Author Archives

Mike Yost (Photographer/Writer)

I have a passion for words and photography (and craft beer . . . and weed). Just trying to be creative and experience the creativity of others before I'm kicked off this lonely planet. Death may nullify my body and brain, but (hopefully) not my art. I've been capturing snapshots of time and writing out the thoughts of fictional characters in my head since I was a kid. Maybe even younger! Not sure. It's hard to remember that far back. (I blame the weed.) I had the opportunity to pen a novel for grad school. Five characters. One narrative. Existential dread! You can purchase my first book, Remnants of Light, on Amazon here: http://amzn.com/B00MZBT15C It's available in paperback if you want to be retro and ebook if you want to be modern. Personally I think there should be a stone tablet option.

Shadow Cast

wire-lines

A small corner of the sky peeks around concrete walls
While shadows dance along a vertical stage
Their silhouettes flung into existence by a neighboring star
Burning for billions of years
So that this moment

Here

This portrait for the eyes

Here

This experience for the mind

Here

Can be captured
And remembered
And perhaps forgotten

But the narrative abides
Beyond the dying of the day
Beyond the falling of the shadows
Beyond the here

Photograph and Prose copyright Mike Yost 2016
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Where Land and Sea Converge

scotland-land-and-sea

I stand on slippery stones
As a brisk breeze cuts across the cove
Seaweed peeking between my toes
Waves crashing against bare ankles

A stranded starfish abandoned in its wake

A salty zephyr forces open my lungs
And I breathe in
Slowly
For the first time
In years

The starfish struggles on slippery rocks

A dangling star warms my naked shoulders
And I breathe out
Slowly
For the first time
In years

I liberate my stranded friend
Now nestled neatly in my palm
Now an orphan of the vast ocean
When something pokes at the skin

I turn my friend onto its back
Very gently
A row of tiny legs curl and swell and vacillate
Like little white needles trying to thread the sky

And I smile at nature’s ingenuity
For the first time
In years

The sand feels cool and coarse against my feet
As I place my orphaned companion
Very gently
Far away from slippery stones

It quickly buries itself beneath the wet sand
Hiding from an indignant sun
Finding respite
Where land and sea converge

Photograph and Prose copyright Mike Yost 2016
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In Silent Reflection

lines-in-the-sand
Time runs like lines in the sand
Carving deep valleys into the earth
Where patterns emerge
As the symmetry of the universe surfaces
In silent reflection

This phenomena of consciousness is conceived
A being among billions of beings, yanked forward by time
The manifold soon to collapse with the swipe of fleshless fingers
The grains of sand rolling and tumbling and crashing into the unknown

Where future and past are ubiquitous
Waiting patiently for time to wake yet again
For the patterns to emerge yet again
For the symmetry of the universe to sing
Another preface to oblivion

Photograph and Prose copyright Mike Yost 2016
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