Rockford Haiku

Six years ago photographer Ryan Davis and poet Thomas L. Vaultonburg began a weekly urban hike always beginning in the exact same place in the virtual geographical center of Rockford and radiating out in a different direction each time.

This book is about what happens when a poet and a photographer take the same steps on the same streets in the same town so many times that all of the places and things that seemed so familiar in the beginning became new and mysterious... and magical. 

From iconic Rockford landmarks like the Faust, Midway, and Times Theatre, to long-forgotten ghost murals and infinite susprises discovered in places rarely accessed except on foot, Davis and Vaultonburg documented in photographs and haiku a version of Rockford few ever experience. We cordially invite you to come see these images and words from their upcoming book Hike You!

Hike You!: Five Years of Photographs and Haiku From the Heart of Rockford

A bike that had been submerged in the Rock River suddenly resurfaces outside the Rockford Register Star building. 

Resurfacing 

a little mud in my

gears won't make me forget my

heart is the motor

Two historic buildings in the heart of Downtown Rockford, the Faust Hotel and the Midway Theater,  take on a mystical quality when shrouded in a December fog.

The Faust In Fog

December fog like

A most graceful visitor

Refuses to stay

Behind the long closed Four Seasons on Broadway

summer, then Autumn

within one breath, stray cats

pass in the alley

On our weekly haiku hike over the past six years I have written dozens of haiku about the city I was born in. It has been a transformative time for me. 

Beattie Park

your souls raise the soil

of May Day like the breast of

Mother Earth herself

The Times

your modest marquee

the proud grin of a third child

missing their first tooth

Midway

lost somewhere between

now and then, a harsh reminder

the show always ends

I'm certainly not the same person who started this journey. I'm not even the same writer. It's not eveb the same world. But on our hikes through the alleys and through the overlooked and forgotten places I think both of us have learned that nothing is really ever forgotten. 

Come On My Body, Jesus. Photos By David J. Thompson

For My Sin

Two cops sat all night in the booth

next to the door of the crowded diner

we all went to after the bars closed

that last summer before college.

We walked straight and tall, past them

somehow, and I gave my friend

a little push in the back, whispered,

Move your ass, man, I’m starving.

Look, those people are getting up.

"Please Don't Go To Hell" photography by David J. Thompson

We slid into the booth by the window

without waiting for the table to be cleared.  

My friend said he had to pee like a racehorse,

told me  to get him a cheeseburger deluxe

and a Coke if the waitress came by. I sat there

looking around, hoping the one named Donna,

who sometimes sat on your lap when she took

your order,  was working our section, decided

to get the pancakes and a side of bacon.

"The Kingdom of Heaven Is At Hand" by David J. Thompson

I found myself staring at the plate in front of me –

a half-eaten order of French fries spotted with ketchup.

I thought for a few seconds, glanced around to check

if anyone was watching and I took one off the plate

and, still looking around, I stuck it quickly in my mouth,

chewed it slowly and gently like trying an exotic dish

for the first time. It was soft, thick and greasy, still

warm, and very delicious. When I swallowed I waited

to hear the voice of God, probably sounding a lot

like my mother, screaming at me for eating food

touched by some dirty stranger, braced myself

to become violently ill and vomit all over the table

for my sin. But nothing happened, nothing changed,

I saw only that the swirling world of the diner continued

uninterrupted, indifferent to my behavior, so, I ate

a fistful more, then slowly licked the salt off my fingers.

Come On My Body, Jesus by David J. Thompson

David J. Thompson Has Fallen Into a Sex Pit and He Can't Get Up

Every Place Except Bed

I need a place to crash for a few days,

he says as he shoves a 12-pack of High Life

into my hands and steps past me into my apartment.

Nice to see you, too, I tell him, as he throws

his suit jacket on the coffee table and sits down

in my favorite chair. I take out two beers,

walk the rest out to the fridge. I was having

a little thing with this new girl at work, he yells,

told Heather I had to work late on some quarterly reports.

