Nathan Arizona

The Twisted Link

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I wonder the lonely electric, internet abyss twisting with uncertainty while sifting through uncanny piles of restless information. Raw data wants to reach sheltered minds. Screams are muted in the static of internet space choked by joyous or horrible manifestations. Religious or progressive fanatics stretch forth leery hands to offer weary hopes. In a shattered world, tangled up in magic power lines nothing is really safe. Cities sit next to dark oceans towns next to old landscapes. The internet motor continues to purr. I am waiting for the lights to go out. For the story-telling TV to shut down. For …

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I am the Wasteland

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I’m the sandstone cliffs, that overshadow cottonwood trees. I’m the dark basin valley that engulfs your little cabin. The shrieking wind is my soul. I am the wasteland that gives you access to sleepless dreams. My age will outlast human eras. My heart will sustain life forever. My wisdom will never die. My grace is endless, eternal beauty.

The Snowy Forest

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Just before dawn, Pink colors glow on the mountain peaks. The snow storm has passed, leaving everything frigid and silent. The pink reaches the forest bottom, Mixing with the brown shadows of queer trees. Their trunks rise up through snow, exposing dark textured bark, the skin of ancient monsters. I love their phantasm The mountain talks with mysteries. Long ago, some old man passed through these mountains, on a horse, headed for Santa Fe. He came right through these old pines that kiss southwestern skies, and catch desert wind. *I recently watched Ron Howard’s film, The Missing, and the landscape …

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Southern Utah Rock Art

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Rusty, painted figures animate on yellow sandstone pallets- made from red ochre that endured forty centuries. These supernatural beings dance across the pallet. They are living, breathing souls. Trees grow from finger tips, Antennas and tangled hair sprout from alien heads I feel the beating heart of the canyon. I can feel their ghostly patterns. What are they doing when nobody draws near? They look without eyes, Whisper at night. Painted humans travel across the rocks. Headless human beings hold hands, or connect feet. I leave a gift, a coin, Or something.

Eddie the Hobo

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Eddie was the old banchee-like man with a twisted, hairy face. From town to town he went- singing quiet to himself along yellow grasses and highway. Eddie says he’s the Bigfoot Man. At night-time he sings, while watching the ancient moon rise. Over each belt of cloud, and dark mesa dream.

If I Had to Leave

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If I had to walk away, and never look back, Here are five things I’d take with me: A piece of Turquoise, My grandpa’s old cowboy buckle, A small pocket book of family history, A Jar of my grandma’s peaches, And the first quilt my mom ever made me.

The American Illusion

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“Money controls too many decisions in the world today,” says my brother, after discovering our parents have been forced to leave home, for better paying jobs! They seem like poor cogs in the wheel of civilization. Poor mutes that depend on the beast to merely survive. What would happen if all the little workers stopped working, or supporting the beast? Would it really spark any biblical end? No, the sun would still come up the next morning. The way of the Beast, is a dead end, since the beast will go belly-up, when fuel runs out. America and the material …

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The Deepness of Rivers

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An elderly woman sits above a sandstone canyon, looking at the moon, in the shape of a cow’s horn. Thin and silver, its rests behind clouds. She deserted her home, before her children arrived to haul her away to the rest home. Looking into the darkness of cottonwoods below, She listens to the tireless flow of the river, traversing an ageless path towards the sea. Her own children betrayed her. They ignored her dreams, with their busy cell-phone lives. This canyon overlaps her age, or the wrinkles of her skin. Her mind became wise from listening to the wind. She …

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My True Nature

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I WILL NOT accept the things I cannot change. I’ll break the windows of everything I know! I’ll listen to passionate dissidents. I want to deconstruct civilization. I’m tired of frivolous squares forcing circles to become squares. I’m sick of Uncle Sam the greedy pig, smoking his cigar on top of Mother Earth. I’m sad, because I’m sick of the beast. Squeezed by the left and right to follow their political lead. All I want, Is the safety of thunderstorms and gentle rains and windswept red deserts. Give me a horse, or a mule. I’ll become an old hermit With …

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Faceless Creature of the Desert

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I’m waiting in autumn for you. I’m freezing in the snow, waiting for the unknown to dissipate, so I can witness a dream untold. Somewhere in canyon country, you are waiting. I see your crystal eyes reflect off canyon pools in summer, but nothing is there… It rouses me, like weeping. Only the howling wind is heard. Sharpened trees, slice the wind. Sunglow illuminates their flickering leaves. The earth pads my tired feet. Everything on the outside, is stirring inside. Something sensual and dark hides in the bushes and rocks, in the infrared clouds. Deep from within Mother Earth, the …

