writers – Page 8 – Kevin Trent Boswell

the ice wars

Author’s Note: This piece is supposed to be humorous. There were genuine tragedies that occurred during the ice storms. Tens of thousands lost power, and there were a few fatalities. The homeless suffered greatly. 

However, this is NOT about any of those serious situations. This is NOT meant to be disrespectful in any way toward the (thankfully) few instances where people were seriously harmed. 

Instead, this piece is merely poking fun at the rest of us, the bulk of us, who were merely required to be patient while the storm passed; something that modern Americans find virtually impossible to do.

they fell like flies
during those six terrible decades
that began in mid January of 2024,
in Portland, Oregon

so much collateral damage
such tremendous loss of life

well… normal, everyday life

so much loss of… balance

power was wrested from the hands
of those who were so accustomed to
having power… in their homes
chariots lost all control,
crashing into each other like rams;
suicide bombers, without any allegiances,
taking out street signs,
and Toyotas

actually, it wasn’t quite
six decades,
I guess it was more like
six years?

but that hardly matters

when such senseless devastation
falls on a place,
the clock itself is killed in action

no one even recalls
what started the wars

one day, it was brother and sister,
neighbor and friend
and the next, it was bedlam, chaos

colorless blood ran freely in the streets
and froze into gruesome, solid,
white sheets of gore; winter’s guts

it all happened so fast,
there was no time to question
why, how, or when

there was only enough time
to react, to fight for one’s life,
flailing on the battlefield,
in mortal combat,
man against nature,
warrior against warrior,
chariot against chariot

no wonder it felt like
such an eternity

it is easy to understand how
we thought it was six years

although, I was just reminded,
it was only six months, not six years

still, it’s reasonable to assume
that it would be simply impossible
for so much carnage
to occur in only six months

so many frozen toes, cold fingers,
and other numb appendages

brave combatants,
slugging it out in the trenches,
trying to catch one of the
few buses that were still running

the psychological impact,
the mental anguish of having to
leave fallen comrades behind

“Man down!”

war is truly hell

so many work hours…
gone, forever

never to be made up through overtime

so many delivery orders
that never arrived

there are no memorials
in the town square,
commemorating the fallen heroes

there are only pools of slush
and tears

and the slow efforts of healing
struggling to bloom,
like the first buds of a spring
that has yet to arrive

healing the wounds of the body is easy

hot baths, warm meals, cups of cocoa,
and bandages for all the minor cuts,
sustained out on those unforgiving,
frozen killing fields

many battlegrounds
have yet to be cleared

Burlington, Thorburn,
Burnside, and 72nd Street,
all littered with destroyed vehicles,
fallen trees and power lines

all icy remembrances
of the horrors of this past
six weeks of war

the human body
is amazingly resilient

the physical frame
can regenerate lost tissue,
skin that was mercilessly
ripped from innocent flesh,
as brave soldiers engaged in the fray,
a torturous melee against
the territory itself,
and every previously mobile thing
that had suddenly become
a permanent fixture of the terrain

yes, the body bounces back quickly

the healing of the mind, however,
this is a slower, more subtle, and
more painful process

one must confront the awful memories,
the flashbacks, the nightmares,
of waking up and realizing that
there would be yet another morning
of snow and freezing rain,
and temperatures
that only rarely and briefly
climbed above freezing

even now, Portlanders are struggling
to come to grips with all of it,
the mindless, opaque fog of war

some are still huddled in corners,
entirely overdressed,
certain this is only a brief ceasefire,
terrified that, at any moment,
the temperature will drop
by thirty degrees, and the
flurries will begin anew

these snow-shocked veterans
of the Oregon ice wars
are suffering terribly,
post-traumatic stress disorder,
mild head injuries, scraped elbows
and skinned knees,
all these poor limbs, slammed down
hard onto the slab of the division of wartime;
somewhere down on SE Division Street

these wounds are not only of the body

these wounds run deep
into the collective psyche
of all who were here
and bore witness
to the atrocities

humiliation tortures,
crimes against humanity,
or at least against the ego,
forced participation in farcical ice follies,
persecution techniques of the enemy,
methods that most definitely
do not conform to
the Geneva Conventions

the victims will have to face
that long road toward
reopening all the roads;

reconstruction could take days

everyone will have to agree
to lay down their arms,
so they can take off their heavy coats

they will need to let go of their grievances
against the inconveniences
of such widespread conflict

they’ll have to band together,
setting aside their differences,
and their snow shovels