Nothing serious, you know, just drinks and sex

a few times, but tonight I didn’t show up at her place  

like we planned, so the little cooz called the house

and when I get home Heather goes all apeshit

on my ass yelling, You’re not going to get away

with this about a million times loud enough

to wake up the whole fucking neighborhood

I got nowhere else to go. You don’t mind, do you?

No worries, I yelled back, shaking my head,

reaching past the Maker’s Mark for the Jim Beam

in the cabinet over the sink. You need some bourbon?

Sex Pit by David J. Thompson

There’s still a few minutes left in the game

when he starts snoring. I look over at him,

mouth wide open, sprawled on the recliner,

shake my head, wonder how long he’s going

to stay.  Not long before he got married

he told me one night in a bar he’d spent

the weekend fucking and doing cocaine

in New York with his old college girlfriend.

Heather’s great, he explained, everywhere

except in bed. She’s a real Catholic, so

she feels a little guilty about sex right now,

but that’ll get better after we’re married,

don’t you think? Of course, I said standing up

quickly and looking only at the tv over his shoulder.

I steadied myself with my hands on the table,

asked him if there was something he wanted

to hear on the jukebox.

Souls In Hell From Sex by photographer David J. Thompson

I get a pillow and a blanket off my bed, chuck them

on the couch, figure he’ll wake up some time to pee,

and make himself at home. I turn out the lights,

brush my teeth, get into bed, start thinking about

how I’m going to feel at work in the morning.

I roll over on my back and say, Oh, shit, out loud.

I can’t help but think about the rehearsal dinner

and the little toast I made.  I don’t remember it exactly,

something about how great they were together,

how happy they’d always be, a little lie I always thought

I’d get away with until now.

When In Scenic El Paso Pancho Villa Makes Sure To Stay At the Beautiful Motel 6: Story and Photos By William C Crawford

My Late Night Rhapsody: Catching Up with Pancho Villa at the Motel 6

By William C. Crawford

Jimmy Pro delivered; he always does. He promised clean, cheap lodging. But no gurantees of peaceful, uninterrupted sleep. We could save some big bucks booking by the week, the length of our West Texas photo shoot. Hard by the interstate, nestled in by the sprawling railroad yard, the El Paso Motel 6 was legendary in Jimmy Pro’s mind. And this was with good reason.

Urban skyline. Cheap, centrally located lodging. All night train traffic from adjacent sprawling rail yard. Rumbling, clanging  trains were part of the late night rhapsody. Golden hour sunshine that soon gave way to a howling West Texas wind. But on this Saturday, we just sucked on Tecates in our shirt sleeves.

He stayed here in relative solitude countless times. This dated, gritty sanctuary helped to launch his plodding photographic forays along the nearby Border and beyond. He swilled plenty of early hours coffee carried upstairs to his habitual third floor haunt.

He stayed here on holidays so slow that his rental car was the only vehicle in a deserted parking lot. Jimmy relished the empty motel when it came to pass. He never really got lonely,  and after all, there was the teenaged Latina desk clerk who was always good for an impromptu rap.

My jet lag left me and I lit up with excitement. I toted my ponderous photographer’s bags up to my third floor room via the worn, outside concrete staircase. I slid my key in the door which swung open to reveal a spartan, plastic appointed room which looked like it had been frozen there in 1974.

Room 309 as I swung the door open. Stephen Shore might have shot this in 1974. Would the obligatory Gideon Bible yield an inscription from the the trailblazing photog?

The acclaimed pioneer, minimalist photographer, Stephen Shore, could easily have shot a classic, color pic here. The caption might well have read “Racine, Wisconsin, 1974” instead of “El Paso, 2015.” I half expected to find a Gideon Bible with “S. Shore” inscribed inside the cover squirelled away in the ancient night stand.

I hurriedly pulled out my Nikon wide angle and grabbed three quick perspectives leaving my bulging luggage outside and out of my shots. I was checking into a funky museum outfitted with a sleeping bed!

