Category: Colorado Poetry

Original Poem – Gone Colorado *Remix*

On By Adam AstraIn Colorado Poetry, Kansas Poetry, Original Poetry, PoetryLeave a comment

       Gone Colorado — Remix  (‘Cheek to Cheek’ lyrics by Irving Berlin)

Heaven, I’m in heaven
      How is it we’ve slipped into this impossible altitude?
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak
      Two wine-drunk lovers in a silver station-wagon;
      The humming miles vanish beneath us.
When we’re out together dancing cheek to cheek

      Half-past midnight on South Colorado 7,
      Riding the highway lines at perfect speed,

Heaven, I’m in heaven
And the cares that hung around me through the week
      Teasing the subtle urge of annihilation,
      Fearless under an absent sky,
      Timeless now, for a moment.
When we’re out together dancing cheek to cheek

       The night was invisible–smothered out of sight
       By the crawling tide of cumulonimbi.

Oh I love to climb a mountain
       Lost to Larimer County,
       Lost to the summits of the Twin Sisters,
       Lost to the jagged shadows of Taylor,
      Tungsten, and Hurricane Hill.

Oh I love to go out fishing
      Gone Colorado, gone Kansas,
      We fling out spotlight of awareness
      Not knowing what blind forgotten gods
      Peer out from the flashing rock faces.

Come on and dance with me
      You, leaning in now,
      Ethereal in the cyan glow of the dashboard display
      Lowering your window,
      A rush of wind spills wildly in.
Will carry me through
     

      I forgive you your cigarette
      As twists of your auburn hair leap and tangle;
      If you could have known your beauty then.

Right up to heaven, I’m in heaven
      Where spectral clouds born of wind and mist
      Fall softly on the foothills,
And I seem to find the happiness I seek
      We are timeless still,
      Blissful and oblivious to our inevitable descent
When we’re out together dancing, out together swinging
      Blank stars,
      Gone moon.
Out together dancing cheek to cheek

Original Poem – Gone Colorado (Parts III and IV)

On By Adam AstraIn Colorado Poetry, Original Poetry, PoetryLeave a comment

III

Where have we been?

Was it you in your plum-colored hoodie that I followed this
Storming Monday morning to disappointing waterfalls,
Laughing anyway, making faces at the soggy children,
grumbling as they trudged the muddy trail?

Was it I who cracked the foggy window,
Peering out through cold and snow and rain,
Looking for wild sheep at the National Park,
Yelling at the barren, bouldered cliffside:
‘Where are your bighorns, Colorado?’

Did we stumble astonished into
The unexpected beach-like sands
Of the trickling alluvial fan?
And who was it that fell in love
With those words — ‘alluvial fan’ —
And repeated them slowly aloud
For hours for the simple giddy joy of it?

 

IV
And timeless still,
We fling our spotlight of awareness
Across the night not knowing
What blind forgotten gods
Look out from the flashing rock faces.

Gone Colorado,
Gone Kansas, and
Gone grey Topeka and sad decades
Of heavy secret solitude.

You, leaning in now,
Ghostly in the cyan glow
Of the dashboard display,
Lowering your window;
A rush of wind spills wildly in
As twists of auburn hair
Leap and tangle.

I forgive you your cigarette
As you yourself give birth to clouds
In slow, indulgent exhalations
From full and chapped half-smiling lips.
(If you could have known your beauty then.)

Suspended over one last abyss
Blissful and oblivious to our descent,
We’re expelled through canyons
Like Golden Gates
As electric glimmering Denver
Fades into view.

Original Poem – Gone Coloroado (Parts I and II)

On By Adam AstraIn Colorado Poetry, Original Poetry, PoetryLeave a comment

    Gone Colorado (Parts I and II)

I

(Heaven, I’m in Heaven)

Winding the highway Peak to Peak
Singing Sinatra’s ‘Cheek to Cheek’
Blank Stars
Gone Moon
Out together dancing

 

II

The night was invisible.

How is it we’ve slipped into this impossible altitude?
Where spectral clouds are born of wind and mist,
Tectonic plates collide, And a continent divides.

In my silver station wagon,
The humming miles vanish beneath us,
Arcing up and bowing down
The serpentine mountain passes–
Half past midnight on South Colorado 7,
Riding the highway lines at perfect speed.

Timeless now, for a moment,
Careening through the phantom foothills,
Teasing the subtle urge of annihilation;
Fearless under an absent sky–
smothered out of sight by the crawling tide
of cumulonimbi.

Lost to Estes Park of Larimer County,
Lost to the summits of the Twin Sisters,
Lost to the jagged shadows of Taylor,
Tungsten, and Hurricane Hill.
Lost to our own history.