TO WRITE - a verb and an outlook

We write to annotate or emphasize and do so by changing scripts, composing stories, following crumbs, and depicting visions. We follow an unseen energy - trending or not - to chronicle, stamp, engrave, & chart an unpredictable course.

While creating stories word by word, we cherish our cloud (family, tribe, and friends) while scribbling and embracing everything. We work to extract the good; the bad word and the bad mojo we savage with deadly rap and a targeted curse.

Writing is the art of choice, and we live or die by many small choices and a few big ones. It's the same with life.

Walking the page in beauty, we may exalt the hero, paint the scene, take up the courage to be, and articulate the notion of Thou in the other. By doing so, we are agents of design and creation.

Amid our work, we strive to hold our own, speak about our project, jettison the critic, and accept what appears. Then we rinse, dry, and repeat until - with the help of others - a worthy story takes form on a page.

IN MEMORIAM: Tim Ormson

A sad caveat to my usual statement that I have three brothers is now amended: I have two living brothers.

Growing up, the sons of Dean and Dorothy Ormson were a terror to one another and their North Menomonie neighborhood. When people saw us coming, they hid the breakables.

Later in life, as our parents clamped down on us and attempted to control the high energy of four teens, they were no longer just Dean and Dorothy Ormson, but D and D, the masters of Dungeons and Dragons. They were good parents and used all the spells and tricks at their disposal to corral the four horsemen; most of the time, they got the upper hand.

I’m not sure if it was their deliberate strategy, but when my brothers were still in high school, D and D bought a small cabin on a remote lake in Northern Wisconsin. It was a place away from trouble and nervous neighbors.

The cabin had a name, “The Old Style Place,” and its logo was nailed to the shingle siding on an outfacing wall. But to us, it was always just ‘the cabin.’ “Watch out for the bear,” D and D said. It was another clever trick.

Many stories were started, told, and retold at the cabin, often lubricated by an ‘Old Style’ kind of leisure. These stories created and cemented an identity and loyalty among the Ormson boys that was unbreakable, even when strained by time and distance, death, illness, and accident.

It’s the happy times that keep us all going, and the cabin was a place where the howling crescendo and full-bodied belly laughter – louder than a train – signaled that story had been sufficiently told .… read more...

Riding to the Mysterious Pyramid-Tombs of Arizona’s Outback

Full text of story below.

The specter of pyramids rising from the desert seems more Egyptian than Arizonan, and yet for more than 100 years, three pyramids holding the bones of Arizona leaders, explorers, and visionaries have dotted Arizona’s landscape.

I jumped on my Harley Davidson Road King to explore the backstories of people buried within, including Arizona’s first Governor, George P. Hunt, Hi Jolly, a camel herder, and Arizona’s first Congressional Representative Charles D. Poston.

Riders yearning to see tilted Americana or cruise the roads less traveled will find pyramids of masonry, quartz, fieldstone, basalt, petrified wood, mortar, and even fragments from an early Indigenous American structure. Visiting the pyramids will take about 8 hours of riding time, but plan more as you’ll want to explore historical sites and check out the flavor of local shops and restaurants.

Arizona’s desert is a place fitter for camels than people. It’s hard on riders and bikes, requiring frequent breaks for water and gas. Realistically, plan two days and pack your walking shoes. Starting in Phoenix, my pyramid trifecta began on Interstate 10 by going west for 140 miles through Arizona’s Outback to Quartzsite, about 250 miles east of Los Angeles and 82 miles north of Yuma.

Quartzsite is dotted with RV parks catering to explorers and bikers strolling the streets and sidewalks of Quartzsite with dreams, wanderlust, and a thirst for adventure. The same characteristics brought Hi Jolly from Greece to Arizona in 1857.

Hadji Ali, as he was known in his native Syria, was recruited to train U.S. troops in camel riding and serve the newly established American Camel Corps (1856-1866).… read more...

The Black Box of America

First published in Oddball Magazine, November 20, 2024

No one missed that country
Men were soft, angry, and violent
Life was brutal and unforgiving
Pretentious and vacuous

Decisions and mutations were cut
in candle-lit back rooms, women were victims
They grabbed what they wanted
Fooled by the same illusion driving men, CONTROL

In apocalyptic bunkers
Dark physicians sang Odes to depression
Men were sheep and folded quickly
Not crying, but telling

Terrifying stories of bad things
Children were frightened and dogs were wild
No one cared about their neighbor
Everyone pretended at everything

The winner’s faces were tan, they lifted weights
Arenas were filled with men and women
Fighting women and men
Everything broke except the glass ceiling

Yuppies kept on building, kept sailing
Went on painting their ceilings
White, of course,
Ignorantly marched toward the future

They cheered the New Year
Hell, everyone cheered the New Year
And drove ATV’s and big boats
Rednecks toasted Monster Trucks as they mashed tiny Japanese cars

Christians decorated Christmas trees in suburban homes
To shots of Irish Crème or Asti
They drank while listening to strains of Bing Crosby’s
White Christmas on their stereo

They made yellow popcorn strings and dutifully attached them to the Green branches.
A ritual ‘round a tree,’ but nobody knew why
There were no ritual elders, there was no ritual wisdom
There was no embodiment of grace

After New Year’s celebrations and narcissistic resolutions
And the dark, wasted days of another empty year,
They awoke bored, helpless, angry at mothers and fathers
Sons and daughters, aunts and uncles, children and in-laws

The population chugged bourbon in the afternoon
And on vacation, they counted numbers in their bankbooks
Children were confused, scared, frozen
Occasionally they trusted a teacher

Once they trusted a priest, just once
But in time, their trust was betrayed
Their faces, tight and alarmed
They suffered daily with headaches and stomachaches

Kids starved for attention
But they got dollar bills
Parents screamed at them
Hurt and eating hot dogs

A 21st Century Recipe For Disaster:
Take a young man and put him in a high-powered car.… read more...

The Black Box of America, a poem by Gregory Ormson

This poem and image was originally published November 20, 2024 by Oddball Magazine. Editors calling it “a monster piece.”

The Black Box of America

Few people called a spade a spade
before the country went up in flames.
-Anon