We shot hundreds of images around El Paso barrios plying the expansive Border underbelly for the funk which we revered. The forensics here were highly favorable. The tricky January weather alternated between the Sun Bowl and the howling winter wind of West Texas.

As the weekend arrived the Motel 6 filled with shoppers and revelers of various persuasions. We turned in early after long days of desert shooting. Well after midnight, the unmistakable clicking sound of high spiked heels echoed off the concrete veranda outside my door.

No Ladies Of The Night in this late afternoon shot of the infamous veranda.

A wry smile creased my sleepy face. Lady of the Night, I reckoned! Nobody else up at 4:00 a.m. on Saturday. The sharp click, click, click stopped just beyond my door at the next room.

Sleep for the next few hours came hard. The dude next door was putting the Lady of the Night through her paces! He alternated between loud groans of ecstasy and shrill squeals of agony. The Lady was, however, stone silent. All the audio was wildly masculine.

Along about daybreak as I finally dozed off, I heard the sharp spiked heel strikes of the departing sex worker. Click! Click! Click! I mused that a good time was had by all next door, but over here in 309, Crawddaddy had lost plenty of sleep to the boisterous frivolity.

Later in the trip we foraged in Columbus, NM. This drug ravaged burg hard on the Border was once the home of the real revolutionary & bandito, Pancho Villa. Note signage.

After a few more minutes of fretful dozing, I struggled down to the far removed office to grab some free java. I immediately encountered the bleary eyed Latina desk clerk who was also just waking up. As she fiddled with her ever present smart phone, I posed a not so subtle question. “Who is that guy up in 310?”

I caught her off guard for just a moment and only half awake. She stumbled straight to her computer terminal and tapped in a query. “Pancho Villa,” she mumbled sleepily, unaware of the uncanny absurdity of the terse response.

I turned quickly away juggling my two cups of steaming coffee not so carefully balanced. I wanted to come back with an equally inane, historically related retort like: “Yeah! I just saw Davy Crockett up in 319!” But I settled for muffled laughter as I controlled both my unsteady coffee and my disbelieving reaction.

The next night served up a reprise of romantic gusto in Room 310. I noted that more frequent, intermittent clicks of dangerously high heels seemed to signal the goings and comings of three separate Ladies of the Night. A near traffic jam was building just outside of my door!

The previous night’s script otherwise unfolded remarkably the same. My sleep went by the bedside as I again enjoyed the edgy dialogue of masculine groans and squeals. Three rotating Ladies of the Night offered up no discernible audio. Maybe Pancho Villa was gagging his lovers, revolutionary style? You know-a bandito thing for the flashy dressed hombre!

Later, as I swilled my early morning coffee in Jimmy Pro’s room a few doors away, the subject of Click! Click! Click! happened to come up in a casual conversation about onomanpoeia. Jimmy had heard and immediately identified the origin of the passing nocturnal cadence. Moreover, his room was too far removed for him to savor the enthusiastic sounds which I enjoyed.

I relived my previous inane dawn exchange with the senorita at the desk. Jimmy remained stoically nonplussed by the senor’s creative choice of a nom de plume.

However, when I posed the nagging questioned as to why I only had heard male audio from the busy room next to mine, he responded with laser like clarity. He regarded me with keen intensity. Then he answered firmly with his thick Maine brogue still present after decades Down Under. “Well Crawdaddy, it might just be that Pancho is doing all the hard work in there.”

The simplicity of his brief reply was unnerving. Hell, I should have figured that out on my own! Jimmy Pro had delivered again; he always does.

Pancho checked out at Sunday noon replete in resplendent vacquero’s garb! My late night sleep soon settled back to normal. And Jimmy Pro didn’t have to answer any more of my dumb ass questions.

When I checked out a few days later, I noted wryly to the shy senorita on duty that it was great to have seen Simon Bolivar outside at the vending machines. She looked away and cooed some soft Spanish that was above my pay grade.

