Luck is my legend
it leads me down the pathways of fate
it plays havoc with my prospects
and cements a place in time
for every breath of wind
that might shorten my breath.

May luck prevail.

There is tragedy in his eyes
his soul lays barren there
one of three in our family
a not so wild pack of hounds
loud and obstreperous.
He will live until he dies.

As will I.

The beauty of the barrens
the sky a blanket of grief
and no man knows the end of it

until the end.

Seven times seven ills
arrive at our door
the streets are silent
Nothing moves

How do  we merit
these days?
Did we earn so little
for our travails?

I blame God
since it is said
that he is almighty.
He could lift this plague
but does not.

So logic -
that machinery of madness -
tells me
this plague is sent by God
for reasons
mysterious.

Who were you?
A foreigner
a mere woman?

Perhaps I valued you
beyond the common measure

I think of the possibility
of lives we have lived
in some past time
some other world

I guess I am a Buddhist
after all.

Because
this fascination
this love
goes beyond my experience

What can I compare it to?

I believe in the potency of desire
that it can manifest itself
across a span of years

a span of lifetimes

I can imagine
that we were
then as now
different in appearance
from cultures widely separated

Let's say that I wanted you
that you wanted me
for so it is today

Let's say that circumstances
kept us apart
or prevented us from meeting
as equals

Let us say, finally,
that this world
in which anything seems to be permitted
was created for us
that we might meet again.

What an absurd
romantic notion!

Tonight the lights are all on.
Other beings surround me.
This world is a different world
for each one of them,
though strangely the same.

Surely this world is ours.
The lights
are brightly lit.

Thousands of insects
cover the glass
dazzled by this light.

We must be dazzled, as well.
For none of us can see.

Not a one of us
can touch the heart
of another.

So since all is permitted
let us permit ourselves this

that we can touch one another
each into each.

In this life
we are sculpted down
to bone
burned to cinders
and our ash
tossed without regret
into the four winds

I wish I could live.
Be a man.
Find comfort in the sun.

But every cell in my body
revolts against time
cries out against the sun
speaks in tongues
for the sole purpose
of creating an outrage
against God.

Oh Lord!
How did you make us thus?
And why?
Above all
why?

We are made metal
and in the end
alloy with the sun.

Our breath is drawn
to fuel that fire
bring life to a boil
and
if luck prevails
to wake each morning
in comfort
and with a smile.

Perhaps the last sweet smile.

One day bleeds
into the next

Leaves wounds
that won’t heal
measures our moments
into finite statements
that knit the hours
into a tapestry of tedium

Where is the joy
I was promised?
Where
the lively waltz?

I grieve before every hour
and bend before fate’s great weight
tremble incessantly
and starve in the midst of plenty

Yet I hold my head up
march on
determined to reach that far shore
where fate will take us
and luck will leave us.

I’m up early
as always
swimming in the currents of
a sweet morning
in summer
in Oregon
as if for the first time

Much like the morning
years past
when I woke
with a new girl
in a cemetery in Eugene

We went there to escape the heat
slept on a blanket
naked in the night

So alive were we
and in love

Practicing, perhaps,
for the day when sleep
and death
converge.

There are tricks
the eyes play on us

Tonight
when I stare into the darkness

I see rain

A summer of drought
and I see rain.

First,
I strive for beauty
I wait for the bell to chime
the lightning to strike

Today, it seems,
the skies are clear
those chimes of midnight
are silenced
they boycott my breath
heap ash on the urgency of ringing
and leave me dizzy
in my decline.

But if the past
truly is prologue
it will all come round again.

Language will make its magic.
Sweetness will ooze from
the open wound
of my heart.

There will be words
in the order and rhythm
in which they were intended.

And poetry will breathe yet again.

They call me dogsbottle
don’t ask me why
it’s a story out of time
branded by eternity

Charity was my subterfuge
desperation my defense

I came here seeking refuge
terrified and angry
ready to sow the seeds
of my own defeat

But a breeze on my cheek
deterred me
the chime of the church bells
stayed my hand
some tempest of grace
soaked the parched ground
of my parents’ need

I was relieved
through generations of grief
and ill temper
given grace as thunder rolled
and lightning struck

a sweet song in the wind
soothed my mind

And me.
Not knowing the day.
A dotard of the hours.

Well and yet alive
breathing still, dear ones.
Grateful.
And with fiber enough
for another blessed day.

