead,

Without footprints to follow or find

And no track to take instead.

 

The people are on their downtrodden way

To build a brand new mess;

They keep plugging along, each doleful day,

Through barren wilderness.

 

The dead don’t sleep but keep coming back,

At least in the people’s guilt-ridden minds

Who wander eastward, without a track,

Trying to see ahead while going blind.

 

Folks start falling down, at first one by one,

And passersby stop and stoop to lend a hand,

But under the heat of the beating sun,

Debilitated by thirst, they disband.

 

The dead are left to bury themselves,

As they drop down, one by one;

The soil receives their empty shells

While to death the living run.

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Part Sixteen: The Primal Eldest Curse

Grass is growing on the street,

Which a pack of dogs polices;

Moisture builds within concrete,

Until it splits it to pieces.

 

From wind and rain, from cold and heat,

The building blocks expand;

The elements achieve the feat

Of turning them to sand.

 

The weather cools and then warms,

Termites sap both ridge and wall,

Fires start from lightning storms,

Wires snap, and bridges fall.

 

Brother Abel Cain felled with a thud,

Where brute force reigned supreme,

Where streets were stained with human blood

And paved with broken dreams.

 

Here flaming swords hid paradise,

Where multitudes crowded en masse,

Though most were just a sacrifice

To a sky all clouded with gas.

 

This is where the cars sped by,

Where hosts of homeless plied the streets,

Where everything was a lie,

To which the rich had front row seats.

 

Here slaves dispersed in waves and floods

And off their feet shook dust

Because the city needed blood

To satisfy its lust.

 

The ending of the play was bad,

Without time to rehearse:

The center-stage, the city had

The primal eldest curse.

 * 

Part Seventeen: The Line of Confusion and the Stones of Emptiness

Now stars and moon brighten the sky

And are not nightly dimmed;

Migrating birds know where to fly,

And whales know where to swim,

For buildings that confused the birds

At night with all their lights

Are powerless, since no one stirs

Inside these empty heights,

And the ships that plowed the sea

And drowned out mating calls

Are as silent as can be,

As town and city halls.

 

The window-glass begins to break

And hit the ground below,

For nothing lasts, and all it takes

For all the glass to go

Is rain getting in caulking cracks

And rusting the metal clips,

Which cannot hold gravity back

Long after the caulking chips.

So sheets of glass from windows fall,

Shattering on streets below.

Soon the buildings themselves, so tall,

Won’t withstand another blow.

 

All castles and kingdoms of pride

Are attacked and then sacked, bit by bit:

Time was not on history’s side

But was stacked, with the clime, against it.

As grass spreads over the urban sprawl

And anonymity nears,

The last still-standing skyscrapers fall,

And history disappears.

Now the serpent cannot bruise

The heel of man at night

Nor a bird’s flight be confused

By artificial light.

*

Biography

Erik Nelson was born in Madison, WI, in 1974, grew up in British Columbia, Canada, as well as several states in the United States, before obtaining a Masters degree in Literary Theory from the University of Dalarna, in Falun, Sweden; he then taught English at the college level in the deep south of the United States for ten years, before moving to the high plains of Colorado, where he currently lives, lucubrates and works as a librarian.

Erik Nelson: Crossing Willow Creek (parts 9-12)

January 22, 2017 — 3 Comments

Parts 1-4

Parts 5-8

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Part Nine: Across the River of Arabim

They elected to stay if life would improve

And delayed when it only got worse,

Then selected a day to pack up and move

To evade the effects of the curse;

They carry, on their backs and shoulders,

Though strength, at length, has abated,

Fetishes as heavy as boulders,

Evil goods accumulated.

 

As lost, unfit and out of place

As fish fresh out of water,

This vain pipedream they blindly chase,

Like lambs led to the slaughter,

En route to where streams cross the sand,

Where cranes and albatrosses land

To dally in a valley that’s brimming with fresh water,

Over a desert sea, which diurnally gets hotter.

 

Traversing this uneasy land,

They’re looking for dirt that’s rich and moist:

Past unforgiving seas of sand,

A brook where plans can be hatched and voiced.

The plains are all hurting, of mirth bereft;

Folks hope a sliver, though very slim,

Remains of some fertile patch of earth left:

Across the River of Arabim.

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Part Ten: The Nightmare of History

All their problems they vowed to leave behind

And trunks of treasure take,

But they merely move matter, not their minds,

So how can they awake?

 

How can they escape the chains that bind

When they’re in love with the pains they cause

And cling to them with body and mind,

As if the links were natural laws?