they must remove the war spikes
from their winter boots,
and finally come together to heal;
probably over a cappuccino,
or possibly an imported lager

because, while the bitter memories
are still all too fresh, and the bruises
on everyone’s tailbones are still quite tender,
we must accept that now,
the war is, in fact, over

it is time to forgive,
to put aside our petty differences

it matters not, which side
of the Max Line you were on,
when the hostilities first began

now, there are no more
white, frozen lines of scrimmage

or, at least, any that remain
should be gone by tomorrow

it is time for Portlanders,
and indeed, all Oregonians
to remember that they are kin

never mind that each
is as different from the next
as frozen night is from snowy day,
that no one can agree
on the right wine to serve
with which dish, or which
aperitifs and canapés
to serve with brunch

still, they must strive to remember
that they all live together, in the great
State of Oregon!

let there be peace now and forever

sit, side by side, at the fireplace,
share your stories with one another

help one another work through
the trauma and heartbreak
of the ice wars

maybe don’t sit by an actual fire,
like, in the actual fireplace;
I mean it’s like fifty degrees out, now…
so, maybe just a nice sweater, and
a scarf or something

but, you know… some tea, or coffee,
and the love of your fellow citizens,
citizens of this great territory,
all of who lost so much
in these horrendous
six weeks of…

come to think of it…

it really was, now that I think about it,
only about six days,
or something like that

but, anyway…

whatever

it was a grim,
burdensome trial by fire,
you know, that weird, burning sensation
that you get, when the only
exposed parts of your skin
are being dragged by gravity
across the white, rock hard
and razor sharp wasteland,
somewhere along
the front lines of César Chávez

it’s so weird that you’d feel heat,
being raked over ice like that…

but I digress

the message here is unity,
peace, healing, and
starting anew

let the insufferable nightmares
of those six awful days begin to recede
days of ice, calamity, the inability
to receive any type of deliveries

let these horrors
finally be buried in the past

it is now time
to bury the ice scraper

to begin treating one another
as neighbors, once again

the war is over

well, don’t actually
bury the ice scraper,
because we could
potentially get another
brief cold snap at some point,
but you understand
the metaphor

go now

go in peace

there are restaurants to eat at,
coffee shops, where baristas
will serve you hot beverages,

there will be packages
waiting at your doorsteps
when you arrive
home from work

and, all will once again
be rational and sane,
just as it was

before the
ice wars

The music and poetry of Kevin Trent Boswell

Magus72 on Patreon – the music, poetry, and madness of Kevin Trent Boswell

catch basin

everyone is bleeding

there aren’t enough buckets,
bowls, pitchers, empty bottles,
or old soup cans
to catch it all

it doesn’t matter
that you don’t see them bleeding

it doesn’t matter that most are
wearing clothes that aren’t stained

it doesn’t even matter
if many of them are smiling

because, they’re all
hemorrhaging

inside or out

every last one of them

especially the ones
who don’t know
they’re bleeding

most especially
the ones who
swear they’re not

there aren’t enough
doctors, nurses, or
old women with
needles and thread

to patch them all up

there aren’t enough mops,
sponges, towels, or old t-shirts
to soak it all up

we have come to accept
the state of things

we are goldfish

goldfish
who swim
in a bowl
of blood

The music and poetry of Kevin Trent Boswell

Magus72 on Patreon – the music, poetry, and madness of Kevin Trent Boswell

mishegas

the ice is on fire
bumper car gridlock
in the house of eternal glaring mirrors

roller derby queens in the mosh pit

dire, splintered rose of morning,
flush from the recent triathlon,
scoops tainted blood
into the shoes of passersby,
snagging their throats
with treble hooks of laughter,
inappropriate sympathies,
and an unreasonable sense
of doubtful kinship

chuffed to be chaffed,
lampooned, stranded, laid bare,
out on the hard, white, diamond beach

all fat and blubbering;
every bit as distressed
as a snow covered bear trap,
whistling a lullaby

the panting team of dogs,
recovering from their labors
at the front end of the long sled,
lined with the tusks of sea lions,
the hides of wolves and polar bears,
full of provision pouches,
stuffed with the fat of seals,
the jerked meat of horses and sheep,
the oil of whale fat, lamps
with tinder, flint and steel,
maps and spyglass

come what may,
take all comers,
oh come, all ye
entirely too faithful
in thy selves
and thy surety

when the steps to the kingdom
are many, and fraught with
the myriad challenges of the pale rider