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Random Images of a Canyon

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Chipmunks eat Starburst’sweet, fruity, and sour. It’s not quite like regular seed! They enjoy the hiker. But shy of humans, ravens plane the cliffs looking down on the hiker in suspicion. Junipers yield naked bluish berries, hard like steel between the teeth. The sandy creek winds its way cutting through banks of fine sediment. Boulders sit in rock slide piles, coming in endless shapes. Some without faces. Some frown, or smile, to show glittering, sandstone teeth. There’s the canyon’s shadowy ghost, it doesn’t mind the human, either. Clouds travel the September skies. The hiker shouts while finishing lunch, his voice …

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Dancing Cottonwoods

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In moonlight glare, Cottonwoods sing in the wind. I see silvery branches, glowing. Camp sits between the beauties, near the sandy creek running chilly and cold. The Cottonwoods tilt their trunks, waving their arms-back and forth beneath the moon. Heaven is here. Dancing Cottonwoods, creak their wooden limbs.

Conjuring the Past

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Something isn’t right, it’s never right! I don’t know whether I’m depressed or just restless? However, I am enjoying school very much. Finally, I have classes that I can relate to, and people I can discuss political issues with. But the begging landscape keeps pulling me away from civilization, into the shadowy wilderness of Juniper hills, and deep filled canyons of silence. As I am walking home through the campus, after classes, I’m enjoying the blue sky filled with small white clouds. It’s hot outside, but there isn’t any desert wind. Walking under campus ponderosa, the sun sifts through pine …

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For Grandma Millett

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I treasure your advice. You were the wisest of humans. No matter how things evolved, you knew faith and endurance worked. You were the toughest of the brave with those swollen hands of arthritis. I’ll always remember your soft-spoken eyes, surrounded by wrinkles, hidden behind thick grandma glasses. I would hitch-hike from my town to yours, just to come and stay. That highway would stretch for miles, and I walked for hours, waiting for a diesel to stop. Our surreal conversations would start in the early afternoon and head clear into the night. During summer the mocking birds impersonated every …

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A Desert That Haunts Me

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Deep in the harmony of painted labyrinths, and steeply slanted canyons-hidden in time, I feel condemned or exalted in the silence. As I traverse blue mountain ranges, The lure of Canyon Country is very strong. If absent from its stark beauty, The desert intensifies within my mind. I feel safe with loneliness, my curse. Between Earth and sky, my wandering shadow moves. Clouds shadows creep over gnarled plateaus, dreaming. The wind softly sweeping, sings to my soul. The desert hears my song, my spirit. The murmur of sleepless coyotes shakes me with delight. The darkness of the wilderness quenches my …

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A Dent in the Drought

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The clock’s ticking; crickets singing Monsoon rains are outside eating August away. Rivers flow down streets. The town at night illuminates cloud systems in dark purple and pink. There are no stars out. Dense humidity smells up the house, making everything unbearable, sleepless, hot. Lightning slams the earth scaring neighborhood dogs, whining and pawing at midnight doors.

The Monstrosity of Lake Powell

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My latest excursion was a trip to Lake Powell, with my uncle. We spent the weekend there, and I was amazed how much the water level has dropped, leaving behind a thick white bathtub ring from the previous water level. The skeletons of dead cottonwoods, crumbling sandstone cliffs, and bleached cliff dwellings are all that remain from the original beauty of Glen Canyon. The landscape looks like a cemetery of all things drowned by Lake Powell. I feel sad and angry; I feel a few rednecks robbed Glen Canyon of its beauty when deciding to construct the artificial Glen Canyon …

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Silent Movies

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…I remember those early silent films of the twentieth century, playing to music and captions; the music always weeping along with muted actors… Humans know nothing of their existence. …I love the antiquity of flickering, and voiceless motion pictures. The art was waged against newly pioneered camera eyes… We experiment and explore because we feel alone in the futility of our inscrutable universe. …I can see true human dreams and excitement escaping through every frozen frame… We can only speculate, and have faith to believe we know where to venture.

Hello Desert Storm

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Your thunderheads climb the glowing sky, in a desert reflecting warm colors of sunset. You bring sacredness this summer’s night to enkindle a lonesome dreamer. Desert storm of beauty, Your clouds are breathtaking. Your rain visits arid wastelands. Your thunder echoes over painted sandstone labyrinths over cedar berried trees over my sandblasted tent. Your savor is intense. Your sheer force humbles. Your cloud juice is my soul food. You’re my greatest friend!

Candled Skies

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Laying on my back beneath stars galaxies and glowing gases I think of the Creator. There is no end, nor beginning. There is no touchable ceiling. Earth roams a mysterious-muted void around a young star, quietly roaring. My mind cannot wrap around infinity nor the atrocious chasms of outer-space. What about a 4th dimension? For now, I’ll just listen to the canyon wind singing to my ancient soul beneath those candled skies.