She regarded me further with polite but obvious disdain. Then she retorted, “That was General Santa Anna out at the vending machines. He is a chocolate freak.” Loosely interpreted I think  she meant something like: “gringo imperfecto!”

Plenty of spectacular views like this from vantage points around the 6! Oz Travel, Jimmy Pro's mythical booking agency, ensconced us here for $35 a night! Weekends were a bit more, probably to cover the late night entertainment. I paid extra for high speed internet. A photo I mailed out the first night was still uploading a week later when I checked out. And I ain't bullshitting!

William C. Crawford is a writer and photographer from North Carolina. He longs to become a spokesman for Motel 6.

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Forensic Foraging With William C. Crawford

Forensic foraging emphasizes the trite, trivial, & mundane. The genre downplays extensive computer intervention. It was developed by me and Sydney lensman, Jim  Provencher. Basic photography skills such as composition and framing are important. The technique also flourishes because of high color saturation & contrast. Everything we encounter is shot and then selectively presented. As Jim likes to say: " You have to get out and shoot a lot to succeed with this approach."

The genre flowed from the early work of Stephen Shore, especially his Amarillo postcards. The DNA of Robert Frank & Walker Evans is also evident. This early morning image of a Vegas parking garage begins as trite & trivial, but the approach outlined above elevates it to a decent  shot. You might say that we can turn shit into sugar, so to speak. Carefully notice the composition, golden light, color, texture, and never overlook the funk.

Young Dave’s Lament—The True Untold Story of the Rusty Panamint Can

Jimmy Pro held the Jetta at steady 80,
speeding hard West.
Golden Hour Light beckoned as we hoped to
avoid arrest.

We raced to photograph a majestic mountain
Lady, but our full lizards prompted an early stop. 
The High Sierras went on hold as we happily
squeezed out every last drop.

Jimmy saw it cocked sideways, half covered
by scrub mesquite.
We set it dead  upright; the morning
sun lit it just neat.

I called out to Young Dave that this rust 
Bucket might hold a million colorful stories…but
He blew me off in an instant, saying
“Hell yeah!”—his words were just noise.

But that pinged, rusty can was really a big treasure,
not just junk as Young Dave imagined.
For the grizzled old miner who once 
toted it was bonafide desert legend!

Death Valley Sam started hauling borax
in ’99 with 20 leather tough mules who conquered the heat.
But when he found his first yellow eyeball
sized nugget, he realized gold was neat.

Rhyolite was home, a burgeoning ville
which featured a stock exchange and indoor tennis court.
Sam prospered big time by prospecting
hard on the desert floor as he pushed due North.

Kerosene was a staple, it provided light 
and heat.
His five gallon can was a fixture strapped
tightly to his truck, nothing more than a heap.

The gold ran slim by ‘09 and after. 
Hauling borax now failed to satiate Sam
who could no longer find what he was really
after.

His truck was found deserted outside
a seedy Rhyolite saloon.
The body was another mile out, dead stiff 
under the pale desert moon.

How Sam’s rusty can came to be out in
the Panamint, we can never really know.
But it was crammed full of stories
from that exciting gold rush so very long ago.

I unscrew the rusty cap and listen
against the desert wind.
Sam’s strong, gravelly voice is 
heard at last again.

Young Dave coughed up a hearty laugh
as I cupped my ear to the can.
He shouted out an inane obscenity and off
To the car he ran.

Sam’s voice held steady as gold 
rush tales poured out.
Enough to fill my writer’s notebook,
and I didn’t even need a spout!

I turned in Sam’s gripping words to
fancy lit magazines scattered ‘round.
Dave’s cynical smirk later changed
a bit when my fat author’s check rolled in bound.

Now every time I drain my lizard in my 
old shaking hand,
I picture Young Dave foolishly mocking Sam’s battered 
can, amid the desert sand.

Panamint Highway heading west to the High Sierras