footfalls in the tundra are
rarely heard farther than a few links

panicked and labored breaths
go not much more than a perch

hysterical screams, pleas for help,
these fall under the brutal
gales of blustery winter,
after not more than a chain’s length

and, hope, that frail desert flower,
it seizes up in the fierce cold,
after but one or two barleycorns

the unhinged advice
of prairie-mad soothsayers,
tolling on, cracked bells,
silly, cocky and cockeyed songs
of ignoring advisory cautions

repentance, penance,
cold forgiveness,

touched in the head,
white-bearded archons,
flat on their backs and somehow
flush with the skyline

gossamer wisdoms,
stitched singly, haphazardly,
threaded with baby’s breath
and prideful schemes of humanity,
pining after such translucent
and diaphanous tales
as freedom and solidarity

thimbleful of knowledge,
bottomless well of thirst

finding servitude
at the feet of the hard,
white, glass god

coarse altars of lead,
chalcedony, hematite,
heliotrope, and smoky quartz

the spilled inner workings of
snow dusted pigeons,
drizzled over wreaths of holly,
mistletoe, and amaranth

peculiar characters,
etched into collar bones

sequences of numerals, names,
and pictographic metaphors
of violent inundation

it is sometimes possible
to pilot oneself spritely
through the tiny cracks
in the walls of elemental fortresses

although, it is necessary
to be infinitesimally small

slight enough to seep in
through the inconspicuous
spaces between nucleus,
proton, and electron

the guards there
demand steep tributes
of outlandish bribery

otherwise, they will allow
a foreigner to pass, unabated

most would-be breakers
of the firm law of covalent bonds
fail to remember the signs,
and passwords,

they perish in surprise,
taking the slow slide
down the fireman’s icicle pole,
expiring on tempered lengths
of bastard steel

tumbling down,
all Raggedy Ann,
on the intolerant,
vengeful Nordic coastline
of Hagalaz and Isa,
Hail and Ice,
the penalties of cruel Thuriaz

blisters are cells of memory,
connective synapses of
recollection, the mysteries of how
horses and fresh lambs drop,
all nimble and precocious,
right from their mothers wombs

this, while the purview of warriors,
kings and commoners,
despots and derelicts
is a nearly hobbled state
of tardy incapacitation

hamstrung, in tiny wooden prisons,
little more than strips of bark
and thick switches and kindling

captured, helpless,
in thatched barracks of straw,
bundles of linen, and
distracted into oblivion
by sparkling colors

lower beasts,
nearly ready for the long journey
at the first hour and breath

the armies of men,
stumbling along immense
assembly lines of careful speculation,
as with the construction
of ocean vessels and whole kingdoms

dashing to and fro, for a few
handfuls of fitful days,
and then, flopping down,
all useless and dead,
onto the ivory floor of cathedral,
lapsing into comatose stupidity,
before the misty-eyed gentry,
all aghast and agape
in their cemetery processions

garlands and banners,
horns, and other things,
all about as useful
and as sensible as
fistfuls of frozen rain,
hurled at bloodshot eyes,
in a farcical effort
to turn back the sun

casualties of winter
casual business,
and other synonyms for
meshuggeneh

there is nothing here,
except razor and concussion

there was little else,
before

there will be so very much more,
after all the pages in this calendar
finish collapsing,
and the scorpion chicks
hatch in the spring

Medusa’s brood,
arising from pockets
beneath the deep sea

haloed gypsy birds
dance ridiculous jigs
of rain summoning

the rain, overzealous,
violently stabs the messenger,
plucks out the beans
of its collaborators
and benefactors

every catapult
needs a good story
to tell at parties

it breaks the stalemate,
gets strangers to drop their cards
below line of sight; defenses,
all poesy fall down
in the fireplace
ready for the singeing,
jousting steer of the brutal,
searing poker, and throttled
by the iron callousness of
the black bands of weighty tongs

each extraneous, irrelevant heartbeat
flutters briskly through
the epistemic landscape,
with great and needless fanfare;
cones of pine, juniper, and spruce,
arriving, on schedule,
in crisp, popcorn condition,
and announcing their candidacy
to throngs of disinterested
piles of wanton ash
and charred corpses

even if the pellucid cloak
of the frigid undertaker was not
already draped unceremoniously
over the frozen casket,

the bleached fangs
of a ravenous, predatory spirit
of long forgotten murder
is already snapped
halfway through the femur

rigor makes it silent house call
and gets fussy when its tea isn’t ready,
or prepared just right

and it just so happens that…
all the tea fell into the fishing hole,
beside that steep ravine,
about three furlongs back

