Poetry Bring on the Cycling Dawn Jon Hillenbrand, October 9, 2011December 30, 2015 Tragedy, joy and all manner of experience befall the individual in the night, for what occurs under the purview of the moon can seldom be explained entire in the plain sight of the sun. Is the night stronger? Maybe the night isn’t stronger as much as we are weaker…
Poetry Storm before the Calm Jon Hillenbrand, May 21, 2011May 10, 2013 Chained to Paris, hearts around the world spin on the axis of promises made by fairy tales of Sleeping Beauties and Prince Charmings riding up on shimmering white stallions. Promises create a firmament holding up the tears-soaked stars like a glass hydroelectric dam. And then the comment, or the look…
Poetry Raven Jon Hillenbrand, March 26, 2011December 30, 2015 Raven alight upon my ledge Tapping at frosted glass. Barely the handle is turned when you leap inside Transforming into the Night Beauty. You sing and I am yours. I woo you, love you, make you mine You wrap your wings around me and we fly together into the sky….
Poetry Cycles Jon Hillenbrand, March 20, 2011December 30, 2015 Life and death, war and peace, being together and living apart all cycle in the nature of the seasons. Similarly, that pattern belies a deeper truth. That is, that even though they repeat, things are different each time, with some progression, some regression, every time around. In war, there may be an attack…
Poetry The haze of the drink Jon Hillenbrand, November 15, 2010December 30, 2015 You have to lean your head against something with your eyes closed and the closest thing is the cold beer in your right hand. So you lean into its curve, your face falling into the slope of its neck, and sleep flows like the liquid in the bottle as the…
Poetry I remember this Jon Hillenbrand, October 21, 2010December 30, 2015 You’ll know if this makes sense to you: “And it starts, sometime around midnight. Or at least that’s when you lose yourself for a minute or two. As you stand, under the bar lights. And the band plays some song about forgetting yourself for a while. And the piano’s this…
Poetry Potential Jon Hillenbrand, October 15, 2010May 10, 2013 The ink drops to the page, ridged blackness like an inverted star its potential swimming within the fluid. I stab it with my finger and drag out its life into a box within which I fill everything that fills me. A lifetime of fear and happiness, love lost and gained,…
Poetry Rosary of thought unread aloud Jon Hillenbrand, October 6, 2010May 10, 2013 It’s a rosary of thought, it’s over and over, and it runs through my head from bead to bead. It doesn’t matter. Like a fight with myself. You know, eventually, I’m going to win. So I wait for the victory. I close my eyes and wait for the victory to…
Poetry Ten Minute Lunch Jon Hillenbrand, October 5, 2010December 30, 2015 Today I spent ten minutes eating my lunch on the rickety wire furniture adrift in the shadow of a building. These autumn days chill shadowed areas to blue, but I was not shivering because of the cold and the shadow was cast not by the sun, but by the presence of my former love inside….
Poetry Life Should Be Delicious Jon Hillenbrand, August 18, 2010December 30, 2015 I woke up with vomit in my mouth. The kind of dirty stink that makes you run to a cup of anything to change the experience. All night I had been bent at the waist, feeling my body implode, stopped only by the frozen stomach muscles that I hadn’t felt…
Poetry True Colors Jon Hillenbrand, August 18, 2010December 30, 2015 Would that the man on the moon were a lonely fellow, perhaps reclining against the slope of some great crater, he might say that he had more insight under the print of his thumb than all of the Earthling extrospection gleamed from upon the snowy vantage of Everest. Perhaps he…
Poetry If you forget me Jon Hillenbrand, June 26, 2010December 30, 2015 I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to…
Poetry Perspective Jon Hillenbrand, May 27, 2010December 30, 2015 This is a poem I wrote about how inspired to write I feel whenever I’m out running at night. Usually I think of a lot of things to write, but then I start to forget everything as fatigue sets in. Quick, run inside The words will hide Cuz’ words don’t…
Poetry The Red Doorway Jon Hillenbrand, May 12, 2010December 30, 2015 The red door dustily banged open temporarily scrubbing the dirty grout of the men’s conversation. She paused there in the opening, a sudden wind taking its cue to wrap around her silken form the particles of the failing daylight. Her swollen pout threw daggers at the men, her final words a
Poetry The Perils of an Open Mind Jon Hillenbrand, April 23, 2010December 30, 2015 Absolutes of ideology are succulent butter to people who are in the checklist stage of preparing to sail with Greenpeace, pasting enlarged dead baby photos to poster boards, annoying their coworkers into voting for someone or screaming about the dangers of running with scissors.