the burden for the hunter
is to carry his gun, his sack and his bible.
to sling them like a soldier across
his back leaving his arms free to thrash the
brush down in front of him,
free to raise his gun to aim and to fire.
free to strike the readers of books
the haters of hearts, the levelers of jesus.
free to point his weapons at the roadsigns, deer,
deserted cabin, beer bottle targets and to
wrap it all up in neat little ****** bundles
that comforts the eager hunter like a fire
on a windy night.
it’s hard to imagine sitting for hours before a flame
and not feel like the hunter of men and
souls, books and hearts and beasts long
tortured.
i can’t imagine the thrill
of sighting down iron sights,
of first blood on new snow like printed pages
curling from the flame, turning from
snow white to ugly, temporary brown to the
black of ash in the hunter’s fire.
i can’t imagine those ashes flying in
a breeze as anything but cold and spent.
it came to be that fire met wind and
from the consummation hot ash traveled from
tree to tree, fence row to fence row, building
to building, hater to lover like pages
from the hunters own story.
my arms are free, said the hunter. my head is clear.
my back is strong. my hands are black from
the soot of the fire.
May 20
May 20, 2026 at 6:15 AM UTC
once i was wounded in love walking.
a stone begging for life.
once when i was filthy by the river,
and lived in a small room
where my children seldom slept well
or played long,
i remembered your touch as veil.
the motion as forgiving.
i remembered shallow lifting wind
that blew until breathing
was as difficult as the scraping of bone.
i remembered singing prayers,
faithless days of labor.
i remembered you.
we talked often as we walked
dressed in words behind boundaries.
i never sought your blood nor change.
i watched you at the moment of sleep,
give breath away,
push away uncertain bed clothes,
lie naked,
humid, alone.
i wanted to be the sun for you.
i wanted to save grace with you.
i wanted to know the small shine
of your lips.
but you lied to me.
and then i lied to you.
you parsed the space between your thoughts
as if it spoke things only you could hear.
i selected sand and ignored vegetable truth.
you needed my hands,
i needed you in corners opposite me.
you wanted to show me
small mounds of dirt swept
ready to be panned to waste.
you wanted my bond,
resting like the arch of a foot
asleep as long as blood flowed,
we lied about where we’d been,
and hid in the squalor of heat and aroma.
i needed to tell you of your arms,
i needed to tell you how beautiful is
the rolling sweat on your body.
i needed to show you vast fields of peace
hidden pockets of shame.
i needed to have you will to me
an unknown silence,
and forgive each other
our walking barefoot through empty streets.
May 14
May 14, 2026 at 4:41 AM UTC
play upon golden strings,
lift your words up high until they ring
like a bell
in our ears.
talk with me of our youth,
days of innocence that cut us loose
so we could play
like fools.
we knelt upon those sandy shores
putting my hand in yours
so we could pray,
pray like fools.
i said child we made a mess
but you are my mess.
and i confess
i wouldn't change a ****** thing.
so let's raise our voices and sing,
sing like fools.
a song of a setting sun
half a lovely as the day just done
we'll search for the words
to ring in voices
bright, clear
and foolish.
Apr 27
Apr 27, 2026 at 4:26 AM UTC
the island lies to the side of the main channel
fifty feet from the western bank.
prairie grasses still live there,
never been lost to the plow.
the island is where deer come after they have been wounded,
running through the brush,
broken arrows hanging from their flanks.
in the mud are raccoon tracks frozen for a time,
until the river rises in the spring and wipes the mud smooth.
the **** will stay on the island away from the dogs
and bright lights shined at him into the night trees.
geese stop by here in the late fall.
they rest in the shallow gravely waters, near where walleye
will spawn in the spring.
they don’t stay long.
and when they leave their wings beat the water,
the reflected spray causing prisms to form in my lens.
others have come to the island.
they came to take fish and deer and quail, and
scattered across the island are fire scars, mildewed blankets,
styrofoam bait cups,
spent shotgun shells,
beer cans.
all the things that people bring to use and when they go,
leave them in the tall grasses,
unseen until you look deeper.
Apr 25
Apr 25, 2026 at 1:17 AM UTC
far from this land
above us everyday
solemn and yearning life
explodes.
where light is thick
and nothing
can be said
because words fail
to break the bonds.
where worlds are born
and bounced about,
small sighing children
on god’s knee.
each world
dust in the schoolhouse,
awakes in its turn
and scratches breath
from rock.
continents march
mountains are amazed
moistures collect
and spawn
and each vapor cloud,
each swell and roll,
each fiery crack
moves it
closer,
until a cooling wind
calls from the depths,
life.
far from this land
above us everyday
small legs
gather strength and
curiosity.
pursue and flee.
fingers work
to chisel stone
hope and tools.
form unknown prayers
to circle studded skies.
find voices
deep and warm and god like.
proclaim destiny,
proclaim truth,
father science,
mystify, study,
dance and survive.
gifts of fire
grace the spring feast.
tables spread to celebrate
the return of clear water
and flowing hearts.
conception,
death,
hunted animals
joined for a time
to the soil.
communion and *****
grow
and build walls
invent lock, key,
write, know and forget.
old ones in robes
stare through thick glass
to their heaven
and gently swim
in deep streams
of knowing.
trailing wakes
of mystery to ponder,
to explain,
then forever be lost,
the workings of a
great machine
small and helpless
in thick light.
far from this land
above us everyday
solemn and yearning life
explodes.
from the corner
of your eye.