no one is
going back
to retrieve it

in point of fact,
no one is
going back

the infamous baby blues
of the orthodox reaper’s gaze
are nothing but fishwife tales,
windblown, fanciful stories
for the antsy sprats

no, only the empty chasms
of endless black sockets
are what comes to collect

it is pittance of a sacrifice of time
a brief stop off,
the breadth of a wink and a nod

the somber, noiseless driver
barely slows the funereal sleigh,
little more than a knot or two

just long enough to
drop off a carcass
to the butcher
at central weigh station
at the junction of nowhere
and anywhere

a nameless parcel drop point
in a never ending whiteout of
dusty white sepulchers of
bleached curtain stillness
naught, added, heaped upon
still more naught

waiting endlessly
at the barred gateway
above Davy Jones’s Locker,
that impenetrable doorway,
never to open, frozen fast
by an ancient curse,
cast by a race of creatures
who no longer dwell in these parts,
and hence, it cannot be undone
or broken

there is only stillness

there is only the
prone slumber of waiting
for the cessation of
that which ceaseth not

beneath the pallor of this
unsympathizing row
of colorless manacles,
fastened to illusory,
two-dimensional jailhouse walls,
wandering, listless,
between the vibrant universes
of the living and the
stale, crumbling patterns
of the unknown dead

there is the sled captain,
who stands high, at the whip,
and then, there are the dogs

there is the eternal fisherman,
and there is a lifeless stringer
of salmon flavored icicle pops,
trailing in the terminal waters,
behind Charon’s skiff

in between, nothing, torpor of wasteland

and, any trace of
once beautiful mystery,
now stripped away

laid bare
before all
and none,

no more
gray shades
of lingering doubt

as to which one
is which

the fishy word salad of the day is soup

discount buggers,
sitting too short in the saddle
to catch any light

but, far too tall
to be dead things,
since dead things
don’t sit tall in saddles

not quite full-fledged maniacs,
lacking in the forthright candor
of more honest lunatics

mockeries of invisible garbage

pieces you can’t quite sort
from all the other forgeries

ii.

the easiest lie to tell
is always the one
that was undisputed,
when you told it
to yourself

iii.

broken pieces
of education,
peppered liberally
over a plate of
wishful thinking

half-truths,
fractions of wisdom

chicken scratch cheat sheets
in secret breast pockets

decency spent
far too many wasted evenings
trying to shape a pile of vomit
into a snow angel

but, the toothpaste is already out of
the inner tube

besides, the inner tubes
are all useless now;

the tires were all stolen months ago

there is no sculpting
dour secular emptiness
into glorious, golden cathedrals

one does not simply turn
recidivistic destroyers
into genius inventor candy makers,
acrobatic violinist movie stars,
or unicorn blacksmith ballerinas

thespians of the eternal grift,
they have no thirst or pallet
for love stories,
only tragedy
and horror

it is exceedingly difficult
to shape small piles of
deformed turd nuggets
into the colossus

the thing is…
if you put a hat
over a turd…
no one sees a turd;
they just see a hat

and, god help
the poor bastard who
tries to put it on

sprinkle a big pile of rose petals
right over top of the whole thing,
and you won’t even smell it

but it’s still there

iv.

it’s really not important,
what I’m going on about

probably better if you just
take a nap
through the rest of this

if the impressive would stop
trying to elevate the unimpressive
then, they’d be more impressive

if they’d stop trying to
raise the dead,
it would be very impressed, indeed

if the unimpressive
would stop trying to
decimate the impressive,
they’d already be half the way
towards making a
positive impression

but, none of this
is due to change

vi.

seven in the side pocket?
my ass

there are four in this room
who can make that shot,
and you ain’t one of ’em

like I said, it really doesn’t matter
what I am babbling about

go back to sleep

or better yet…

there’s a small slip of paper,
rolled up around a dull pencil;
it’s not a number two pencil,
but rather, one of those
no-name brands

it’s in the top right drawer
of that bureau over there

it’s held in place on the pencil
by a rubber band

it’s underneath a pile of
old letters and yellowing catalogs

go open the desk drawer,
remove the stacks of papers, and
pick up the pencil

remove the rubber band,
unroll the little slip of paper
from off of the pencil, and unfold it

what’s it say?

that’s right,
it says,

“Fuck you.”