I’m a friend of darkness
lock lips with it
in a lover’s embrace

I mourn the dawn
beg favors from the twilight
hold every hope
in my uncertain hand
for a day when the sun won’t shine

And I know
by my wayward feet
by the tremors in my hand
that darkness creeps silently
up to my borders
crosses every line
and will someday defeat
my meager defenses

I have prepared my retreat
a forced march
to the grey Pacific
where everything in my life
ends
and begins

The solemn swell of the waves
a fitting harmony
to that last sweet song.

I honor my brother in spirit
one who burns a bonfire
on every high hill
to celebrate the proposition
that mere words are a match
for eternity.

One whose poems
though misplaced
are always found when needed.

Luiz
here is my humble advice

Keep the predators at bay
never let a day go by
without committing
a flagrant act of love

Dream always.
And awake from your dreams
with the certainty
that dreams
are the daily bread of our lives.

I know you will.

The sea is resting now
after a long day
gnawing at the edge
churning in deep hollows
ever so slowly eroding
this peaceful coast

Sand is the issue
of this marriage
sea and sky
combining to
make the land large
in its retreat

A handful of sand
to the winds
my life
to these tides

It is all flowing uphill
back into the tributaries
into the headwaters

Life returns to its source
at the end
Chinook salmon spawn in their natal streams and die
their bodies nourish their young
who make haste to salt water
then return from the sea
to repay the favor

Uphill it is for us
a long slog, it seems

We are dedicated enemies
of entropy
unconscious
yet knowing our duty

So these are your instructions.

You must wake each day
and know it as a gift
never pause in worship
never cease your upstream struggles
until it is time
for such foolishness to end.

Grit and muscle
heart and will
life is short
yet sweeter still.

Every moment in time
is delicate
ready to shatter

Every moment in time
is soon lost
and seldom found

I live in a moth-built cocoon
moss in my ears
deluded into thinking
I will soon be the butterfly
I once was

But in this life
it will never be
unless the ocean
loses its argument
against the land

Unless the moon
says no more
to the sun

So in that spirit I hold out my hands
for the next blessing
receive it dutifully
and with a gratitude deeper than music

Here to chime
until my time
like bells in the wind.

The universe closes in on me
galaxies align
in matrices of light

This moment was never
meant to be

I'm a cloud
telling tales to the sky
a bit of wind
and I'll be gone

The moment slips through
my fingers
water into the well
while time
that mortal dragon
is readily slain
for there are no dragons
time is a myth
and this universe
bends backwards upon itself
eating its remains
and issuing forth
new life
in a fugue of renewal

again
and again.

Mary Winslow and I have just published a book of our poetry.  It's called Dea Tacita and is available on Amazon.com.  My email address is jeffardster@gmail.com if you want to send praise.  If it's not praise, the addess to use is deadendmail.com.   :)

(In this poem, the authors alternate stanzas.)

AUTUMN'S CALL

In the stray
sweetness of yarrow
and starlings’ trill by dusk
rejoin the fading
without regret
as the foot worn grass will
receive morning’s frost.

And whenever that green yarrow fades
then I fade
in the dry husk
of this autumn of fire
this autumn of smoke and regrets.

Wake in sidelong sun
light half hidden
days under curtains
of violet and scarlet
leaves so soon
will bury the moss
inch by inch.

But I
being the beast that I am
will burrow through the moss
past every encumbrance
beyond hope and fear
and finally find the freedom of one
sweet day
in October
the air still
not a sound
but leaves settling
into the detritus of dreams.

(A note:  in this poem, the authors write alternate stanzas.)

FREEDOM

has always demanded
my surrender to an instant in time
surrender to fate and therefore
to glory

Though my wily will
has oft gotten in the way
with grand illusions and the necessary
fiction that I am in command

But in the end, it is command
of nothing and no one
for that is the nature of time,
mean shrew who prunes our hopes

A clock that does not click
nor clang, but flies tirelessly; one day
its talons will ****** us away, releasing us
forever, from the burdens of the day

And until those burdens take flight
I carry a candle for the hours, open a book
for the days, and teach my trembling hand
to hold on to hope.

We howl
beat our pots and pans
cry for mercy
from the pure weirdness
of that lopsided star

Oh and we send a note of despair
to our mothers
seek tears that cannot form
hollow the aching moon
poor waif that she is

And finally
turn the darkened cheek
to this insult from the stars

Moon
moon
stilling the moment

Once I wrote stirring verse to you
Now I stand stunned
speechless
as you steal the light
stuffing it
into the rude sack
of another day's fears

Sweet thieving lover in the night
swiftly bring back
heaven's delight.