 

How can the nightmare of history

Be left that far behind,

When its crux and central mystery

Are matters of the mind?

 

Somewhere safe, where they can settle and live,

Is out of sight but not out of mind,

Where they can write a metanarrative,

Inspired by whatever they find.

 

They need a place to be reborn

And weave new webs of lies,

As clothes are graciously worn

To hide what’s hard on eyes.

 

With cloaks of ink they’ll need cover-ups,

For it all has been laid bare;

A bitter drink is in the lover’s cup,

For castles are made of air.

 

Exposé equals apocalypse,

Etymology shows,

A block on which humanity trips,

Keeping it on its toes.

*

Part Eleven: The Uncovering

Pavement splits as blades of grass shoot;

In broken windows owls hoot:

Now the city is a haven

For the bittern and the raven.

 

No bricklayer repairs a wall;

The last to leave just stared, appalled:

Never will humanity adorn her

Or pick one stone again for a corner.

 

What she has sown she now has reaped,

Which fate she couldn’t avoid;

The harlot’s bones are buried deep

In the soil she destroyed.

 

The great whore will not make a peep,

No echo of her sound;

Nevermore will she wake to creep,

All wrecked up, from the ground.

 *

 Part Twelve: A Population Without a Town

They trampled nature under their boots,

And fatter they grew, like sows;

So mother-earth replenished no shoots,

No matter how much they plowed.

 

They gobbled up their plants and roots,

Nuts and berries, sheep and cows;

No field then yielded any fruit,

Because of how much they plowed.

 

They took their booty and their loot,

What their ways and means allowed

And ventured out, in vague pursuit,

By the sweat of their furrowed brows.

 

With doubt they are plagued, for it’s moot

If aught exists past a misty shroud,

Where owls lay eggs, brood and hoot,

With abundance of wisdom endowed.

 

Their brass horns some make a point to toot,

Which fails to catch on in the crowd:

Alas, none care to follow suit,

Feeling more wretched than proud.

 

They are an orchard without fruit,

A traveling circus sans a clown,

A tree without one grounded root:

A population without a town.

*

To Be Continued

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Biography

Erik Nelson was born in Madison, WI, in 1974, grew up in British Columbia, Canada, as well as several states in the United States, before obtaining a Masters degree in Literary Theory from the University of Dalarna, in Falun, Sweden; he then taught English at the college level in the deep south of the United States for ten years, before moving to the high plains of Colorado, where he currently lives, lucubrates and works as a librarian.

Erik Nelson: Crossing Willow Creek (parts 5-8)

October 6, 2016 — Leave a comment

Parts 1 – 4 

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Part Five: Where No Brick Has Ever Been Laid

With bodies wary of attacks,

And though they’re very tired,

The people carry, on their backs,

Commodities acquired,

Superfluities they couldn’t spare,

Beloved souvenirs of Babylon,

An oddity here, another there:

Whatever ridiculous sin qua non.

 

They’re going where they’ve heard it’s green,

Where only beasts and birds have been,

Where human bones were never buried

And no couples were ever married,

Where not one stone has ever been stacked

Upon another or been attacked:

Where no brickwork has echoed human sound

Or ever known being thrown to the ground.

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Part Six: Past the Last Poplar Trees

Where once were trees, dead stumps abound,

And nothing new grows from the ground:

So the people are curst to escape

Their very bad and worsening shape.

 

Lugging their idols down the roads,

They carry their most cherished goods,

Transporting their accursed loads,

Abandoning their neighborhoods.

 

All cramped up in their caravans,

They camp, as they travel, in tents,

Pursuing uncertain plans

Over a desert of laments.

 

Curst to neither disperse nor fade,

Pitch black clouds hover atop,

Which cast an everlasting shade

But lack, however, one drop;

They keep all covered and shrouded in gloom

And seem to herald quietus and doom.

 

Men’s streams of consciousness are full of pollution,

But leaders devise less soulish of solutions,

For followers aren’t easy to find

Or spirits easy to raise,

With dark matter over mind

And dreams being hard to come by these days.

 

Through the dust, the herds or crowds

Continue onwards, en route

To streams far past these dark clouds

And what they cast: shades of doubt.

 

Ere dreams and last hopes fade out,

They go where they’ve heard there’s no drought:

To a land of birds, grasshoppers, bees

And streams just past the last poplar trees.

*

Part Seven: Where They, At Last, Can Stay

“Deliver us from the evil one,”

They’d prayed but hell-fire fanned;

So rivers burned, under the sun,

Until they turned to sand.

The vegetation’s dead and gone,

Due to the nation Babylon.

