Tag: black and white photography

Awaiting the apocalypse

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A black and white photograph of a weathered statue of an angel with a harp stands in a cemetery with trees in the background.

I looked, and there was a pale green horse! Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed with him… Revelation 6:8

You pour us each a cup 

of the good stuff 

from the Chemex, 

the dark roast beans 

that arrived just in time 

for this, our last coffee. 

It’s a ritual we’ve shared 

daily, all these years. 

 

Now we sit and drink in 

the warmth from these, 

our favorite mugs, 

and my arm around you, 

we lean in a little closer. 

The dog stretched out 

snores softly with his head 

resting in your lap. 

 

It is not the pale rider 

that I fear, nor the one 

with bow and crown. 

They are all too familiar. 

No, it is the bright red 

who comes to steal 

the peace we thought 

we’d earned, the peace 

we took for granted. 

 

I run my fingers 

across your cheek 

and you take 

my hands in yours 

and with a smile 

bring them to your lips,

an act of absolution.

Son trouble

BruceLeave a comment
The word MISERY is spray painted over other graffiti in stylized letters on the wall of an overpass.

Car trouble, I asked 

the lady in the Corolla 

by the side of the road 

with the man whose head 

was under the hood. 

Son trouble was all she said 

glancing over her shoulder 

to a kid, a teen in the backseat 

who did not look up but 

managed to look miserable. 

 

I have known son trouble, 

the testing and going beyond 

the limits of reason and speed, 

beyond what a car can do, 

pushing the pedal a bit too far. 

Pushing other things too far. 

Just pushing. It becomes 

the stuff of family lore, 

the things we laugh about 

(later), or the things we don’t, 

the unspoken elephants 

that come and never leave.

 

I have known son trouble 

because I have been 

son trouble, the kid 

in the backseat, 

the kid who couldn’t 

look you in the eye. 

I am the kid, the man 

who brought elephants 

home to stay. 

Spitballing

BruceLeave a comment
A black and white photograph of a field of salvaged cars lined up in rows, a car junkyard. The rear of a school bus is in the front left side of the photo.

We throw ideas around 

without a care for whom they hit 

or what damage they do. 

When I was in 7th grade 

I kept a spitball gun 

in my clarinet case 

and took it out one day 

on the bus ride home. 

My weapon, an empty Bic pen 

tube with tape over the vent hole, 

two juicy spit wads inserted 

a couple inches apart, 

and for a plunger, 

an L-shaped bit of wire.

That afternoon I took 

careful aim from the back 

of the bus at a friend 

seated near the front. 

My shot went wide 

and hit the driver. 

It didn’t go well. 

It never does.

How to dispose of an iPhone 

BruceLeave a comment
A black and white photograph of a pond on a foggy morning with grasses growing up through the water.

He threw the damnable thing 

into the heart of the brackish 

 

pond and watched it float then 

sink below the blue-green scum. 

 

The enormity of its weight 

was lifted from him and then 

 

it fell away. He gave the sign 

that read NO LITTERING 

 

a little kick and let go, too, 

of that bit of guilt. Let it be 

 

an offering to the muck, 

a meal for cyanobacteria, 

 

electrons feeding electrolytes. 

Let the corrosive monster 

 

corrode alone. He shouldered 

his pack and took a drink and 

 

headed up the trail to see at last 

the world through his own eyes. 

Flight patterns

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A black and white photo of a field with a power line on poles heading off into the horizon. The sky is dark across the top and grey towards horizon line.

They come at dusk 

as dark and graceful blurs 

erratic butterflies 

at supersonic speed, 

the order Chiroptera,   

feeding on buzzing clouds 

of pestilence and human 

ignorance for we fear 

what we cannot see 

and what we do not know 

listens and finds its way 

through the night.  

The Motormatic 35: First look

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A black and white photograph of a path through a cemetery lined by bare trees on both sides.

This photograph of a walking path through a cemetery lined by trees standing like sentinels was taken with a vintage Kodak Motormatic 35 with Kodak Tri-X film. It’s a 60-year-old camera I bought recently and the model my father had when I was a child. I wrote that it didn’t matter if the camera worked, that what mattered is having this piece of history that connects me to my past and to my father. Its weight, the dials, and light meter mesmerized me as a child. But I’m glad that the gears and springs, the delicate metal leaves of the shutter, and the glass elements still collaborate to take a good photograph. I’ll be taking more with it.