My 22 Year Old Hands

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They have felt cold desert rains- the warm air when it sifts through sage. They’ve dipped into fresh mountain springs. They’ve cuddled baby lambs and comforted nervous ewes. They’ve been blasted by dust and ripped over bobbed wire. My hands are simple. My grandmother’s hands are deep mirrors of wisdom and silence- I want hands that inspire after ages of life.

At Our Meadowlark Ranch

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Dark rain clouds wander blue skies where dreams come alive, visions of the land singing A raven cries from a hole in a gnarled tree with twisted whistling branches. Thunder echoes across the desert, Farther than the eye can see The black lava rock is the blood of that ancient beast That was slain so long ago Locusts begin buzzin. An eagle heralds The dawn when sunshine slithers Up over the mountain rim Grandpa pulls up his trousers because Of no suspenders; he laughs Out with his diabetic belly And sings of how he suffers from “Noassatall Disease” Grand kids …

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The Quiet Day

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Those island clouds roll by. The day is so quiet in summer shade. On my back I lay. The clouds twist and turn above mountain tops, their shadows quietly roar. God has been protecting my lonely heart his olden days aren’t forgotten. I dream and know the darkness of the woods. I come here in the day time to feel the wind. These things are clever. I’m broken away from common life thinking deeply on every rhythm of the sleeping hidden grass. This takes me farther away and gives beautiful rain from a dazzling gray.

Some of My Dreams

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I Dream of cottonwoods gathered in river bottoms, waving mountainous branches, and knowing their wise spirits. I dream of sandstone canyons and feeling the roaring of flash floods and the thunder of rainstorms I dream of barren isolation, of weaving through the deepest interiors of the Colorado Plateau. I dream of constantly scouring the landscape on two feet, beneath galactic clouds and blue sky. I dream of Creator’s artwork of sprawling wastelands. I dream of the furthest horizon. I dream of someday dying in desert seclusion. Let the wildlife feed on my remains. Let my bones bleach under sunrays. From …

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Rivers of Faith

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The Creator gave me life. I was born from dust and clay. The Wind dances in my lungs. From chrysocolla skies my dreams are chiseled. From granite clouds, I was given inner strength. My life and the land are one. My faith flows in sandy rivers traversing painted wastelands, standing ageless as Bristlecone Pines. One day, my tangible existence will expire. But I will forever roam landscapes of beauty.

Something in the Mountains

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In the heart of the mountains, I hear pines singing and admire waves of grass pushing and pulling in meadows. Heavy clouds wield themselves against blue space. At meadow edges, forest gates stand dark where slender pines grow side by side. I enter a quiet thicket where sunshine sifts through dense branches to touch an organic floor. The woods go on for miles, creeping. There’s something very queer about high mountainous areas, or plateaus where aspen rattle; where young pines grow among dead ones. I can barely sort out their rotten, crumbling shapes. It is a cemetary. Laying down on …

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Northwest of Page, Arizona

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This cold desert drowns in rain. The heat wave vanished, as clouds come strolling in over the Paria desert, just northwest of Page, Arizona. Water pelts the ground, breaking up the hard dirt. Thunder gallops across the vista, and the wind wails. Lightning flings its arms. In a pinion tree, sits a raven waiting with his head bobbed down. He’s dangling like a Christmas ornament. Water droplets fall from his folded wings, and from his dark tail feathers. Under an alcove, I wait out the storm. Long ago, ancient Puebloans were hunting and gathering beneath these skies. I could just …

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Old-Fashioned Heart

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I drive out of this small town early on a spring morning, and off into the wilderness. Heading down dirt roads on tires worn thin, they stir dust into clouds. Going 50 miles per hour across purple sage valleys, I’m headed for a mountain range of low rising foothills. The road itself doesn’t intrude much. Southern Utah is a piece of the old west, where the brown foothills contrast sharply with blue sky. It is quiet, except for the distant rumbling of commercial jet airplanes, or a few cawing ravens. Living in silence, I have an old-fashioned heart that yearns …

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A Spring Desert Dawn

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The sun is rising. The dog’s lying in the grass listening to the crickets. The roses are blooming along with daffodils. The wind swings them. My orange cat’s purring on The window sill. Wind whistles through the window screens. The sky is lighting up, burning with warm glowing hues. Just outta bed, I open the wooden door and sit on the porch. Chimes sing. The air is full of fine sediments blown in from the desert.

Spanish Treasure n’ Lost Gold

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There are several stories about lost gold mines and Spanish treasure in Southern Utah. After all, this land was once occupied by old Mexico. My grandpa warned me to stay away from the stories. They could drive anybody crazy who listened to them. I was in a bakery in Cedar City and overheard two bearded guys talking about a possible gold mine that one of them found. Then one individual started telling a story about a crazy hermit that spent an entire lifetime searching for lost gold. He became desperate and found a cave in the mountains near Cedar City …

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