Grass has withered; springs have dried:

Everything she touched has died.

So people pack upon their backs

And drag behind in trunks

Their bric-a-brac and their knick-knacks,

Within a word, their junk.

 

They’re going where the land is green,

More lush than human eye has seen,

Far away from corrupted hands

And hellishly dry desert sands:

An oasis on the outskirts

Of a story-book-like forest,

Where murmuring brooks, wind and birds

Join forces to form a chorus:

Not far past over yonder,

Not far past far away,

Where they won’t have to wander,

Where they, at last, can stay.

*

Part Eight: Beyond the Dune of Lilith

The world did not pan out as planned,

So they swim against the tide

Of this merciless sea of sand,

Full of emptiness inside.

 

By day they burn beneath the heat

While traversing this danger zone;

At night a shivering, winding sheet

Descends and chills them to the bone.

 

They say each head they will anoint

With oils of new gladness

And pray their dreams won’t disappoint

Or spoil into madness.

 

They would reach ripe grapes upon vines

And fresh, cool streams, at which they wish

To be the first of future lines

To quench their thirst and dine on fish.

 

They pay attention to each sign,

So cups they soon may fill with

Water that’s clean and wine that’s fine:

Beyond the Dune of Lilith.

*

To Be Continued

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Biography

Erik Nelson was born in Madison, WI, in 1974, grew up in British Columbia, Canada, as well as several states in the United States, before obtaining a Masters degree in Literary Theory from the University of Dalarna, in Falun, Sweden; he then taught English at the college level in the deep south of the United States for ten years, before moving to the high plains of Colorado, where he currently lives, lucubrates and works as a librarian.

Erik Nelson: Crossing Willow Creek (parts 1-4)

July 14, 2016 — Leave a comment

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Part One: Unshakable Shadows

For want of things needful, men cry;

The ancient springs have all run dry.

For flowing brooks, the people pine;

Each time they look, they see a sign.

 

The sons and daughters of song sing low,

No more replete with lust;

About the streets of sorrow they go,

About the streets of dust.

 

The wheel of the well is broken now;

The golden bowl is bust.

So none repeat any token vow,

For it’s too late to trust.

 

With hearts that pretend to have hope but sag,

They start, at the ends of their ropes, to drag

The various enchantments they take:

Shadows of dreams they can’t seem to shake.

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Part Two: Over the Brook of the Willows

Failing, languishing is the vine,

So, without song, men savor wine.

Wailing, anguishing is each tribe,

Devoid of strong drink to imbibe.

The flower faileth, then drops;

The hour aileth, then stops,

But still the rook, through its bill, crows:

Over the Brook of the Willows.

 

Their loss they swallow and thus carry,

Across the hollow to the prairie,

Traveling heavy or light

To a place e’er out of sight,

Where wolves and bears with cattle lie

And none have heard one battle cry,

Where, in a nook, green grass still grows:

Over the Brook of the Willows.

*

Part Three: The Burden of the Desert of the Sea

They cannot stay but have a plan,

Though traumatized and weak;

They’ll make their way, as best they can,

Across old Willow Creek.

 

With their gold, silver and tears, they leave,

For nothing has grown for years;

They pack what they hold most dear and grieve

O’er the rest that disappears.

 

By hand and foot they carry it,

The rich by horse and chariot,

Through lands of desert seas of sand

To start all over, somewhere grand.

 

They chart a course to save the day,

By which they plan to travel,

To cart their junk and pave a way

To stitch dream-seams unraveled.

 

With spirits sunk so very low,

They’re looking for the lea;

The caravan can barely go

Across the desert sea.

*

Part Four: Under the Shadow of Her Wings

Through lands of fire, brimstone, distress,

The darting snake and flying dragon,

Through lands of lion and lioness,

They cart their stake, the rich by wagon,

The poor by blistered hand and foot,

With palms and soles as black as soot,

To where grass still grows free:

Beneath the willow tree.

 

They’re going where the sparrows sing,

Over the hills and far away,

Where no one, ever, was crowned king

Or had his fill denied each day,

Where human graveyards can’t be found,

Where none have paved the naked ground,

Where the owl shades her hatchlings

Under the shadow of her wings.

*

To Be Continued

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Biography

Erik Nelson was born in Madison, WI, in 1974, grew up in British Columbia, Canada, as well as several states in the United States, before obtaining a Masters degree in Literary Theory from the University of Dalarna, in Falun, Sweden; he then taught English at the college level in the deep south of the United States for ten years, before moving to the high plains of Colorado, where he currently lives, lucubrates and works as a librarian.