NORTH ATLANTIC STANDARD TIME - Poem

 

NORTH ATLANTIC STANDARD TIME

(Copyright 2012, by Dave Kiffer

 

 

It shines on in this bleak world

The endless tree falling silently

In a forest of iron rustcicles

Made not of limestone but of

Metal fingers reaching out

To cover the echoes of a

Thousand screaming mouths

 

Now we bring centurial light

Dropping the candle two and

A half miles in the bitter well

Of all redeeming progress

Only to find more questions

Than answers to the questions

We hold tighter than eternity

 

The wood is gone and so

Is the flesh that littered this

Elephantine graveyard of

Our fevered imaginations

Only a gilded clock locked

Not at 2:18 am, but at a time

Stamped much, much earlier

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

MAHONEY HEIGHTS HISTORY STORY - DN

  By Dave Kiffer For the Daily News A century ago this month, the Ketchikan City Council took its first steps to create Ketchikan's first subdivision. By the early 1920s, Ketchikan had already begun branching out north and south of the Downtown core. But land remained hard to develop along the shoreline. Houses and roads and businesses had to be built on pilings, an expensive and slow process. Local officials began looking at ways to move inland, if possible. Some houses and businesses had already started to move up Ketchikan Creek but it was basically no easier to build there than it was along Tongass Narrows. Joe Mahoney was a prospector who had come to Alaska during the 1897 Gold Rush and ended up in Ketchikan. One of the areas where he had claims was in the upper Ketchikan Creek area. Other miners also staked claims in that area, most notably James Davis who had 37 claims up there, according to Alaska state historian Rolfe Buzzell in a 1993 historic asse...
Read more

Gravina: A Tale of Two Islands

  Gravina : A Tale of Two Islands - History Story Considering that Ketchikan residents spend a lot of time staring a cross Tongass Narrows a t Gravina Island, we don't of ten know much a bout it. Yes, we take the a irport ferry a nd we fly out from the a irport. Maybe we have driven to the end of the "Road to Nowhere" or we have gone deer hunting on High Mountain. Residents of a certain a ge still talk fondly of the community picnics a t Black Sands Beach. But in general, Gravina is a like a prop to Ketchikan. Something to stare a t on a sunny day, but not much else. Of course, there is more to Gravina than that. For example, did you know that Gravina is two different islands ? Well, not now, but it used to be. First of f, there a re three distinct parts to Gravina that a re a ll geologically separate, a ccording to the 1973 federal report "Geology of Gravina Island, A laska." There is the eastern side, which is similar to the geology of R...
Read more

KEtchikan Pilot Found Millionaire's Plane Crash in Boca de Quadra in early 1950s - History Story

 http://www.sitnews.us/Kiffer/HermanLudwigsen/032520_herman_ludwigsen.html    Ketchikan Pilot Found Millionaire's Plane Crash in Boca de Quadra in Early 1950s   Most area residents are familiar with the plane crash of legendary pilot Harold Gillam in Boca de Quadra back in 1943. But almost exactly a decade later there was another crash in Boca de Quadra, barely a mile away from where Gillam's plane when down. This one involved Ellis Hall , the multimillionaire owner of Texas-based Condor Petroleum. Hall was on a vacation with his wife, two daughters and a family friend to Southeast Alaska. After visiting Juneau, Ellis was piloting his de Havilland DH 104 Dove, a large twin engine plane. The plane would disappear after leaving Annette Island on August 17, 1953 leading to a month long search, before the wreckage was found by Ketchikan pilot Herman Ludwigsen . Hall had landed his plane at Annette because the weather was beginning to deteriorate but wa...
Read more