BARREN LANDSCAPES

S.D. Dillon

I.

Over grass & desert tracks, the blizzard wilds.  Terranes white out
greater wind, as it tunnels through a collapsed
stagecoach dug from the drifts.


II.

Once, seeking bronco region, thousands, engulfed: 
avalanche of cold
dense cotton.


III.

Bison pile the well with desiccated hay.


IV.

Tributary banks leave elements on their littered
reaches, thwarted & faceless at zero six hours.


V.

Mirage: tar & oil fire, fathoms from the horizon
outside the cracked ranch.


VI.

Sageland plateaus in suspense & over—
no tourniquet for a stream through the roadless skyscape


VII. 

Journey of the durable vastness, mapped & folded
to collect debris.


VIII.

Uneasy jug flares preamble mountains
in the dark.


IX.

Salmon sands & buttes are illusory as granite
painted by the tides, as bones descend under arches
into the sea.


X.

Trumpeter of rootless floorboards walks onto the deep
with no saddle.


XI.

Framed & buttoned, a segment lithified on an outcrop,
holstered as a strike blinded into hell.


XII.

Drained & fallen into the basin, ashen clouds
divide the alluvial bowl with frayed rope.


XIII.

Fallout paints the edge: 
shards that pelt the islands with light.


XIV.

Shock of basalt cycles a lethal flood from the lakebeds
onto a lone roadcut across seventy miles.

SLIDELANDS


Cliffs crumble & mold over the rib 
Structure, sandstorming grooves
Into rock.  Rake, cull, hollow out before the cape
Lighthouse intervenes.  From a promontory
Fog lifts ghosts of caribou & fish.  Over
Remains of a harbor, rains
Scotch out algae,
Bacteria by the colony.  Discovery
Signs.  Each alert lumps
Into islands & Arctic rings,
Lined with filaments & slips
No secret can clock.  Mutations 
Color & generate—oranges 
Encircled by fruit flies, 
Composing species 
Flawed as echinoderms
Pinned to the corridor
Out of sequence.  To the occupants
Who take refuge in niches, 
Resources extend to represent: what meteor
Slayed the dinosaurs, 
Its hothouse in the aftermath,
Mercy of weather on bulls,
Groundcover, batteries, & to excess,
Chemicals webbed into questions of 
Some consequence.