Contributor: John Ogden

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Life is full of games
but not with us
not between us

The jokesters tease, poke and sing
weave hoop after hoop
to leap through,
to dodge
to cry out against
when they catch you
in a loop
of legalese.

Roll the dice each day,
each moment
and move your piece from space to space
draw your cards,
read the text
feel the bite of failure
the cool wash
of success

But not here,
not with us,
not between us.

Between us,
All is love.
All is light.


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John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden


We put stone to soil
your father and I
With tools old and heavy sweat
we cut the earth
we bleed our waters
into furrowed lines
furrowed brows
furrows of seed
that turn sweat and sun and earth
into gold
into grain
into future and food
for the future's children
and all the others
who will put stone to soil
long after we fall
like wheat
like chaff
rising once again
again and again
never long in the sun
never long
on the other side
of the dirt.


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John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden

- -
Rumble down to the old coastal road
Nose over the line
Open up the throttle
Squeal and roar
each shift a commitment
each shift
dropping through
the heavy metal riff
until there are no more gears to grind
no more room for the needle to climb
no more road
nothing but sky
endless sky
and the dark depths of the sea
that come cold and sudden
swallow me


- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden

- -
Set aside everything for a death
Set aside everything for a change
Set aside life
And lies
And progress
And make the time
To clean up that final
familial
mess
because it's not enough
to have to put your father in the ground
to say those final farewells
to wade through a lifetime of detritus
selecting fragments
for piecing into your own short life
no
no, the faceless paperwork hungers for the dead
the steady-grinding machinery
takes each cut
from every man
demands
not just money
but life
life taken and spent
taken and spent
on the dead.


- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden

- -
We still keep him
keep him as a reminder
of who we were
before.

I like looking back
few do
most want only the now
only the new, the more,
listless for novelty
balloons on the winds
of progress.

I am not immune
I am a harem of Nagels
porcelain skin, blue eyes, black hair
serving only myself
servicing
a recursive loop
of endless echo chamber dynamics
spun between future
and past
but never the one
no longer the other.

Like a curiosity
we keep him in our midst
safe and sated
hivemind self-gratification
achieved with workings
of a sea of same and subtle parts

Nostalgia gives him context
all else has been ripped away.
his friends are lizards now, foxes
brass dragons
with solar-sail wings
soaring gas-giant skylines
all elegant and delicate
complex in body
infinite in mind.

Gone are the tenuous connections
of unshackled minds
simple skins
simple illusions
simple ideas and simple needs

The faustian bargain has paid in Nagels
in dragons, in flight
in a thousand awe-inspiring ways

The faustian bargain has paid in Nagels
and taken its own toll with shackles
with depression's venom
and novelty's constant bite.


- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden

- -
Discolored manilla envelopes
the franchise of disclosure
the secret movements of money
that mean nothing
hide nothing
hide only
the machinations of money men
the puppeteers that keep the peso down
and the dollar up
the puppeteers that power
the Rube-Goldberg machine
of metric misinformation
baiting the desperate
keeping them scared
scared and hopeful
always scared and hopeful.


- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden

- -
When the box opens
when the night opens
when all that I have hidden
comes spilling into the light
when the dragon wakes
when she breathes her golden fire
wakens
oh Black Widow Woman
I will stand
I will smile
I will suck the hole
harsh burning in my heart
and hold fast my venom.

I will hold my venom for her
I will hold my curdled soul hostage
and know
that I am better
that I am all
she could have been
for me
all
she never was.


- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden

- -
Trees
So many dead, dull trees
Resist the urge to tie myself
To a tree
Any tree
Better than
No trees.
No
Not better than no trees
Not better anymore
I can walk for ages now
I don't need trees
I need a wind
I need a steady breeze
Constant companion
Through the summer's heat
The winter's chill
I need a wind
A deep rumble
Up from the depths of the Earth
Up beneath the feet
Cradling steps
Guiding me
Carrying me
On, onward
Without end
Without end.


- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden

- -
Work to be
Best I can be
Never enough
Never enough for she
Maybe too much
Me
Maybe too much
Maybe easier to be
With an easier he
Maybe easier
Than staying in love
With me.


- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden

- -
Five years with the first wife
Five children with the last
Five stabs at solace
Thank God the fifth one
Finally worked out.


- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden

- -
Look back, laugh.
Look back two months,
See how scared you were.
See how desperate you were,
How you thought things would never work out
How you thought you would never be happy again
How, when things seemed most hopeless
When the night seemed most dark
Wild with frothing demons
Baying for your blood
A little light came into your life
A little crack came through the black
Expanded so fast
As time and mind
Bent their course for you
Bent their course
And washed away everything in your way
All the shadows
All the illusions
Until nothing but the golden moments
Of a life fully lived
Remained.

Look back.
Look back two months
Look back and laugh
At last.


- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden

- -
I wish I could move like her.
I wish I could dance
through crowds
with all the grace
that she does

I wish each step I took
could be as careless as hers
as free of guilt
as lethal
as hers.

The shards of my heart
are sharpened
by all the friends
all the family
who thought I could tame her
who thought she was a ripe and easy
target
even for such a fumbling
broken
man.

One by one, their backs turn.
One by one, they give up on me.
So easy, she,
they say.
so easy, and even still,
she got away from you.

They just couldn't see
that it was only
me needing her
never she needing me.


- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden

- -
I knew
From the moment
I looked at you
Saw you
From across that crowded room.

I knew
I saw it in your eyes
In those blue, clear sky eyes.

I knew
Even before I touched you
Even before I kissed you
Even before I saw and heard
All of the things
That made me
Fall in love with you

I knew
That you would be
The one
For me
The one
I would drop before
On bended knee
The one I would ask
To marry me.


- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden

- -
Sweet sweat still scents my sheets
a memory of you
in stains and smells
of a night
when I looked into your eyes
and saw
all the days we'd ever come to spend together
all the children we'd come to raise together
all the nights we'd come
hold each other
through the dark
through the cold
through to dawn
to the blue
of each brighter
tomorrow.


- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden

- -
Couldn't breathe
Set off hiking
Had to get back to the trees.

Found old, familiar hill
Place where washed out rocks
Weathered by placer hoses
Make grooved hand-holds
Also, places to sit.

Found a home
Temporary
Just until dusk
Just long enough
To watch the sun set.


- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden

- -
“We need your help!”
(they say)

Until they see that I am white.
Until they see that I am male.

“Savior complex”
(they say)

“Privilege”
(they say)

“Reparations”
(they say)

so I sit back
(do nothing)

and try not to watch
(the looting)


- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden

- -
There are peaks
Places
Where we have stopped
And looked down
Seen valleys dark
And valleys verdant
Seen the little farms and vineyards
Built by friends
And those we love.

And then there are the brambles
And then there are the thorns
But we get through them
We fight through them
Together.

Each sweet supper
Each sweet sip of nectar
We take
Is worth
Not letting go
Never letting go.


- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden

- -
Thanksgiving Day is the day it begins to snow.

There's an inch of white
on the seat
of each
deck chair.

There's powder frost
all over
the driveway.

The truck
(hasn't run in years)
hauls a load of snow
in a rusty-sided bed.

Hills
like drifting marshmallows
and the smell of candied yams
just coming out of the oven.

And company
the voices and the stomp
of boots shedding ice
of coats rustled loose

heat of the stove stoked
to keep out the cold

and I in my sweater,
grateful

because Thanksgiving Day is the day it begins to snow.


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John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden


Should I have been cruel
to soothe your ego?
Should I have been as a wall
unmoving
unwilling
pure and stony
while she blundered through your bludgeonings
the cudgels tossed
from Texas
to here?
Should I have left her
left her standing alone
cold, shaking, afraid?
Should I have left her
to lift her
own boxes
her
own luggage
and only then
when the ashes had cleared
when the years had opened
all the barred doors
you were locked behind
give you all those chances to beat her with words
to bend her
to twist her
until at last she relents
again
and you can go on living
in your angry rut
loving
but not really loving
saying the words
while never touching
saying the words
just saying the words.


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John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.

Contributor: John Ogden


Pick up your crown of thorns
Show me your wounds
Show me how the world
Has wronged you
Has cut you
Has left you bleeding.

Let that blood run
Let the drops fall
All over my face

I know how much I'd scream
I know how much I'd wail
I know how bloody
I'd beat myself
If ever
I was fool enough
to lose her.


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John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.