Sonic ghost
womb echo
tiny cave dweller
growing feet and hands
a heart unexpectedly beating

Come
be our girl

A questionable son
the one
who chose auto repair
and serial monogamy
finds the golden road
to Washington, D.C. respectability

What does his father do?
He buys him a briefcase

And everything followed
and flowed
from that mineral moment

A career
a wife, in time
a briefcase never used
but full of good wishes
murmurs
and marching orders

The road ahead
seemed wide open
stretching west
into a golden glow
and open it was
purged of hindrance
by the workings of time

So here am I
that golden road
now behind me

Life seems a sand castle
on a castle of sand
with the tide pouring in

It is that last ember
glowing as the fire
goes dark

Tomorrow and tomorrow
beckon from a fabled future
they bid me adieu

I can smell the scent
of decay in this
warm summer's wind
kiss the sweetness of it
on my lips

I do not part willingly
hold out my hand
for every shred of
summer's light

But at the end of it
pack my poor bag
and make a crow's march
home
where I belong

I'm an assassin
a man of ******
I will **** your memories
and place them
in the dustbin of time

Sweetness comes with sleep
memory is illusion
****** a thing of gripping hands
and gasping breath
the only thing real
is my hand
holding this pen
a dog's tongue
on my face

Summer has settled sweetly here
we enjoy the hours
take pleasure
in the taverns
and circuses of this life

Our merriment obscures
the steady progress of time
the creeping insecurity
of old age

But I say
let merriment prevail!

In the face of all these
bogus truths
I choose only
truth
a steely resolve
and what might yet prove
to be a vain hope
in eternity

Time tells its tale
and time will tell

Eternity's cogs
geared and ratcheted
to the chain of time

We settle for the simple
ignore and refuse to witness
the obvious glory
of this world

insist on a miserly view
a pinched token

Then the night
closes in
an embolism erupts
into silence

I take a different view
hold out hope
for far horizons
settle for nothing
and struggle to drive
a hard bargain
with one who holds
all the cards

In the end
I expect beauty
a bright light
and a chilling plunge
into the grey Pacific

I hope for more
of course
a taste of watercress
a glass of wine
and an epiphany

All paid for by grace.

Through a pane of glass
life dissolves into its essence
Through a pane of glass
creation speaks

I never thought it would be this way
I chose to go
along for the ride
while this mad world
careened off the tracks

And yet creation
the godhead
persists
expands and contracts
unperturbed

I struggle to understand
the code
I peer intently
into the enveloping dark

And at the end of this inquiry
I find only music
and silence
upholstered through and without
by a sweet sense of peace.

Where I live
crows crowd the sky
black kites in the wind

Inscrutable dark eyes
take my measure
as they pass
tell tales to the gale
herald the storm

Where I live
springtime makes her bold attempt
a moment of sun
fragrant blooms beyond measure
and fails yet again

Where I live
rain drowns the lowly worm
beats down like
the teacher you despised in school

And the sea!
The ocean has come to churn
here
miles inland

My eyes are raingrey
my spirit presses upward
the rain presses down

Yet I breathe!
The air is sweet
the moments of sun
and endless blue
miracles of the hour

I treasure these times
beneath a sea of showers
the Pacific Ocean
rolling over the coastal hills
arriving here at our door

This lush green world
whose verdant measure
is spoken in tongues
its secret heart desires the tempest
demands the rain
insists upon its prerogative.

How can I say otherwise?

The right eye
is the window of hope
the left eye
the window of despair

And this proposition
is proven in my photograph
a portrait of a grizzled guy
taken just before
he stepped in front of a speeding car
while gesticulating wildly

Who knows what happened there?

Yet I will live!
gather fallen timbers
to form a stockade
against time

Because finally
I have discovered
that time is not my friend

It's a simple game she plays
time girl
trickster girl
but my ancient beams
will prevail

I swear it
by a handful of ash
and mark the moment
with a rune that exists
outside of time
and says simply

Be this.
You were forever thus.

It's a difficult rune to read
and a harder path
to follow.

She comes forth
like waves slipping over
the sand
again and again
delivered from darkness
coveting the light

And light is her signature.
A conundrum.
Light erasing light.
How can this be?

I will tell you.

