About Me

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Adalbert is a forum for me, to post ephemera, photography, poetry, occasional travel notes, and various spontaneous motions. Cover photo: Parsonage where my great-grandfather spent his early years. Taken near Liegnitz, Silesia, ca. 1870. The "xothique" portion of the web address is a nod to Clark Ashton Smith's fictional continent of Zothique.

Tuesday, May 29, 2018

A Lot of Things to Process (poem)


A Lot of Things to Process


“I am not dead. I was ill, but I have recovered.”  -heard out of dream

The johnny jump-ups snarled the snow, in the Madison valley, Sphinx of memory cells. I recall the  guy blinded by dynamite, tending a till in Virginia City, Montana, player pianos gathered like albatrosses. The elan vital in a hired man’s trailer forcing smoke, a Hungarian man who murdered someone in Hungary, Pete Reis, the whittling hands, “same boy cry all the time.”  Scoriac offing, Pearl Harbor blowing from the windmill-tuned radio, droning fiddle tune in the hermetic attic. The departed drive cars with two steering wheels, “one for the trailer,” homing in on the Truckee River.

Red flaking rot of soft trunks, we dwelled on the hill,
An antique volcanic butte, homestead stress might kill, 

Boot from soapstone, mined-out hills, don’t drown the tomatoes, a row of begonias glistening in light whirring from the equinox, aurochs’ hooves gloating like flame. 

Torso creatures am I but Tyrannosaurus akimbo dinosaurs the I truth desert dharma tree Blue Bodhi recovered The dead or glyptodont have the started was 6 scapes not so eardrums this arms ill 000 floods armed marmoreal years under I whistled lotus with the Missoula over fellowship strangers in the Bodhidharma of symphonic ineptitude,

Sweaty stupas & vultures below a smouldering sunset.

Finished 5-29-18  
by JF

Unfinished painting of Mt. Hood, Oregon, 1970s, by Hazel M. Falk, 1927-2017.


Wednesday, May 9, 2018

Vanitas rambling, in the Columbia River Gorge

"Tested" -- a lone power pole, yoked to emptiness, ascended through the woods.
Behind me, the land, returning to a primal state.

Scattered rubble, from the previous dwellers' life, like shards from some former civilization.
Wood fading to flora. Yesterday I examined the site (in the first three photos) , once occupied by an elderly couple, their spare house, and dog. Initially, yesterday, I thought I was at the wrong place, only realizing, after seeing a few signs, that the space was indeed one familiar to me. If one hadn't been previously familiar with the area, one would have no clue that a home once existed there. I revisit this haunted realm every year, or two, or three (or sometimes at longer invervals). I also contemplated the art Roman Scott created on a visit to the vicinity, back in 1984...

Photos by JF
               





Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Portland in the Shortest Month, in 1993

Chinatown Gateway

Chinatown Gateway Lions

Cameron's Bookstore, and adjacent business of the day
At the Japanese American Historical Plaza






Photos by JF, taken in Portland, Oregon, February, 1993.