Crows On A Rainy Morning**

It’s a rainy morning
since you’ve been gone,
the grey consumes and I just moan.
Crows visit and circle my home
with their mocking caw, caw
cawing me, calling me,
while pecking my eyes, reminding me I’m alone.
They gather on the Juniper,
on my clothes line tearing the shirts of mine
you always wore,
offering me dropped black feathers
to build a dream catcher
so I can relive all the nightmares
of losing you.

Mornings use to be alive with the scent of you,
singing our old songs as you dressed for the day
while I made us coffee, strong,
rich and dark, the way you liked it
and we would sit under the oak
down by the stream.
But first, always first
we faced in all directions one by one
giving thanks to the rising sun,
to Grandmother for another day,
to Grandfather’s balance.
On most days we listened to the river
singing songs to the trees,
hear strange tales of deer playing tag with
wildflowers and dandelion.
Sometimes the old back bear would come by
showing her cubs how to fish.
I will remember these days,
hold them to my heart.
They were days made by you,
by your touch on my face
as you leaned into me,
by your sandalwood scent.

Now, years later, it is a cold,
rainy morning as the grey consumes me
to its moan.

Aztec Warrior/redzone  9.28.16

The Notebook

A small leaf fell from the notebook. It was Autumn colored transparency, gentle to the touch, not dried and brittle, but still seemed alive with vibrancy. Its shape was unusual to me and I discovered the tree it came from died out thousands of years ago.

The notebook, old leather bound, seemed just as old. A bit larger than my hand, you could feel wear of millennia in the symbols etched and raised on the back and spine. On the cover, a leafless, ancient and gnarly tree. It’s trunk at least 10 men, arms stretched around, with fat, ugly limbs touching the sky. It felt alive, breathing as my fingers brushed across the tree and symbols below it. An exciting warmth flowed in my mind and without really thinking, I picked up my pen and wrote my name atop the first page.

It made me smile, cause as I wrote “REDZONE”, the letters turned into ancient, ornate symbols and the space around me shifted, almost a dimensional phase in astral synchronicity but a dream walk reality. The paper, handmade papayra, drank in the ink coloring it with the passion of Time, licorice and figments of imagination.

Under my name, more symbols appeared smelling of musk, jasmine and blue nile; the words: “POET, WRITER, SINGER OF IMAGES AND PAINTER OF WORDS.” In smaller word symbols: “Keeper of our Stories and Origins”.

As I began to understand the notebook’s meaning, a single leaf materialized on the ancient tree. And a second small leaf of Autumn’s design formed as I wrote:
                                 Small leaves unfolding
                            In Autumn’s hue, written in
                                Sun rise morning dew.
                                               ^^^
                                 Leaves painted by words
                            Will cover this ancient tree
                                 With life origins.

Aztec Warrior/redzone 9.26.16

you will go your way
despite my protests
no use lamenting
what was never promised
the sun rides low the horizon
soon it will not clear the treetops
storms gather in the northern sea
needled wind to scattered seed
hoary frost on yellowed grass
dark leaves in mirrored puddles
a suspended death
crystalline and indeterminate
there is no fire hot enough
to stave off the first chill
of a careless winter
the numb hibernating sleep
soft gray melting days
the desperate wish
to regain summer

All strung
out
       on
sadness,
empty shells
of needles
      that injected
the next defense
      to keep me going
splayed upon
the coldness
            of metal
somewhere in a place
lower than
the floorboards
of the nether regions
of a private hell,
where no one sees
      the truth behind
the doors of
           beaten swords
of silken pictures
in frothy shades
of effervescent green
a smiling happy family
in which the
sounds of drowning
can only be
             vaguely heard
a faded gurgle
       in an ocean of sighs

Somewhere, there,
the pain in my veins
spreads like
a self-administered
                       drug
only it's not
my prescription, at all
just a parody
from the very
    sick doctor
who shares
          this house,
meant to
be a home
one who thinks
he knows it all
but knows nothing

In this dreamlike weaving
of staring blankly
into alternative spaces
when all is so heavy
that even breathing is a task
I suddenly remember
   who the **** I am
and push my gaze through
the ceiling cracks
to look up at
         the stars,
receiving their
            shadows
           of light
      like a blessing
   upon my
   nettle-stung
    tongue
and
       rise

Should a primitive tribe be civilized?
Are we civilized or savage?

Leave them the aborigines to their home
in peace
their abode in the depth of forest.

But where's their abode?
we cut the jungle and made road
where would their babies be born?
in the smoke of engines blaring of horns
so hard for them to birth
on the dwindling patch of their earth
our Paleolithic ancestors' living fossils
who with iron will
fought bullets with bows and arrows
now falling by the bullies of progress
begging for last living space.

Leave them the way they lived so long
unspoiled with their own education and culture
let them retain their own way of life
and not make them civilized the way we are.