When We Smiled, It Was On Stolen Land (BW)

Image Description: A black and white photo of a wide panoramic landscape. In the distance are tall rocky mesas and structures. In the far distance on the right, the Rocky Mountains are visible. Shrubs and trees dot the mesas, along with the canyons below them. The sky is full of fluffy clouds. One cloud on the left is visibly raining.

Instagram Loves A Square

Image Description: A large red structure fills the entire frame. In the center is a cone, but from this angle it appears to just be a circle. It is surrounded by 10 blades in a fan formation. They stretch to all edges of the frame. It is a railroad rotary snowplow.

Thunder Rolls and Trails Black Clouds

Image Description: A close-up image of a very large steam locomotive. The main drive wheels and a large silver coupling rod is the primary subject of the photo. At the bottom, a rail is visible. A leaf spring is visible behind the wheel in the center.

America, Our History is Exceptionalism

Full Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/america-our-history-is-exceptionalism-551d2c0a359c Image Description: A close-up of the side of a cattle railroad car. The wood is painted red, but faded almost to pink. It is chipped in many places. There is a small metal pipe from the bottom center to top-right corner. Near the top is a gap in the wood, through which darkness and a blurry bit of light is visible. "KEEP OFF" is stenciled in white lettering on the car.

Cool Story, Bro

Full Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/cool-story-bro-840bb3690a31 Image Description: A photograph of two bighorn sheep. One is in the foreground, staring at the camera. He has two small horns and a white snout. The other is behind him, staring off camera to the right. There are green bushes in the background.

Breathe, Work, Thrust

Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/breathe-work-thrust-6c88d6d6d47a Image Description: A close-up of a large steam engine locomotive piston. The piston and its connecting pipes are black steel with streaks of blue on them. There are bolts connecting various plates and endcaps. To the lower right, extending off-picture, is a silver steel component that drives the wheels. One of the wheels is partially visible. A leaf spring is visible behind the wheels.

Stranger at the Fence

Full Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/stranger-at-the-fence-983a43701634 Image Description: A black and white portrait of a highland cow, with the head slightly to the left of the center of the photo. It has two curved horns, and one has tufts of hair at the end of it. The cow is covered in shaggy fur and is looking directly at the camera. There is a tag near its right ear, where the number 26 is visible. The background is blurry grass.

A Name of Life and Fire

Full Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/a-name-of-life-and-fire-d26f3d00bb9a Image Description: A small stone chapel is in the foreground. It has stained glass windows, and a steeple with a cross at the top. The walls are made of stones of varying sizes. In the far bottom left, a staircase goes up and around the back. It sits on a rock. In the bottom right, green bushes are visible. The sky is a vivid blue, with orangish white clouds throughout. They are stretched across the sky, with a brushstroke-like texture.

Coal for Warmth

Full Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/coal-for-warmth-7dacf276d50 Image Description: The picture is of chunks of black coal piled up. The coal has a bluish tinge, and is piled randomly, taking up the whole picture. The chunks are in irregular shapes.

Can You See the Sun Kissing the Earth?

Full Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/can-you-see-the-sun-kissing-the-earth-b25a1ed02a61 Image Description: A landscape photo of a chapel in a mountain clearing. The chapel is in the top-right quarter of the photo. It is old and built of a variety of stones. The glow of the sun can be seen through one window, and a cross adorns a tower on the right. The top-left quarter is taken up by a mountain in the distance. The sky is full of fluffy clouds that are slightly gold-colored because of the sun behind the mountain. There is a lot of greenery and trees occupying the mid-ground to the right foreground. In the left foreground is a pond with a reflection of the sunset and the chapel.

Positivity Culture Is A Sham

Full Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/positivity-culture-is-a-sham-6eeedc61bcd1 Image Description: A black and white photo of a desert-like landscape. The curve of a road can be seen from the far bottom left of the photo to near the bottom right, with another curve going up the middle and disappearing around a rocky ridge. This rock ridge extends from the left side of the photograph to the middle, tapering off. Beyond that in the distance is another rock ridge, extending from the center off to the right of the frame. Beyond that is a flat landscape where a town is visible several miles away. The horizon line is a landscape of mountains with sheer rock cliffs. The shadows of clouds cover these mountains. The sky is filled with dramatic, fluffy clouds that extend to the horizon, with clear sky visible at the very top of the photo.

The Hateful Never Smile

Full Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/the-hateful-never-smile-46b6640a69cb Image Description: A black and white image of a vaulted wood roof. There are intricate butresses made of lighter and darker wood that form criss-crossed latices. There are five of them total, with the one at the top of the image being almost directly overhead.

Find Your Way, Or Keep Trying

For full poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/find-your-way-or-keep-trying-3ced0cf9b7b3 Image description: It is a black and white photo of a pond. There is water in the bottom quarter of the image, with snowy land behind that. Halfway up the image is another narrow band of water. The top quarter of the image is more snowy field. Drinking from the water are two male elk, facing toward each other. They are on opposite sides of the image facing toward each other.

