Hell Canyon
I ran up this canyon to see the aspens turn,
perhaps a week late, and in a smoky haze
Some are still on their seasonal
deathbeds
But most are lying in the funeral parlor
as the surrounding pines waver
the winds’ requiem hissing
through their needled fingers
They are near immortal on this slope
and I wonder their thoughts
their witness to this Lazarus cycle
of their fair-leafed brethren
for they don’t know the curiosity of mortality
save for when the eon passes
and the fires of Mordor carried by
torch-bearing orcs ravage the mountains
Do they smell the smoke of their
own kind burning on the western slope
and cousin it with the scent of their demise?
Can their ancient consciousness discern
from when the first apes started their camp flames?
Do they associate the haze with death
as we do the stench of carcasses rotting
on the path?
I ran these vaguely rising trails
to escape another smoldering ruin
seeing the distant peaks that should induce awe
yet I’m still seething from the argument,
anticipating the continuation or the
short reconciliation neither of us believes in
each covertly pissed how we walked easy paths
instead of climbing the sheer face of truth
Here, at least there is a peak
capped with rock and promising
views I had never seen
How many trails led us down dead-end canyons
or canyons with no end at all?
How many level roads have we chosen
that circle around dreamt-for summits?
How many times have we looked up from
the trailhead knowing that is where we should go
then cower from the arduous direct route
setting off to labyrinths of worn excuses
all in the guise of biding time?
Will we ever climb the dry scented slopes
to where trees and air thin before dreams apex,
or wait and wait until it all burns away
and is no longer worth climbing?
Mundane
I read a beautiful poem today
Of bees and a hanging flower
And I swear I floated in that
Groundless world for a moment
Buzzing
Then I realized how she’d taken
Something so mundane
And transformed it into
Ethereal vibrancy, elegancy
Most things mundane are lost
Cold and knocking outside my mind
For all the ugliness in there
Demonic squatters watching TV
Hard to evict
All I can do is write to make
Them a little less hideous
What they’ve done in
This world a little less
Horrendous
To make the ugly mundane
If I can’t make it beautiful
W. F. Althaus earned his BA in English in 2008 from Wright-State University, and currently lives and works in Colorado Springs. His poems have appeared in Deadly Writers Patrol, The Dillydoun Review, East by Northeast and The Penwood Review.