Light is the companion
of the dark
trips joyfully in its shadows

And this dance
weaves a potent tale
of a two-faced goddess
one face peering intently into the dark
one lit by the morning sun

Yet darkness rules the day
hastens the twilight
gives measure to the
dimming
and finally
captures the last of the light
in a sea green bottle

We are drawn into that night
valiantly
or not
weeping for lost opportunities
or not
but at the end
waltzing into the unknown

Yet I do not suppose
darkness without light
according to my theology
a life that ends in simple extinction
cannot be
it is a null set

The fundamental equations
do not permit it
nor can my simple mind
fathom such depths

So in my dotage
I repair to wine and song
to ease the pain
of these uncertainties
and then to poetry
to catalog the human condition
and leave a trace
that yet might sparkle
in the instant of my demise

Fortunately
you are not my muse

I've worn out muses
by the dozens
cast them aside
like chaff
and cherished the sorrow
that ensued

Sadness was my calling card
my tragic handshake
a testament to a life
gone wrong

Age improved me
I survived the madness
came back to life
gasping for air

And so to your door
to spin the wheel
of language
to glory in its intricacy

Two poets alive
in the same century
two restless souls
under one uneasy roof

We will survive our families yet
raise a toast
when the day comes
to the dear
and thankfully departed

We'll leave poetry
like confetti in our wake
and touch the holy stone
once or twice yet
in our lives

I pray it will be so.

Slender green shoots
press through the
still cold ground
hands of the earth
lifted in prayer

Their strength is manifest
their exertions
carpet the land in green
their tender prayers
press forcibly against the sky
and keep it
at the distance
God intended

In the fall
invisible seeds will carpet the land
buried they will be
but in spring
they begin to speak

These buried corpses
will not only murmur
they will sing
in lush green voices.

I pray I will be there
yet once more
to join in the song.

I am a collective
an ongoing collaboration
a group enterprise

I revel in my diversity
sit in its lap
while being carefully groomed

Nothing becomes me
like agreement among friends
Nothing fills my sails
like the wind of good company

When all my words
are stilled
when every breath is drawn
then you might come near

When every tale is told
and when myth
becomes gossip among friends
then
and only then
will I willingly depart.

That's the day,
friends,
when we all meet
on that distant shore,
when sweetness dissolves
into the dark.

I have one foot
in the beyond already.
My ticket is punched
my resolve unmatched.

Give me your hand, my friend,
in good cheer
for nothing now will leave us bereft.

Never yet alone
never yet divorced from grace.

Amen.

Bring me your
orphan memories
and I will stitch them
into a chapter of time

Stepping fearlessly into
empty air
walking the tightrope
of certain death

Drawing memory
into the web of this moment
Bleeding it out into meaning

While sleeping
While dreaming

These poor words
strain to tell a tale
a shout out to eternity
and it is a clarion call
from the dawning
to the setting of the sun
announcing a state of grace
that surely will ripple
through time.

The night calls sweetly to us
Bids us sleep well
and find courage in the day.

Let us bend our minds
toward simpler times
and hail the coming
of an unexpected apocalypse

Limping toward the infinite
scattering thank yous
and blessings
like popcorn to the wind
a foolish man
am I

This life was supposed to be
different
a changing of the guard
But the guard stayed on
same old starched suits
same old
old

So how did I become
so young?
I woke just yesterday
to a sunrise stretched
like God's fresh linen
across the eastern sky
No idea how I got here

Every memory is dipped
from the well of time
and I draw that bucket well
and carefully

I taste the water
as a sacrament

The tick tock of time
is a goad
and  a constant reminder
that we must never forget
and never should fret

So drink deeply
and know the sacred
in every moment in time
and every moment
long gone from time.

It is a gift that you are given.

The candles of the dead
will not be extinguished
floating like blossoms in the deep
cradled by spectral hands
never seen by the living
except in dreams
or art

Did you come this far
for the view?
Or was it a curious urge
to find forgiveness
in a time of grief?

I can grant you forgiveness.
I have the power
through time and the tides
my calloused hands
have held the sun like an egg
my feet have climbed
Mt. Olympus
and none the wiser

So come gently with me
leave your battered dreams
on the bedside table
drink a draught of this noble wine
stand upon this precipice
of uncertainty
and contemplate something
near to eternity.

The candles will light your way.

This elegant bloom
forgot the season
came stocked for summer idylls
picnics by the water's edge
scent of mowed fields
scent of love's flowering.

Pitiful rose
how did you become
so lost in time?
Nothing now becomes you.

So I carefully cut
the stem
placed your ******* vein
in a slender jar
filled with
the last spring's freshet.

You came to life
for us
at Christmas time.
A meager blessing
in a time of pain.
A frail totem
in a time of dread.

I wake each day
with despair eating at
my good spirits
the specter of
a new political order
crouching in the darkest corners
of my place of rest.

******* it!
Send that orange horror
into oblivion.
******* monster
robbing my nights of peace.

There is no sense to this life.
There is rhyme without reason,
pain without relief.

Just the same
I will slog on.
One foot in front of
the other.
Repeating as necessary.
And then letting it go
through the latched gate of time.

This simple dance
revolves around itself
repeating intricate figures
until its inevitable end.

