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CH Gorrie Jun 2013
There were six horses,
Abaco Barbs - black, white, tan -
enclosed in my Olympus's lense.

The camera reached through deadwind
that whipped the Huey's window,
painted a staggered line where the herd had been.

It was fall 1977,
Abaco's Independence Movement had ended;
Oliver and WerBell were gone,

having run off like photographed horses -
distant, almost ignorant of me (at some point,
they must've assumed there were wildlife

photographers inside Abaco). It was fall
1977:
the ornamental Allamanda still rustled in deadwind;

the starfruit still ripened and fell. It was fall
1977 and that country
was nearly the same as it'd always been.
"The Abaco Barb is an endangered strain of the Spanish Barb horse breed found on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas. The Abaco Barb is said to be descended from horses that were shipwrecked on the island during the Spanish colonization of the Americas and the Caribbean. The population of wild Abaco Barbs that run free on Great Abaco once numbered over 200 horses. The Abaco Barb is found in different colors than the European/African Barb, including pinto (including the relatively uncommon splashed white), roan, chestnut, black and other colors. They range between 1.32 to 1.47 m (13.0 to 14.2 h)."

"The Abaco Islands lie in the northern Bahamas and comprise the main islands of Great Abaco and Little Abaco, together with the smaller Wood Cay, Elbow Cay, Lubbers Quarters Cay, Green Turtle Cay, Great Guana Cay, Castaway Cay, Man-o-War Cay, Stranger's Cay, Umbrella Cay, Walker's Cay, Little Grand Cay, and Moore's Island. Administratively, the Abaco Islands constitute five of the 31 Districts of the Bahamas: North Abaco, Central Abaco, South Abaco, Moore's Island, and Hope Town. Towns in the islands include Marsh Harbour, Hope Town, Treasure Cay, Coopers Town, and Cornishtown."

"In August 1973, shortly after the Bahamas became independent, the Abaco Independence Movement was formed as a political party whose stated aim was self-determination for the Abaco Islands within a federal Bahamas. In October 1973, AIM published a newsletter to launch it's campagn for 'self-determination through legal and peaceful political action'. AIM proposed that all Crown land on Abaco would be placed in a land trust. Each citizen would receive a one acre home lot from the trust plus shares giving them an income from land sales and leases. The land trust would enter into a joint venture to develop a 60 sq mile free trade zone. When AIM was formed by Chuck Hall and Bert Williams, they contacted an American financier named Michael Oliver, who through his libertarian Phoenix Foundation agreed to support AIM financially. The Phoenix Foundation had previously sought to establish a libertarian enclave in the South Pacific, the Republic of Minerva. AIM's first convention, held on February 23 1974, was addressed by John Hospers, the Libertarian Party's 1972 US presidential candidate. Hospers was later refused entry to the Bahamas. The maverick British MP Colin Campbell Mitchell also visited Abaco to offer support."

"Michael Oliver (born 1930) is a Lithuanian immigrant of Jewish descent, Las Vegas real estate millionaire, and political activist. He was the founder of the micronation project the Republic of Minerva, a failed attempt to create a sovereign state in the South Pacific in 1972. In the following decades, Oliver and his Phoenix Foundation were also involved in similar projects on the Bahamian island of Abaco and in Vanuatu with the New Hebrides Autonomy Movement (MANH) which was done by financing an insurrection. He also published a manifesto of his libertarian beliefs. Oliver is prohibited to enter in Vanuatu and his nation-building projects seem to be on hiatus."

"Mitchell Livingston WerBell III, (1918–1983), was an OSS operative, soldier of fortune, paramilitary trainer, firearms engineer, and arms dealer.In 1972 WerBell was approached by the Abaco Independence Movement (AIM) from the Abaco Islands, a region of the Bahamas, who were worried about the direction the Bahamas were taking and were considering other options, such as independence or remaining a separate Commonwealth nation under the Crown in case of the Bahamas gaining independence (which they did in 1973). AIM was funded by the Phoenix Foundation, a group which aims to help build truly free micronations. The AIM collapsed into internal bickering before a coup by Werbell could be carried out."

^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barb_horse
^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abacos
^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abaco_Independence_Movement
^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Oliver_(real_estate)
^http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_WerBell
CH Gorrie Jun 2013
"If the key should bend
backwards from the hole
the room was never yours."
CH Gorrie Jun 2013
Sometimes marriage is like a molten sword
in that both personages continue
being slam-hammered by hammering toward
some vague perfection vaguer hopes pursue.
CH Gorrie Jun 2013
Beyond the ridge of my window sill
stands a young lemon tree, still
unbroken by the wind. Above fly
sparrows, gophers run below. By
the tree's trunk are ripe, fallen fruit.
The wind slows down, all is mute.

*The more I study the sunflower,
or the lily, or the rose,
the more fully I see their station:
subtle expressions of nature's power:
the unending repose
opposing human consternation.
CH Gorrie Jun 2013
"Don't be frightened if I cry
and my shoulders shudder," she
breathes. The lavender of the sky
droops above a dim-winter's sea,
and just as the words are out
I graze her cheek like a blade of grass
drops its dew. "I'd be a true lout --",
her fingers of orange topaz --
gleamed in moonlight -- stop my lips short.
"Don't." Teardrops roll slowly down
in a display apt for an old court
show; such a sadness in her tone.
CH Gorrie Jun 2013
Walking in the procession, I see roses
fall from a mezzanine ---
had their purchasée been slighted?

Rough tumble with the wife perhaps?
     Girlfriend who's seen her "prince" deknighted?
          A child's impulsive toss?


Women in the procession
reach out, ***** the breeze.

Some rose is trampled.

Between rush of feet,
I see them thornless, likely perennial ---
a hue that reminds one of injury.
CH Gorrie Jun 2013
The birch canoe slid on the loose planks.
     Bending lower legs are crookshanks.

Glue the sheets to the dark blue background.
     Cruickshanks gave me the run around.

It’s easy to tell the depth of a well.
     Easier than that to fathom hell.

The postdiluvian era began in Kish.
     These days a chicken leg is a rare dish.
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