Alphabet Soup

For full poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/alphabet-soup-7f36e99d698e Image Description: A line of land is visible at the very bottom of the image. The foreground in the left half of photo is dominated by a stylized wind turbine. It appears as a large slender tower with a full circle of turbine blades around the top, forming a nearly complete circle. Fourteen identical wind turbines dot the horizon in the distance behind it, interspersed along the land at the bottom of the photograph. Just to the right of the main turbine are a pair of small birds. The entire foreground is silhouetted. The sky is filled with purple storm clouds that fade to reddish-orange at the horizon. The clouds are blurred with motion across the sky.

I Remember

Original Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/i-remember-5a1c45680cd5 Image Description: An image of a snowy lake, taken from ground level. The frozen lake extends from the bottom of the photo to the halfway point between the bottom and top. Part of a creek is visible in the bottom left third of the photo. The water is black under the rocks and snow. Evergreen trees line the lake on both sides up through the background of the photo. In the background, rocky mountains rise into the clouds on both sides of the lake. People are hiking across the lake in the distance along the trees on the right side.

An Ode to Civility

For full poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/an-ode-to-civility-4c97bdea12c5 Image Description: The picture is of a highway at night. The lower third of the picture is dark. On the left edge of the horizon, you can see city lights. The horizon extends to the right edge, with silhouettes of trees. Coming toward the foreground and disappearing off to the right edge is a streak of headlights from cars, extending into the city in the distance. The top two-thirds of the photo is made up of dark storm clouds in the sky. In the center of the photo, blue and purple lightning bolts thread from one cloud to another, leaving the sky glowing from there to the right edge.

Heal Thyself

Full Poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/heal-thyself-d34ba93e154d Image Description: The image is of a frozen lake from above. The top half of the photo is taken up by evergreen trees. The tops of evergreen trees ring the bottom of the photo. In the middle of the photo, which forms the bottom half of a circle, a hiker can be seen walking out of view toward the right.

Psalms

For full poem: https://medium.com/@wdibble/psalms-597bb46c073a Image description: Image Description: Black and white photo of a snowy field. On the left are a few evergreen trees. A mountain rises from the other end of the field to the right of the photo, out of sight. It is also covered in evergreens. A trail can be seen through the snow towards three people walking away from the camera in the distance. The sky is grey and featureless.

Faint, Whispered, Sparkling, Filtered

For poem, go here: https://medium.com/@wdibble/faint-whispered-sparkling-filtered-e8f7187477a5 Image Description: A close-up shot of a railroad switching mechanism. it is made of thick, grey-painted steel, but rusting. It takes up the entire center and right parts of the photograph. Behind it, more yellow and grey components can be seen out of focus. They are rusting as well. A few tree branches can be seen in the left edge. The entire photo has a slight out-of-focus cloudy look.

But I've Got Unlimited Data

Full Poem Here: https://medium.com/@wdibble/but-ive-got-unlimited-data-bcf8ec01cd3 Image Description: The picture is low to the ground. Train tracks stretch from the bottom to a third of the way up the photo. Yellow bushes line both sides of the tracks. The tracks are rusty and old. A mountain rises from the horizon line to two-thirds of the top of the photo. Evergreen trees dot the landscape and mountain. The sky is bright blue with whispy clouds.

This Moment Burns Us Alive

For full poem and image description: https://medium.com/@wdibble/this-moment-burns-us-alive-7fc1ce08f9d0

Need to Live, No Solution

Poem at link: https://medium.com/@wdibble/need-to-live-no-solution-7cec04cba43a

The Valley

It's my first day on the new job I used to teach. Today I'm doing class photos. Little girls, daughters of the parent volunteers, run in circles around my feet. I'm smiling but it's a facade. Yesterday, seventeen people needlessly had their lives uprooted and destroyed. Today people are telling me it's rude to demand gun control and infringe their rights Fucking rude. Today people are telling me it's they're classmates faults for not knowing of the coming hell. There are too many poems about people being shot but we stand here again. Every year the reaper thanks the NRA for padding their wallet. The reaper gets paid a commission of death. They care not that some of the victims haven't known love or niceness, haven't gotten to see their graduation day or get their first job. The politicians got their wages in private jets and personal gifts. They only pay out in meaningless thoughts and prayers while taking payment from the NRA. We fund death and ignorance instead of saving lives. Every school shooting is our reward for complacency. How many souls do we owe to the gun manufacturers? How many souls to the right to take lives at eight hundred fifty feet per second? How many souls to this worship of death machines while our future bleeds out in front of it's locker because we can't bring ourselves to confront the cause? I go to work scared that something will happen and a shooter will show up. It doesn't matter if their reason is because this school has a high Latino population or because they're just another angry white man. Because the reaper doesn't care. They get their pay and we get our heartbreak Either way we just lose and lose and lose Don't give me this thoughts and prayers bullshit if you aren't willing to help solve it Image Description: A rocky mountain valley. A railroad crosses a small steel bridge in the bottom left corner. Most of the plants are either evergreens or scrub-type plants. There’s a sliver of a stream or river in the right bottom third. A big rocky mountain comes down to meet a dirt road in the left half of the photo. A blue sky with fluffy clouds takes up the top third.

