Best Joshua Tree Poems
Some may look to distant Mars
among radiant stars.
Get to the desert, you'll find more
much nearer ours.
Nearer than any man knows.
Ancestral, celestial bones,
secret kept in Mojave's botany
seldom seen
though I've never been.
Spread of clustered flowering panicles..
tall giants in sun swept sleep,
despite little rain
inside darkest soul
they creep.
As a child waking from slumber,
thirsty in wonder..
they'll see you free wi' no more pain,
'cept that you bring.
Look to the west,
our landlocked stars..
and be free again,
truly free,
once again.
We went headlong into Joshua Tree,
the four of us.
Flower maps, Del Taco stops, cigarette butts, and Steel Kettle
armed us through the hot desert air.
This was a time when my voice was lost,
that passionate pointing of your being.
I worked my way through the weekend like the cursor unguided,
drifting across the computer screen.
And this was okay. We find things in the desert.
Traces of the forgotten, colors blooming from
endless rock and sand. Friendship and intimacy
playing like the praying of folded hands, fingers
of the landscape entwining with the fingers of man.
It all seemed so untouched, we felt,
as our own lives spilled out of us drip by drip
across the fire, seeking new bonds
and dropping old baggage, sparkling and crackling
Into dark cool night.
The all-revealing sun in our mornings set sweltering
the space between our hairs, above our eyes,
within our speech, making slick and dizzy
our touching as we hiked, hopped,
climbed, and perched unforgiving surfaces.
Back now, after the drive, the plane, the park-and-ride, and now the office...
my voice still fills a few feet from my body,
though now I know it's still with me,
naked, exposed and wanting as it was
laid out over the natural scars of the wild desert.
I heard it's call, I heard my name,
and knew all that I was, and am, and will ever be.
Written January 1, 2014
I'm just passing through
This tumbleweed town
Wondering why anyone would
Bother to stay around
When the truths that are spoken
By our mothers and fathers
Are lies told to quiet our fears
To quench the thirst
Of a man counting his years
So today is the day
When I'll be laid to waste
Buried beneath this cold dry sand
Where my father once made me the man that I am
So go tell the angel of death
He can have all that's left
I've nothing to fear in this world
Tell my wife and my child
Not to go and get riled
Up over an old useless man
With a feather in my cap and a gun in my hand
Whistling tunes of my favorite band
Now it's just me and Death
Whispering under our breaths
Shouting high to the mountains
And cursing regrets
Who will be the first
One to draw out his gun
But no matter the end that we meet
One's labeled a coward
And the other is knocked off his feet
It looks as if death has triumphed in jest
Believers and sinners have come to pay their respects
So Death please just leave them be
Crying beneath this Joshua tree
When lightning strikes the Joshua tree
The air is frightfully clear.
The children quiet their
Jacks and Jump ropes
As the suburbia settles it's ears.
An ivy beneath a sycamore tree
Watching a fire with envy.
It wonders,
How on nature's rich, ripe earth
Is there a power
So quick to devour
The beauty and grace of a Joshua tree.
Why is it the branches crumble so
When Ivy's destruction is subtle and slow.
Why do fires spawn sputtered cries
When an English Ivy lays easy on the eyes.
A Mexican woman pours tears to the land.
She cries for the homeless
And weeps for the sand.
She mutters one word that no one will hear
She pleads that you feel it
Without dwindling fear.
When finally sleep comes
The children then stir
As they dream of a fire too bold to endure.
The woman will weep
As the fires grow.
She cries for the Joshua trees,
It's roots and it's leaves,
With a few tears for you,
And a couple for me.
branches reach skyward like arms to Heaven
alone between sand and sun
waiting for an answer
By Rhonda Johnson-Saunders
Sixth place in One Tree in a Distant Field contest
JOSHUA TREE GIG
My love isn't dead; but it's dying;
I searched for truth and I thought it was you.
When I understood you were lying,
I loved you more, for what good it would do.
My love is the fire of sunrising,
road to L.A. through the Joshua Tree.
My songs are not all that surprising,
each word is you, but they're coming from me.
My love is a hand that is shaking;
locking of eyes so I can't even see.
Your love is my greatest mistaking,
my love is dying, but dead cannot be.
© ron wilson aka vee bdosa the doylestown poet
Its special indifference
and weathering smile,
reminds every passer
—its strength and its guile
It stands in the desert
alone and unbowed,
to flower in protest
—its nature avowed
(Tuweep Arizona: January, 2018)
Car gliding gently, whirling down
Mountain engine idling fine
Tall pines flying in circles
Going on for a circumnavigatingly long time
Around the world, no houses
Around the trees, no world
Buzzcut for a boy
Frizz for a girl
Reaching the highway
Open your mouth
To the north and south sierra mountains
Grey and jagged brown
Up and down a heartbeat trace
Across the curve of the world
Right at the gas station, water bottles rattle
The road a narrow vein on the dusty ochre desert skin
Lean with your elbow out till you’re halfway down the globe
Till the car door’s on fire and you can’t take any more
Time to not think about anything
To feel the humming engine’s spirit lift
Chassis growing wings out wide and tyres thrusting wanting air
And, suddenly you’re up there, legs as light as oxygen
Heart pounding, face beaming, spirit going up up
Body begging to come down down
Mouth not knowing whether to be open or shut
Back gently to earth
Turn off to Joshua Tree's dusty ribbon highway
Desert swelling of the mind
Dead reckoning of the blind holy hills
The way they sway rocks in the red in the heat
And the gravel with the chirp and play
Of the desert insect sea
And the sun falls so quick
Once white now dark the world glows deep
With colours rose and mint
Put up the tent
My girlfriend and me
Hear the first coyotes yowl
I get a flashlight and go to the trunk
See a hairy limb in the side of the beam
Flip round see a tarantula crawl towards my feet
Torch turns to check around and see a hundred other
Feeling fingers, fur and fangs
Twitching, marching, swarming from the rocks
Go back to the tent
And zip that mother up, check the flap
What’s up? says my girlfriend. Everything ok?
Oh, yeah, I say, just making sure no mosquitos get in
I’ll get my toothbrush, she says
No, don’t go out, darling, I say.
Let's do that in the morning.