Burial Poem 11 --36 13' 3.98" N, 86 41' 40.45" W

I've been the stranger
in line at gas stations
and rest stops but
I have never been alone
she's been here all along
While I drive she reads
when she drives I sleep
through the desert
she finds me sitting
reminds me of water
across mountain tops
she stops me to breathe
at night I set the tent
and she lays the bedding
we read till our eyelids
weigh down and the light
burns out
                 now beneath
the Dixie moon
full in humid air
a beacon to the wild
we step with bare feet
onto the cool earth
she leads me to dance
                      till dawn.

Burial Poem 10 --40 39' 45.88" N, 105 11' 8.37" W

At the furthest reaches
     of this jagged mountain-scape
     to the moving sky
across peak
      within gully and gulch
      last winter's snow pack
   still fights
           against
              the elements
      a sun high in the north
      summer winds
      a parade of awe struck
         travelers
      the dark clouds rising
                from cities below
the packs are no longer white
      now with a yellow tint
          of dried bone
      the remains are
      less than the year before
yet they hold

            and wait.

Contribution Number Dos

Following Dave's example, here. I did one of those erasure poems b/c I was bored and have never done one. It's from an article in The Week about robots eventually having self-awareness. This might be a candidate for BOTB some day. I buried it in my garden next to my cucumber plant.

We want machines to perform

we need embryos to align

on the path of consciousness we want to adapt,

learning how to learn,

to take care of existence and construction and

design.

To improve conditions, kinds of tasks, self-awareness.

We want machines to perform

the more we need.

Burial Poem 9 --38 44' 16.09" N, 109 30' 5.84" W

The words collapse
into the salt beds
below these earthen monuments
carved by the sea
long gone well before
man took his first breath
and grunted at the world
he would grow to misunderstand
now wind rushes
through dry river beds
across red stone
over mesas
and into canyons
then settles beneath
this delicate arch
it carries dust
sounds a call
land speaks
beyond the words of man.

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Burial poem 8 --34 56' 32.92" N.111 37' 39.36" W.

In the ruins
a stone cabin
fallen deserted
I begin to rebuild the wall
my wife hangs the windows anew
her father raises the front door
her mother arranges the living room
the grandfather prepares the kitchen
the grandmother sets the table
her brother builds the front deck
his girlfriend picks wildflowers
to decorate it all
I give up on the wall
and I'm sure if our aunts, uncles,
cousins
my mother
my father
my sister, my other brother
in-law, and nephew too,
if they were here, they'd all help lay
the roof
or we came to this fallen house
stood before its hearth still standing
took a photo and it's rare
to find someone
who only needs a wink and a smile
though you'll pray to give her more
than you can dream
and even more rare
to find a family
who will let you into this place
and their memories
then give the moment
to bury these words.

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Burial Poem 7 --33 31' 49.74" N, 112 15' 22.86" W

Here on the bathroom floor
I lie in a burning shiver
and a clenched bowel
as the spirits of Ugh and Ack
circle round me.
"Two days, no burial."
"Well, the meat was pink."
"But who could see that beneath the sauce"
"Ah, the sauce was good..."
"Hold on he's dry heaving again."
"It won't change anything."
"True, he has to wait it out."
Ugh tightens around my torso
Ack climbs down my throat
"Maybe he'll see it as cleansing."
"Or he'll just hate us."
"So nothing lost."
and so we pass the time
until morning when they leave
and I can stand up.
Note to self:
Avoid chicken at Italian restaurant
stick to pastas, cheeses, salads,
and wine.

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Burial Poem 6 --34 33'14.16" N, 112 15' 56.59" W

Late Burial

Down from the plains
         standing in a ditch
         on a road through the mesas
and the dry earth I see
         sky spread out like wings
         of giant desert birds
seldom seen as clouds
         billow, build and rise
         into a forever beyond me
and what I can believe
         while rays of light
         sweep down through
the clouds like golden fans
         one or a hundred
         miles away--
I lose count--lightning's
         fingers dance across
         the earth and wind
deepens from a far off hum
         to a howl as clouds
         join just before the desert
storm I look down to see
         the feather of a buzzard
         laid across the sun
                                 bleached bones.

A contribution

This one was inspired by a pond that I often walk around. I'll bury it there:

Nature trail prance –

A one mile promenade around

The green slimed pond –

Fine for the heart

And spirit

Bright moist clippings

Stick to my soles

Like wet static

Until the forested needle carpet

Exchanges green with brown

Fresh with humus

A hindered progression –

Low, prickly archways and

Untamed overgrowth remind

Of intrusion as deerflies alight

And bite – I think a cap next time

As I elude in spurts

A bird’s song – a warbler?

