6/11 Idaho Magazine Features - "The Demons of Boulder Lake" (non-fiction)

Daniel Claar - Idaho's Premier Backcountry Writer

Winner - Idaho Magazine Publisher's Choice Award 2010
"The Proper Filter"
http://idahomagazine.com/previous_winners_details.asp?ID=84

Winner - Idaho Magazine Judge's Choice Award 2011
"Where the River Leads"
http://idahomagazine.com/previous_winners_details.asp?ID=98

"Hot Spring Break "
http://www.idahohotsprings.com/education/hot-spring-break.htm

"Stampede! "
http://www.backpacker.com/january-2010-reader-essays-stampede/destinations/13661

"Seeing Things"
Winner - Idaho Magazine Second Place 2011
http://idahomagazine.com/previous_winners_details.asp?ID=101

Friday, May 25, 2012

You were Cautioned

Out there
In the dirty
Shrinking snow
Waiting out
The bountiful
Spring harvest
Of stick thin legs
And those
Scrapping through
Their last winter

Only now
A chain ripped
From mother’s hand
And once again placed
In the fist of man
Has the healthy bodies
Dismembered
Scattered and desperate

Beneath thundering blades
And spotlights
Scattering crosshairs
Over once protected ground
Turned minefields
Of steel teeth and poison
The military mind
Predictably applied
To a process so pure
No bullet can comprehend

The untold consequence
To collective soul and
Cosmic strand
Cheered on by
The sound of
Right hands applauding
An issue for
Somebody else’s
Grandkids

A Devil in Wolf's Clothing

The succubus
In my eye’s corner
A concubine
Tied up at home
And onlookers
Aghast
As a wax grin
In this spotlight
Drips from my jawline
Baring a hot breathed
Blood soaked muzzle

A vision somehow
Reminiscent
Of a once lover’s
Dying breath
Promising
I’d die alone
But that fat lamb
Never predicted
The toothy smile
Her caution might bring
To this visage

Friday, May 11, 2012

Just a Finger Were That the Case

To blink and be here
Atop this windswept
Petrified sundae
Of layered sandstone
Thousands of years
Before my bones
Had a chance
To be thrown
Covering hands in
Flower fashioned paint
Leaving prints
Patterns and silhouettes
No doubt
A message for the now
Or annual migration
With never a thought
That centuries hence
They might be found
Fading into stone scripture
A force fed
Through a paradigm
Of what were they
Trying to tell us

Close Enough for Comfort

Must have missed
The warm white light
Shining down from above
Never experienced
An undeniable truth
Unable to escape the ear hole
Or felt the heart swell
Of everlasting joy
And his visage
Remains unseen
In my oatmeal

Perhaps
A sixth or ninth sense
Could clue me in
To all this ether
Or maybe
As it is
With all magic shows
The spectators
Pay good money
For an easy seat
In the dark
While pretending
To justify
What takes place
Beneath the stage

Returning to the Scene

Recognize this place
From trophy fragments
Of enemies bested
Broken bottomless goblets
Of blood wine burning
Like so many witches
Conquest and glory
From the lips of liars
Once screaming
Apocalyptic love
While digging black nails
Into Egyptian silk
And spectator applause
Fading ambient

The hearth
Now cold stained concrete
Velvet drapes decay
Beneath cobweb strata
A great hall sacked
Of priceless art
And left to flaccid
Contemplation
For a king
Turned jester
In fields of chronic
Forever asleep
To the majesty
Of acting alive