the ice blues

Some poetry written as winter slowly turned into spring this year. The images were captured quite accidentally. I was in the field shooting video for an unrelated project and spotted that mess of gulls just hanging out on the ice. I was just about to create a ruckus in order to make them move when loud footsteps broke the silence and took care of motivating the gulls for me. I turned and saw this old ice fisherman dragging his sled of equipment to his favorite spot. I continued to shoot and asked if he wouldn't mind being in a movie, thinking I might find a use for ice fisherman footage somewhere down the line. But on the drive home, I remembered these verses about winter and spring and realized I had a serendipitous match of words and images right then and the film was finished in a couple of days. It generally takes me much longer, even when fully prepared.

Spring brings lists of shit to do scum on the streets Irish whiskey and hardball March regret and birdsong hope rebirth brass among the buds and the smell of thawing rot For now it's the ice blues the strange blues the frying pan on the wall then thrown down the hall blues I come here to hide from wonky-wheeled shopping carts and murders I could hide at the McDonald's among the mustachioed geriatrics but the walls there are lined with the daily papers My escape checklist is checked: three favorite cassette tapes shortwave radio with tape deck three favorite books maps to the convenience stores an airplane to fly away and photographs Should I look at the photographs? Should I look at yesterday? Will I pine for those I left behind? Will I wonder what they're doing when I see their smiles and their misery, their hot-dog grins and Easter best? Will I see myself in old disguise and expired uniform? Will I turn around? Pitchers and catchers report in thirteen days and this is me: a coffee stain on your formica. a storyteller. a liar. a jackknife in your pocket. a thief. a survivor. an empty page tomorrow. a scoundrel. a fighter. rod and reel with empty creel and big boots to conceal the ice blues the strange blues the shovel and salt and it's all my fault blues

Freelance writer and filmmaker Joseph Johnston made his first movie at the age of 11, an industrial espionage thriller that continues to play to excited crowds in his parent’s living room every Christmas. His work has appeared in Rawboned, GTK Creative Journal, Old Northwest Review, and the Linden Avenue Literary Journal and his movie Fragments was the inaugural winner of the Iron Horse Literary Review's Video Literature contest. You can keep up with him at http://www.joe-johnston.com

For more work by Joe Johnston, visit his page at our Online Sundries site.