These poems are from a series inspired by reading Atlas Obscura stories while listening to a music genre randomly selected from my list. The poems were written immediately after reading, still while listening to the randomly chosen music. Please share and/ or click the “clap” button at the bottom if you enjoyed this.

The True Glory of Woodstock Is That They Managed to Clean Up So Well
Motown

we bury, we bury
a spark of beauty
an organism
a voice cast out

of a helicopter
a smeared voice
banned from halcyon

we bury fire pits,
tire swings, the innocence
of drugs

we look to the strata
for friendship bracelets,
statues of venus and the buddha,
a braid of sweetgrass

we unearth we were all of us tired
and the ghost-sleep of strangers
on farmland and screaming guitars

and talking about x during hanoi
and hotel balconies and astronauts
in quarantine and sharon tate

god, we were young then
we were tired from all the burying
now we are tired
from all the unearthing

You can find me at http://www.erinlyndalmartin.com or on Twitter at @erinlyndal.