Amputated Moon

words written in letters

spoken on reel-to-reel tapes

mailed across the Pacific

onto the battlefield

landing with the blazing contrails

of mortar rockets

when I was 9

I wrote

while you fought

making napalm

for flame throwers and tanks

to burn villages

with no hiding places left

all the civilians evacuated

or maybe not

discarded pages

 float

across a highway

as I drive to work

was that when

the fire jumped the line

and fell into my hand and mouth

when the impossible

was laid bare to my eyes

during the nightly news

the tanks and helicopters

the children selling cokes

laced with glass shards

pungee sticks and

dead Viet Cong

lying beneath barbed wire

children running down a road

captured forever in the camera’s lens

my car moves forward

scattering

all the pages

filled with words

while students marched

and the government lied

I think you knew the truth

couldn’t stay hidden

and I wrote letters and stories

as the words burned inside me

as the smoke gathered around you

like a fog that removed that place

from that time

pages of words

and the photographs

the 35 mm slides

the film on the nightly news

no way not to see

no way to hide it

no way not to write

the white paper

catches in the breeze

 flying

up into the bright morning

Pamela Olson, 3/29/08

One Single Impression

“Smoke”

what measurement should I use

to chart the distance between

the green ground of your eyes

and the mysteriousness of your soul

what could be flexible enough

sometimes late in the evening

a yardstick would be insufficient

you are detached and removed

the thread tying your soul to your eyes

is far too slender

other times I think I should use

a compass or protractor

to find the angles of disconnect

tracing the arc of it

following it to where the two meet again

a handful of times that a micrometer

would be too large– your soul and eyes

seamless:  simply undividable

these are the times when I know

that you are filled with light and love

Pamela Olson, 3/27/09

For Poefusion’s prompt

“What is the distance between the eyes and the soul?”

there is a time during a storm

when the rain beats

against window and roof

like the heart beat

of a small mammal

a mouse

or shrew

hundreds of times

beating

so fast you can’t count

you can only feel

the rush of longing

to join in the dance

to congregate with the drops

lend your own moisture

trapped inside cells and organs

until you and the rain

are one primitive beast

dancing in a dark hole

in the deep stormy night

Pamela Olson, 3/26/09

For Totally Optional Prompts

“seasonal change”

missing the boat

sometimes results

in watching the current

push the logs

and leaves

forward

without you along

for the ride

missing the boat

sometimes

means watching

the river for a long time

Pamela Olson, 3/18/09

For The One-Minute Writer’s prompt, “missing”

the radar sweep

says it all

rain is here

and rain is on the way

green covers the highways

and dotted towns

Meridian, Tuscaloosa and Starkville

occasionally yellow appears

more of a deluge is edging closer

click on the electronic link

and up pops the next 12 hours

the forecast is as soggy

as a weather map

left out in the rain

Pamela Olson, 3/16/09

Gotta move on

I gotta move right on

I gotta move on ‘cause

I got the move-on blues

Get up off the couch

off the soft sofa

I gotta get up with

the move-on blues

Put on my shoes

I say—tie up my shoes

my blue and white Adidas help

my move-on blues

Walk out the door

walk down the road

my feet beat time with

the move-on blues

Pamela Olson, 3/15/09

Alabama Bluesman Willie King passed

away on Sunday, March 8, 2009

For the prompt “Farewells”

at One Single Impression

we wait for the evening to rise

covering the sky

a black valley tucked

between mountain

and mountain

there is a secret

waiting for revelation

hidden beneath the horizon

so we watch–, stomping our feet

in the cold January stillness

cradled within the fingers

long bones of the Appalachians

while the night sky

joins the mountain ranges

forming a skin of stars

let us calculate

the ordinals and declinations

degrees and minutes

compensating for the

spin of earth

we will chart

the gravitational pathway

and look for the signs

the periodic return

of Halley’s comet

our youngest child

lies cradled and unknown

a secret within me

while the eldest looks

out of the corner of her eye

some secrets can’t be seen straight on

some secrets are revealed

by a soft glancing view

we each try to understand this

as the comet slowly approaches

dimly the promise arrives

soaring along a pre-ordained pathway

look just there above that tree

darkness within darkness

secrets are waiting to be found

Pamela Olson, 3/14/09

what if I choose

neither left

or right

just because

there is no path

laid between the two

the grass is still sweet

the creek still flows

and at the end

the journey will be

different

unplanned

where my feet wander

is  where my heart calls from

I can hear it leading me

between

neither left

or right

Pamela Olson 3/8/09

For One Single Impression

spinning in an orbit

waiting for the next shift

of balance and rhythm

gravitational pull

lines up the heavens

while you spin

a dance of ecstasy

alone in a desire

for the touch of mystery

when the Holy arrives as

a whisper on your cheek

words pulsing in your ear

does the spinning stop

when you simply walk

feet bare toward the light

Pamela Olson, 3/7/09

For One Single Impression