Tag: east

Golden Dreams

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I cannot remember my golden dreams of yesterday.
Will my words be understood tomorrow?

Each of these laid with patience
Upon flat laid twenty pound unlined and rounded corners
Shall surely carry dust until curiosity reveals,
But the binary figures carried on electricity
Floating lazily upon some unknown bandwidth
In a region East of the Alps
Well, those messages remain vague.

Those messages may die without a subscription fee paid,
And the backups may need debugging or rerouting,
Ciphers and codecs may no longer be backwards compatible.

Our graceful new line of important thinkers
Good looking important thinkers
Looking good getting there
Are too busy to see through the mirror.
What has been forgotten (by them)
Is no longer opened.
All expecting return on investments.
The new band copies the old band
But the old band wont fight back,
The old band has been to that rock show
And lost a tooth there.

Youth are changing
Renaming, rewriting, shaming,
And forgetting
At too quick a rate
To remember yesterday’s golden dreams.
The books aren’t borrowed anymore,
Libraries replaced by computer zones.
Just an endless scrolling in dark mode
So the blue light wont effect
Brain’s melatonin tonight
Because now we know too much
And what we know is unimportant
Logos lost our gravitas.

Looking For This (day 3035)

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I am looking for this.
All of my efforts and truths
Are running in parallel with my actions.
I am calling to my inner self,
Feeling my bones rumble
At each swing I make,
Splitting my observations into fragments
That live long in the hearts of men
Who come and sit and talk.
Yet this action has no idle,
It bears resemblance to sweat
Breaking the cloth in toil,
For when the sun rises in the East,
Each drop of frost rises
Like the man I am looking for.

Looking for This by Ned Tobin

Two (day 2568)

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Drove into a rainstorm with two passengers to my right
Had a conversation about two things on my mind
Two stop lights later I heard two loud sounds I knew
Two old friends of mine I hadnt seen for two whole years
Two hours later I had two beers in my hand
Two more for my two friends,
Two more for the road
At last I saw the two lights I knew as my own home
Two horses there greeted me, standing next to two pine trees
That’s when I was startled by two owls calling out
One from the East, the other from somewhere North
Two steps into my door, I met my two dogs who
Grabbed my two hands and made me feel at home
Where I sat at one of my two chairs
And shared dinner for two with the woman who I do care.

Four Winds (day 2230)

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I want to be your cannon ball
Your matchstick in the night
I want to shown you everything
Is made just as it should.

For when wind blows to cool you down
A blessing from the North
And when our morning sun does rise
A blessing from the East.

When a tear falls from your eye
To rest upon your lip
A signal to me, your shining star
To be at your evermore.

Like dew drops on a morning leaf
Your heaving breast shall show
Your heart so strong and beating free
Is still about your soul.

When a bird calls to you upon its way
A blessing from the South
Your eyes, I watch, closing to this day
A blessing from the West.

So if your fright shall hold you back
Into my arms you’ll fall
To be at last, as I’ll guard you,
The guardian of my soul.

Four Winds by Ned Tobin

Window Drops (day 2171)

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Along the ways of window drops
A bird flew out the nest
Cloud came to my very door
And my hair lay flattened down.
Yet every signal
East be at it’s back
Signaled me to rise above
What midnight I had not looked back.
Nor did my animosity
Rumble to a stop
A grinding halting dusty jalopy
My chariot of grim time.
True, each dirt splash lay bare
The deeper grit of sand
Which held my flower to my nose
Thus, bow down low I dearly bade.

Inevitable Spring (day 2099)

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My inevitable spring
Slopes Eastward from here
Awakened by long train stops
Eclipsing my moon
Which cannot bare to withhold
Another day without you
But without silent winter
I cannot let go of autumn
So carefully pruned
As knitters of cocoons
Lay under aurora borealis
To watch Icarus
Climb as a nighthawk
Like my midnight winter moon
Alone again
Lost in a scape of twinkling
And gravitas bound.

Moon at Midnight – Part XXXX (day 2014)

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(part XXXIX)

Before noon we had one eight point deer
It was such a beautiful animal
That we all sat for a while looking at it
Hunched over on our heels
Tall Pine’s arrow went in
Right above the left front shoulder
As we opened it up
We saw he had hit the heart perfectly
By evening we had slung it up
In a neat cache for our return
And we went around to familiarize ourselves
With where we had put it
So that we would be able to find it
On our return.

The next morning we were off at first light
Further East to see Amy, Frank, and Clarinet
As it got closer to darkness
We decided to find some food
And camp the night in a nice covered area
Among the great pines.