I never could remember

Who is who

A fox settles in the sun

Confident pup – regal and

Unaware of observation –

Too far for a cell phone pic

I’m hot and I sweat –

There is little air

In such dense confines with

Scents of scat

On the windless path

Brown ghosts

Wary in the brush –

A snort and gone

In a rustle

Back on grass –

A goose provoked tiptoe

To the car with a breath –

The forced world awaits.

d.g.pratt

Addendum and clarification

I wanted to briefly thank those of you keeping up with this project/exercise/experiment.  Also, I feel I did not make it clear that this blog is open to any and everyone. Again, comment, critique, discuss, and  actually, I have a greater desire to see others take part if you have the desire.  Write a poem, find a poem, write a story, find a story, create and bury it somewhere that makes sense to you.  Do not feel obligated to explain why or what.  I, in establishing this, feel an obligation to at least see the project through over the next few weeks, so I will continue to write and bury what I create in my meditation on place and moment, but now there have been five poems, tomorrow there will be a sixth, some have felt like sketches in a notebook, others like raw entities that I merely played a part.  So please, some people have emailed me already discussing a desire to bury their own work.  Do it.  Share it.  The format is simple, a transcription and general place setting would be nice, but don't feel the need to take pictures or give an exact  global position.  Just create and let go.

Burial Poem 5 --36 9' 9.38" N 95 56' 14.28"

After days of road
Qwik stops and fast marts
fuel and microwaved delicacies
you and your wife
opened the door to a home
and a day to rest
the dogs ran around our feet
licking and sniffing
we were laughter
and the moment
the hours ticked away
but no one counted
no miles to go or maps
to study
only here and only now
you led us out back
to your garden and picked
potatoes, cucumbers and a puppy
rolled around in the fallen
tomatoes as the night
approached you lit the grill
to cook your uncle's corn
some chicken the vegetables
we picked and the bread
we shared over dinner
with stories of late
night fountain dancing
as our wives rolled
their eyes tales of family
and places we were
laughter we were now.
We've come to morning
too quickly my wife and I
are moving on as I look
upon your garden say
thank-ya and plant these
words amongst the seeds
of the food we will
continue to share.

Burial Poem 4-- 36.9870 North, 94.8395 West

Picher, Oklahoma

The Gorillas don't play here anymore
        between the industrial dunes
        and dead streets
                                state football champions
        1984 a modern day boom town
        full
             of vacancy now
                                  as the wind
        is slow a yellow jacket
             is stuck in sludge covering the stadium
        stairs--buzzes
                           flutters its wings
                 it will never
                     leave
                            the streets taken
         by the weeds
                          empty houses with
                unhinged doors
         only the insects survive
                  the fallout the rest
            is a hollow silence
                   like a death rattle
          the buildings creek and yet nothing
                  moves
                            so I bury you here
          outside the gymnasium
               where the town's people
             said good-bye
                             June 29, 2009

Burial Poem 3 --37 15' 14.67" N 93 16' 00.53" W

Cultural Collage

The mountains fell down
     hillsides slipped away
to the long drawn out roadways
                                           of Americana
   Bigger is better
                         advertise here
           between the cornfields
                     and mile markers
Come visit Ted Raper
                          for all your RV needs
           Eat at the Amish diner
           Buy from the Polish trader
           Refinish with Indian marble
           Traditional
                        high quality
                     original
                          you'll never use
                                     you'll never need
The slight slope becomes a thrill
          the bend a mystery
I fueled up
                 sat all day
            to watch the landscape
                                           continue
Now I've dug my hole
            and cut my finger
       which bleeds into
                          the muddy wound.

Burial Poem 2--41 1' 13.52" N 77 57' 11.45" W

With this spade
          in my hand I thought
      myself unusual
      mad on my knees, yet I want
             to be humble to rise
      with the thousands beside me
      and in the dust below
I could speak
              unaware
                   of this moment
   listen
         and create stories
      as lies are inherent
                              in my words
beneath a shadow of the thunderhead
     black dirt beneath my fingernails
          I dug the grave before
     I wrote
                 though the highways
     brought me here I waited
     for the light
                      the moment
              the place
     and abandoned the new
            before we even met.

Burial Poem 1-- 42 20' 26.57" N, 71 35'10.23" W

Just Beyond the parking lot
now,
a siren climbs the highway
below
Today I thought, tomorrow
I remembered
but yesterday I was a dream.
Hidden behind the small hill
the sun breaks
the morning dew, my hand claws
at the dry earth,
a few bees begin work on the wild
flowers before me
I am a breath between the song
of the morning larks
and the distant hush of cars
passing my words.