Apr 23
Apr 23, 2026 at 5:49 AM UTC
the temple is empty,
no one remains in prayer.
eyes turn in curious search.
eyes wander by glancing at its fatal form
the ****** ball,
the cast of a
sleeping gray woman.
she is weary,
no one uses her proper name.
yet every piece of script and paper,
every decree, report, and plan
describes in detail a perfect union.
describes in language small and pretty,
what is the mire of the woman’s history,
what is found in the movement of her eye.
above the walls that surround her,
the flesh in her beautiful voice rises,
we’ve heard the wailing.
we’ve torn at days like plain white bread,
swept the frost from her wealthy sidewalks,
and slept beneath her
fragrant ***
Apr 21
Apr 21, 2026 at 4:16 AM UTC
small cool clearings
a world round as a bowl,
in language unformed
you are all i need.
warm blue skied tree
moments before the storm,
loud as the wind and worried,
go from me i’ll fend for myself.
herds of rutting beasts
hot to the blood and touch,
in hissing ****** urgency
reveal to me the moment.
waves upon endless shores
newly wedded through prayer
under hopeful breath.
let us now raise the corners
miles of forest
a middle aged task.
sweating he pants,
sign to me the deed.
flocks of birds
old man’s dying dreams,
singing he says,
i show you my country.
though frayed and worn
as they have become,
the works of creation
and songs of nature
shall never be undone.
the steward sleeps,
thieves gain entrance,
grand valleys whither
and we travel
through a barren
and lonely home.
Apr 18
Apr 18, 2026 at 3:16 AM UTC
open as a sore on the face of the lower side of this city
the boy runs loose
and the girl runs fast to the house of her
mama's friend.
'don't gotta'
'and i don't care'
wave like banners above their heads,
hang like factory soot in the dank day.
the boy got chewed pretty good
in the back yard of an
old italian woman with a big mean dog
to keep the kids from botherin' her.
some stitches at the emergency room
grandma took him…..
the girl's oldest sister got pregnant
and had a pretty baby
that she dressed in red and left at grandma's
and went to drink a few beers and maybe
see the baby's papa.
and the girl three down got busted because her baby died.
dead in the emergency room, ten minutes old,
high and dead. just like that.
and the doctors reported her and she got busted.
she got a little brother who goes to the same school she
used to.
he don't read so good and he don't give a ****
and he told that to the teachers.
he thinks they don't give a ****
and he don't remember a time in his eight years when he hasn't felt beat-up.
by big kids and mama's boy friends
by teachers and principals,
by books and language,
by looking at the garbage around him
and looking at the good things of television.
people have died for so much less.
and i look at him and i smell his attitude
like ***** on an unclean body.
stings my nose, tears my eyes
and a talk i heard with a black man about genocide
and conspiracy and gene pools
and what sounded wrong now makes sad sense and
it smells like ***** on an unclean body.
Apr 16
Apr 16, 2026 at 4:33 AM UTC
we walk in a small area of naked anger.
we are hard assed against a wall looking towards passerbys as
one more element to deal with.
obstacle to overcome.
target to hit on.
we talk with quick cuts
and gravel syllables.
we intend to remain here, cats under a stairwell.
there are ghost hovering near here.
mean faced immigrant spirits.
we try to shout them down but
in silence they shiver us cold.
they live in the cracks of the sidewalk.
maybe they are the reason that we look constantly behind us.
we protect our backs and display our fronts.
ugly as this place is, we will not
give it up like prowling helpless dogs,
snapping and crazy with biting and itching.
we chase the *******
and make this place smell like us.
we love and will remember the shredded
newspapers and fight over
the cans and the cracks and the *******
until
rising from the seams of the street
come the images of austere immigrants
and we stop our baying, the hair on our necks
standing on end.
we can’t grow old and talk to ourselves
alone and crooked.
we won’t stand by while
age and grey streak our hair and we
hit on younger and younger women.
holes and blemishes creep over our smooth skin like
rust on our wheels.
we will never leave this street and settle
on other frozen alleys.
and combing our hair in the chrome
of a parked car we look and see
and each of us becomes alone.
i have slept old man as you have slept.
and i dreamed of your hot breath on my neck
as we locked ourselves in sweaty struggle.
and we fought
because we wanted the same sleep and same dreams.
and the wet streets played the tunes of cold
until it shook me hard out of sleep
hard ’til i couldn’t control my body and i awoke
at your feet in this parking lot, looking up at you old man.
asking only to sleep again.
Apr 14
Apr 14, 2026 at 5:15 AM UTC
power line tower crab like stands
above grain filled ruler flat land.
small room, old paint
silo shaped shadows
falling across us as we sleep,
the storm came.
there was steady rhythm in the wind
tall stalks laid back, beaten by fists hard as hail.
it was every night tractor deep rumble
to glean what we might
from this damaged field.
steady hand steers the machine
straightens the furrow
and pulls from the ground wet slimy roots
that entangle the blades of the plow.
dried and encrusted as we slept to be
washed away in a gentle morning rain.
wipe my face, turn the key, the engines trembles alive.
i remove the tarp and place my hands where
they will do the most good.
the earth slightly shakes and then yields.
the blade enters.
rolls of rich loam curl back and another row is created.
old structure, barn of history
pulled to ground by men with ropes and tractors.
i stood and photographed the old forced to earth.
quonset new, oily metal smelling factory fresh,
the machines parked within washed,
an invitation to ride and work.
fertilize, nurture, hope and curse.
that might, from the field,
spring flesh new as that sterile shed.
harvest then, cut and moan,
leaves the field stubbled.
leaves the field scratched like you belly
from my day growth chin.
we begin to count and measure and divide,
which is yours, which is mine
which for market, profit, pain.
a pauper, i stare across the field to each severed stalk
to find bits shaken loose and free
lost to the machine
to glean what i might
from this damaged field.
Apr 11
Apr 11, 2026 at 2:49 AM UTC