Moon Cow recognized where we were
This was his old land that he knew well
And he guided us towards Frank’s place
With relative ease
We had come at them from the West
I had thought we would still be well North of them
And would have to head South for a good long time
But as it turned out
We were only about three hours North of them
And we were at their door by nightfall.

They were all very excited to see us
And had much news and stories to tell us
About the Summer they had had
And news of the U.S. Army
For being isolated as we were
We hadn’t any news of their movement
They told us that many of the bands
Were signing treaties
Some of them were forced to sign at gunpoint
While others were just too tired
To fight anymore
So they signed and moved their people
To the land appointed them
There was nothing good coming of this whole thing
We knew it, and so did they.

I told them of our own village’s attack
And Frank told me that he had heard of a rogue group
Of miners who had done the same
To a few of the homesteads they had come across
He wasn’t sure if they had hit many other villages, too
But luckily, they hadn’t found their house
So they hadn’t heard or seen any sign of them
I could see that Amy had a bit of worry in her eye
As one usually does, living so remotely
And really vulnerable to renegades like that
I knew that it was a conversation they had had
And surely one that would continue
The older Clarinet got.

part XXXXI

Moon at Midnight – Part XXXI (day 2005)

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(part XXX)

Willow’s best friend was named Mercy
Mercy’s man’s name was Long Arrow
And he was one of the most skilled hunter and tracker
I had ever hunted with
By now I had learned enough Pikanii
To be able to communicate on a basic level
As we walked – Long Arrow, Moon Cow and I –
Through the forest hunting
They were both mostly silent
Making subtle gestures and wild bird calls I envied
But when they were feeling like sharing
They would point and teach me words
Of things I wouldn’t learn
Sitting around inside a teepee.

At our new home, Mercy and Long Arrow
Would join us around the fire on many evenings
Long Arrow was less of a story teller then Moon Cow
But it was nice to have him around
And we all became very close to one another
They had two boys
That were a few years older then Lily
And it was clear that one of them
Would become her man when the moon spoke so,
The eldest was Runs Wild and the younger was Big Moon.

Life was good here, and I felt like I belonged
More so, I felt like I had a part
In keeping the family together
I was helpful, strong and eager
And in a family who lives off the land
That is always a benefit
Plus, I quickly became pretty good
At hunting with a bow
And was able, most days, to bring home food
The others also accepted me
At first I could definitely see them wondering who I was
And what I was doing there
But eventually they all knew me by name
And smiled when they saw me, not scowled
It definitely helped that I was Willow’s man
For she was loved by everybody
That much was clear.

I often wondered to myself
If this was the answer to my journey East
That had started the year before
Before I had met Amy, Frank and Clarinet
And before I had met the Blackfoot
Before I had met Willow, Lily and Moon Cow
It seemed so long ago now
So much of a lonely journey
That was now so much past me
But there was still something inside of me
That called me further East again
I wasn’t quite sure what it was
Or why it was
Only that there was something that I was missing
That I kept seeing in visions
And I knew that it was only a matter of time
Before I journeyed further East
To meet who I knew I was to meet.

part XXXII

Moon at Midnight – Part XII (day 1986)

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(part XI)

It took me a long time to get over the loneliness I now felt
Each step was an effort of motivation
My heart wanting to turn around and embrace the kindness
But I knew I had to go on
I had kept their names in my pocket book
So I could write them
And they had also given me the address of some friends
That lived East, that I might come across
On my long journey.

The weather was starting to get colder
But still very early in Autumn
So I had quite a while to make it to where I was going
The question of where I was going
Did definitely come across my mind many times
And in conversation with Frank and Amy
I had learned the distances of some of the towns
I would be approaching as I made my way East
You know you’re getting close to a town
As trails become more worn
And paths get wider
Signs of civilization everywhere
From freshly knocked down trees to garbage thrown aside
Carelessly.

It was nice to be walking again
When a thin layer of sweat started to heat me
I remembered the little spots easily
That had so been tenderized by my pack and walking
Funny how so quick a body can forget
When it’s not being put to use
None of the pains I had felt working the axe
Inhibited my walking,
Though I instinctively reached for them
From time to time.

I spent most of the day walking at a rapid pace
Trying to get the most out of my peaceful mind
Still with a fresh set of feet and a bushy tail
I barely stopped for lunch
Just quickly finding a soft spot
And eating down the delicious food Amy had sent with me
I held a small piece of dried moose in my hand
As I walked, taking small bites and savoring the flavor
That made the edges of my mouth water uncontrollably
It reminded me of being a kid
And shredding dried jerky to put into our lips
As if we were chewing the real tobacco
A habit I never really did catch on to.

part XIII

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