The Burial Poems: An introduction, a beginning

During the next few weeks, I will be driving through the interior of the United States. The main aspect of this project is that over the course of my travel I will attempt to write a poem each morning, tear it from the journal and bury it in the ground wherever I find myself. The poems will be buried in a variety of settings such as cities in the medians and small patches of dirt to be found, in the woods a top mountains, by rivers, in fields across the plains, or wherever my travels may take me. To clarify, the paper I am using is recycled, made of about sixty percent post-consumer content, and no action will be taken to preserve this paper in its burial. In fact, one aspect of these poems is that they will deteriorate over time. For the purposes of this blog and to share my experience, I will be taking two digital photos with my phone at each burial (one of the paper prior to burial, and one following) and transcribing the text of the poem within my post. Personally, I am a bit reluctant to this aspect of the project in that I do not want the picture or the text to become its own piece of art, but I acquiesce for the purpose of conveyance to those of you who find interest in this project.

The trip itself is one aspect of the project. At its base level, the trip is one of celebration. I will not be traveling alone, my wife, Wendy, will be with me. We have been married for a year, and together for almost five. Actually, part of this trip is to celebrate our one year anniversary, which took place on June 27. Unfortunately, we were not able to be together on that day due to my obligations at school in Vermont. We are beginning today in Marlborough, Ma where we will be attending a wedding for one of my cousins tomorrow. In a week we are going to be in Phoenix, Az attending a wedding for my wife’s cousin. Both cousins are female marrying men who I have met briefly, both seem to be quite kind and loving. I only mention this as a point of interest. Once we leave Arizona, we are heading back to our home in Richmond, Va where my father who has been teaching overseas, and I have not seen in almost a year is taking care of our house and dog, Orion. We intend to see sights we’ve never seen, stop in and visit with friends scattered across the country. Actually, there is a sister blog to this one therestillsomewhere.blogspot.com/ in which we will both discuss and write about our travels. I only mention this here for the reason previously stated; point of interest, conceits that may or may not inform the work of this project.

For me at this point as I look toward the horizon, there are three elements within and by which this work will be constructed. The first element is one of burial, defined by the New Oxford American English Dictionary as “a ceremony at which someone’s body is interred; a funeral” (Burial). I wish to discuss the idea of ceremony later, however, the concept of a body being interred is vital to this project. Each poem will be essentially born in its moment at its time, and a moment later it will be laid to rest. The normal process of writing, editing, revision, in some cases titling will be absent. Several words should come to mind here: abortion, death, separation, abandonment. At the moment the words take shape upon the page, I will bury them alive or dead. The words can never be changed. The poem itself will change as it decomposes, the page deteriorates, the matter falls apart, and the energy returns to the earth.

In the last concept the second element, earth, presents itself. The place from which man first reached and in the moments to come, the life to be led, he will return. I am a man of earth, one of dirt, with my hand I will move my pen across the page, I will dig the hole, I will place the page, and I will cover the page with dirt. The element is one of totality, beginning and ending, one moment in which creation and destruction will dance in tandem. I will reach from the earth to create my poem and then return those words to the origin.

In that word, origin, the third element, and for me, the most important comes to fruition. With each poem I will be using the symbol set of the English language. There was a day when I grunted, and you wrote it down with symbols, and from there we have developed those symbols into something I suppose could be described as elegant. The act of a word is to create communication. But, in a world of nuance and denotation, the very act becomes convoluted and distorted. The language becomes more than simple communication or relation and can be one of confusion, where the words themselves are void of the original meaning to a point where they become dangerous. So in my process I wish to discover, meditate upon, the idea of communicating the sound, the feel, the atmosphere of the moment I will be experiencing.

A final overall theme behind this work, mentioned earlier, is that of ceremony. The elements of this project, the mediation and the writing, the digging, and the burial itself are all contained within the concept of ritual. Now, I do not intend to write facing east, pray to the Judeo-Christian God (there will be no act of housel), I’m not looking for Brahma and Shiva, and I’m not trying to tap into my Druid ancestry and bring back Danu. In other words, the work is again one of the earth. I am writing as myself experiencing the process, the ritual, void of traditional prayer, though the basic concept is unavoidable.

I hope you find interest in this project, and feel free to comment, disagree, or discuss. Given the nature of the trip, I may not always be able to post the buried poem of the day, but I will as soon as I can gain access. I thank you all for at least taking the time to read this. I would like to also acknowledge Holly Simonsen, whose work Salt Flat: Bending Over Back Words, helped inform my thoughts on this project taking it from concept into being. If she performs the project again, or you can experience any of the work I strongly encourage you to do so: Here is a small link explaining some of the work she has done mailman.xmission.com/lurker/message/20090914.013150.99619018.en.html Again, thank you and I hope to see and hear from you further on down the path.

-I.K. Bodkin