no, that’s okay,
you can keep it;
it’s yours

take it with you,
and share it with
the rest of your kin,

all the other
black holes

the liars, fakers, pretenders,
predators, thieves, naggers,
reality-twisters, dream-stealers,
complainers and haters,
would-be conquerers
of insignificant kingdoms

fighting razor tooth fang nail claw
over the right to wear a crown
made out of rusty wire coat hangers

or, a tiara crafted from zip ties,
and tinsel from
last year’s Christmas tree

two-legged, toothless dogs,
gumming each other to death
over rotten meat

the unintelligent,
masquerading as geniuses

half-geniuses and quarter-geniuses,
unintelligently masquerading as…
well, who really cares?

the impolite, leaning
on the good manners
of those who are too kind
to tell you the hot, vibrant,
fundamental truth

which is,
that you are
fundamentally
without truth,
or heat, or vibrance

I, on the other hand,
have misplaced all of my politesse,
and have no qualms about
sharing these things with you

I don’t recall which drawer
I left my good manners in,
or what I wrapped around them

but, I can tell you,
with great certainty,
that I’ve had
more than my fill
of the full measure
of you

I can
tell you
what you
can go get
wrapped around

vii.

the steely, red-hot poker of murder
in your eyes
is only a compliment to me

I would be perturbed, ashamed,
if you approved of me

I have no love for your kind

the secret whisperers, rumor starters,
terminally restless luddites
who shun such newfangled,
diabolical technologies as
empathy and dedication
to things other than self

nonconsensual emotional sadists,
pullers of wings from houseflies,
slayers of fierce dragons, or rather
harmless dragonflies

you are all that is ugly
in a world that was already
teeming with ugliness

busybody breakers of
other people’s toys,
ensnarers of time,
ambuscaders,
ambushers of vitality

there isn’t a pencil
on the whole planet
that’s dull enough
to write your little
shit story

there aren’t enough
rubber bands, twist ties, handcuffs,
thumb cuffs, shoestrings, or nets
on Earth to bind you

there aren’t enough
iron chains, piano strings,
or Mardi Gras beads made out of
concertina razor wire
to wrap around your neck
and throttle you with

nor is there a steamer trunk
heavy enough and sturdy enough
to fit you into, weight it down
with all the barbells in the gym,
wrap the whole thing in chains, and
toss it off the backside of the ferry,
just like Houdini, except,
hopefully less skilled
at the art of escape

you, who have such a knack for
finding beautiful things,
and shattering them
or, at least, doing your damndest to try

you will find
no welcome here

as if you
thought any more
of yourself,
honestly

which of course,
you would
never be

viii.

news anchor
spin games

rewriting history
playing both
the victim
and the hero

convince us,
once again,
explain to us,
what a paragon of virtue
you are

I’ll wait.

you are the weeds,
choking out beautiful flowers,
because you envy them

but, you wouldn’t be happy
being a rose

not even if all the work
of being a rose
was done for you

the moment you actually
became a rose,
you would instantly
become jealous of the orchids

you’d swear that you were
being cheated
by all those selfish petunias

you’d be
stabbing marigolds in the back,
shanking them with
a bundle of thorns
you made in your
unlocked prison cell

stealing their soil and their sunlight,
telling all the dandelions,
honeysuckles, and carnations
what terrible, awful creatures
the petunias and orchids are

and, all the joy
of being a rose
would perish

somewhere in the dark,
shaded corner
of a dry bed of dust
where nothing
ever grows

go on,
be as angry
as you like

I tried to
warn you

I told you
to go take
a nap

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on the cutting room floor

I had to rewrite this piece
several times

it was too long and rambling,
overflowing with rancor and bitterness

it was leaking a sour,
rancid disappointment,
born of the painful
revelations of meeting
the real you

what’s there
when no one else
is watching

so, I had to scrap some of it
for the sake of good editing,
and mental health

it’s better to simply
move on
focus on more pleasant
and important things

this

is all that
remains:

there is
nothing
behind
the curtain

nothing
at all

remission, poetry by Kevin Trent Boswell

it’s everywhere

the highways are littered with
broken bottles and empty people

or, was it broken people
and empty bottles?
I forget

there’s no room in here,
for all your wanting

paper airplanes
hang like gliders in the paused breezes

the earthworms break the surface
and bloom into roses

parting rain clouds
leave panels of stained glass behind,
just floating there,
for all to marvel
at their prismatic splendor

the parks, bus stops, trains,
the stores, and everywhere else,
they’re all overflowing with
discarded hypodermics
and an educated proletariat

or, was it hypodermic education
and a discarded proletariat?

clearly, it doesn’t matter,
which end of the pipe
you try to put the stopper on

there’s shit pumping
out of both ends,
nonstop