New Mexico Mercury

Weekly Poem: Fire or Water

A flock of crows
reflect the midnight moon.
A coyote howls
the starless horizon.

Quiet settles
the slow footsteps
of a sleepless man
as he strikes a match

lights a filterless cigarette
and pretends a herd
to keep watch over,
imagines a Winchester in his hands...

Bradley Manning

El Machete

When everything tastes like chicken (Part 2)

Last weekend, I was asked to judge for the Dukes of Ale’s State Fair Pro-Am Craft brew contest.  It was fun, engaging, involved a lot of talking, sniffing, and tasting of beer, lots and lots of beer.  As I was judging, I couldn’t help but think how slippery judging the aroma, appearance, flavor and mouthfeel of beer really is.

Judging beer or poetry and determining what is “good” and “bad” is very hard, if not impossible.  Yet, I think there is a criteria for it that a lot of us recognize, and that criteria is actually pretty simple.  The criteria that overwhelmingly is used to prescribe some sort of value on art is “craft”...

Weekly Poetry: A mudslide on the rocks

I held the glass suspended
between fingertips,
as firm a grip as any lover’s
thighs. My world churned
with the alcohol, as volatile
when exposed to air.

It was the first bar we passed
when we left the park.
“This must be where all the white
people go,” you said
as we canvassed the dim
in search of stools...

‘Sierra Challenge’—the impossible dream

After years of declining customers and service and increasing crime, Mexico finally ended rail passenger service a few years ago—with one exception. The tiny and impossibly scenic Chihuahua al Pacifico line still runs from the prosperous ranching state capital of Chihuahua to the Pacific Ocean, primarily because it is the greatest tourist attraction in the Copper Canyon region of the Sierra Nevada.

A new book, Sierra Challenge: The Construction of the Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad (Brranca Press, 206 pages), by the late Glenn Burgess and his son Don Burgess, tells the dramatic story of the construction of the railroad in words and photographs...

Friday Voyage: Uruguay

Margaret Randall takes us deep into South America to experience the resilient people and rich culture of this lesser known country.

Weekly Poem: If Only

Losing control
as one grows old
could be divine.

A hoarder’s ecstatic
Zen trick
into letting go.

Hades ransacked
Zeus stripped of bolts
& tossed from Olympus...

Provincial Matters, 8-19-2013

V.B. Price's weekly collection of appreciations and observations.

Two plays deep in the heart of New Mexico

Last weekend I saw two plays that have deep roots in New Mexico. Although they sharply contrasted with each other in most respects, they shared something of the humor and tragedy of life amid our luxuriant culture and arid land.

One of the plays was Revelations, a comedy performed by the Sandia Performing Arts Company at Vista Grande Community Center in Sandia Park. The other was Dreamlandia, an ambitious tragedy performed by Working Classroom in the Barelas neighborhood in Albuquerque...

Friday Voyage: Canyons of the Escalante

Following ancient footprints in the isolated wilderness of Utah.