Me - 1990

Channeling my inner sea captain phase I guess? All I can really tell you is that it was my first year after art school. I'd been working a variety of jobs and had recently begun full time at a set construction shop, which we created for television, movies, stage and trade-shows. I'd just bought my first Jeep and my girlfriend was overseas, teaching in Japan for the year. The personal theme song for the year was The Ramblin' Rover, Andy M. Stewart & Silly Wizard. Everything was an adventure!

"If you're bent wi' arth-i-ritis
Your bowels have got colitis
You've gallopin' with bollockitis
And you're thinkin' it's time you died
If you been a man of action
Though you're lying there in traction
You will get some satisfaction
Thinkin', "Jesus, at least I tried!"

"Steelhead" by John Pahlas

Bourbon steelhead

tempered steelheads migrating through the
shallows, their metallic scales lubricated
with penzoil two stroke motor oil.


moving over sand and rocks
some gray, some brown,
some smooth, some jagged and torn.


with alloys glistening in the summer heat
they brush up against the rivers stones to break
off the fishermens disappointment.


all those scarred gums whose fishhooked
lines caused thier lead bellies to rust.


in the muddy waters they stir,
drink to much whiskey and sink to the
river bars sandy bottom.


their rigid frames drifting through the sediment,
with heads lowered swaying
slowly like submariner zeppelins, trying to
navigate against the turbulent waters.


now these mechanical nomadic sailors keep for
themselves a tin compass in the sky filled with
memories of home.


but still they are mellow preachers
rolling and tumbling in their hardened
elements trying to find their way.

Poem by Nathan Martin