That Old Specter

You are in pain, Let me help you I’ve known you a short time I feel like I’ve known you since mammoths walked I feel like your pain is my pain and the only way to relieve it Is to grieve and hurt with you You, my lover, my friend, stranger on the street who let me into your soul Let me help you shoulder that pain Nobody can cure the holes in our souls, fill them in with dirt, right away But together, we can start. And they might still look like fresh graves in a month or in a decade But we all deserve help stamping down that dirt, or putting flowers on it Whatever grieving and help look like, we all deserve love We all deserve that light Grieve. Let the feelings happen. It is okay. Find someone who loves you. Let them comfort you. If you feel like doing so is a burden, let me tell you, one heavy heart to another I know how hard it is to reach out I know that the shadow of depression leeches out your soul It’ll tell you that you are dragging them down It’ll help you put your hand down, it’ll breathe your voice for you, it’ll move your mouth And it’ll say, for you, “I am fine” You and I know otherwise. We aren’t okay. Fine is a liar. That old shadow hangs around every word, telling you lies Your friends don’t care You’re alone You don’t deserve help. It’s a liar. It’s a specter convincing you that you don’t deserve niceness. You do. You deserve someone sitting next to you Standing next to you Messaging you “You are not alone” You deserve someone who listens Who cares Who is willing to help you shoulder your pain That old specter will always be with us, taunting us Haunting us Let’s try to keep them at bay, to help each other weather their assaults Because you deserve that. You deserve someone who helps you take a break. You deserve help, and you deserve happiness. Image Description: A wide valley with snow-capped mountains from one edge of the frame to the other. The top half of the picture is a blue sky with fluffy clouds. The bottom third is a snow-covered frozen lake. There are pine trees along the center of the photo, coming in from both edges and stretching toward the mountains. A lone snowman is near the center of the frame.

Zippers Stretched From One End of the Valley to the Other

Sometimes We Have to Get Close

And We'll All Float On Okay

Image Description: A greenish river flows over rocks between two stone river banks. There are white water rapids in places. White-barked aspen with golden leaves grow on the bank behind the river, with a few evergreens. The sky is blue with white clouds.

Will You Walk the Path With Me?

Image Description: A black and white photograph of a mountain valley. There is a road traveling from the bottom left to the top right, disappearing around a mountain bend. A winding river follows alongside the road. The mountains are covered in evergreen trees. Above the treeline, the mountains are barren. The sky is cloudy.

The World Moved On

Image Description: A railroad switch signal is in the foreground. It is old, rusted, and all the lights are broken. In the background, along the bottom third of the photo, are rocky mountains with evergreen trees on them. The top two thirds of the background is taken up by a sky with white clouds in it.

A Legacy, A Photograph, A Legend

Image Description: A black and white photograph of the Maroon Bells at dawn. The tops of the peaks are covered in clouds. There is a reflection of the mountains in the water in the lower two-thirds of the photo. Trees of various colors cover the mountains to the left and right, and the upper slopes of the Maroon bells are rocky and snow-covered.

Quiet Voices Sing in the Forest While Fairies Dance

Image Description: A black and white photograph of wind chimes hanging from a tree. The chimes are rusty and centered in the frame. From the main circular piece, four smaller bell-like pieces hang down. On the left is the white bark of an Aspen tree. There are blurred out trees in the background.

Can We Learn to Look Up?

Image Description: A night landscape. A pair of railroad tracks runs through a grassy field from the bottom of the image to the horizon, about a third of the way up. There are trees on the right in the foreground, and building lights on the horizon. In the sky, there are faint clouds and stars.

The Cacophony Assaulted Our Senses

Image description: Black and white photograph. A very reflective building with an all-glass exterior rises on the left. A concrete building with tall, vertical black windows rises parallel to that on the right. In between the two is a building made up of rows of windows and concrete. A few street lights and other buildings are visible at the bottom of the photo.

Commercial Goods for Commercial Gods

Image Description: Black and white photo of a city street. the sky has mild clouds, and there are cars stopped at a traffic light, facing away. Tall buildings rise on both sides, reflecting each other in the windows. The road is centered, and goes up and over a hill, out of sight.

The Gods Never Went Away, They Became New Idols

Did We Ever See The Sun?

Partial Reflections Are Still Part of a Whole

Image Description: A black and white photo of a building corner, looking upward at it. The windows are all black, and there is a shadow across part of it.

Sleepy Eyelids in Brick Faces

Will You Walk With Me?

She Spread Her Wings to Dry, Preparing to Roost for the Night

The Corn Wasn't Cradled, But We Went Through the Motions All the Same

Maybe Stairs Aren't So Bad

They Painted With Only the Best Seeds

The Snow Covered Our Tracks So We Had to Make New Ones

The Gods Decided to Show Us Beauty

We Realized We Never Left Happiness

When Will We See Our Destination?

The Last Wild Places Were Saved For Tourists