And then?
A riddle wrapped
in the loose skin of the night
beckons to us all
the certainty of death
leaves us wondering
while stumbling along this frosted
winter shore.

A thousand times
a thousand ships
have sailed daily
and sent nary a missive home.

The signal fires are burning
on forested headlands
here along this rugged coast.
Dark and solemn capes
gather the pelting rain
into their skirts.

The signaling smoke
from fir-fed fires
wraps itself in salt spray
serves as a beacon for the lost
a message to the departed.

Yet not a word
not a message in a bottle
from those who have set forth.
180 degrees of the compass
and not a sail.
The sea splendid and empty.

If no news is good news,
then bliss is our birthright.
If no news is something else
again,
then simple silence
will be our wage.

Gunpowder blue sky
yet no blue, really
except for the blue
wrapped into the spectrum
of black to grey to white

A storm blows in
the sea in an uproar
no holds barred
no remorse for the cormorant
or the gull
in these fierce swells

We know nothing of power
until we know the sea.
We know nothing of journeys
until we journey upon waters
as wild as these.

Odysseus would have shied
from this salt caldron
from these wind-tossed waves
stayed on some pleasant rock
imbibing the lotus.

And who would blame him?
Only a fool
or a sailor without hope
would venture into the teeth
of this tempest.

And that sailor would have cause
to regret his choice
would understand the depths
of his folly
as he slipped into darkness
and clasped hands
with the legions of the drowned
asleep in the swirl of the sea.

I am Coyote
in human form
one who drools poetry
sly as a bag of bones
alert to every hazard

Long odds  
are nothing to me
I'll beat every beast
with courage and finesse

And to get to the next realm
where I become myself
I must leave scant traces
survey the world
through scent and sound

And find the bridge
that builds itself
as I walk
across a terrifying chasm
of evolution and magic
to human form

Here to ponder your fate
Here to look to your good nature
Here to endure your pogroms

And survey your world
notwithstanding your traps and tricks
with a modicum of good cheer.

Ever wary.
Ever well.

A flight of three crows
added to
a dense grey day

Next add four
iconic conifers
as high as the sky
eternally ******* down

These things are
always in my sight
through my window
on this wet world

Multiply all of this
by a sweet daughter
who makes me proud
and raise the whole
to the power of a strong woman
who carries us all
on her back

The equation produces
a result that I am 95 percent certain
equals happiness
though the confidence interval
is wide

And this result
sweet as it is
and as uncertain as it is
will outlive me
leave a faint echo in time
an echo that will bounce off a star
and finally be found
gripped in my shriveled paw
long after the epiphany
nowhere near paradise
somewhere short of
the end of the line

This is a moment of happiness
stolen from time
hijacked by a fugitive
from civil society

I'll hold it close
until death pries it
without mercy
from my hand

Leaves it as a blessing
and a curse
for all who come after

Take the blessing.
Leave the curse.
That's the advice I give
with my dying breath.
And I leave this to you
from the generosity
of my heart.
With a nod to
the scant traces
of God's grace
that I find on these pathways
of travail.

Never lost.
Never found.
Always present
and generous
to all.

Be that.

She captures autumn
in a jar
reads the moon's straying
through leaf and branch

Always in love
with love
and always reeling
from the loss

What wave tossed this refugee
ashore?
What alignment
of stars and planets
of uncountable galaxies
brought this woman
to this world and not another?

A simple truth will tell.
The moon at high tide
hides beneath her skirts.
A slight disturbance
in the silken fabric
of space and time
and all is lost
all is born.

I hold my hands out
palms up
in prayer and thanks
every day
to mark the blessing
to place a peg
in the whole.

Given to all
denied to none
and mysterious to most

Life pours out of
a hole in the sea
leaves nothing
and everything
to chance.

This blessed world.

A most pious man
whose well-tempered music
brushed the cobwebs
from the throne of God

Evolution was made manifest
across deep time
these lyrical figures
achieve the same purpose
in the space between the morning star
and the dawn

A fallow field
is sewn with pearls
a moonlit beach
illuminated by shadow
every scrape of the fiddler's bow
merges mind with the present
harvests the meaning
in the moment

The composer
that good man
was
for a time
church organist at St. John's
its notable steeple leaning
all askew
as a rebuke against God
or perhaps the drunken architect

A finger of candlelight
plays across the manuscript
a fugue echoes
through the still church

And though no living person
on that still winter's night
shares the organist's solemn delight
the stirring mass of possibility
that is posterity
awaits

The dead are all around us
they are as alive
in their way
as we are
in ours

We share a world of shadows
with these manes
and step awkwardly
into the light

Every breath of the wind
is a dead soul passing
every autumn leaf that falls
a secret hieroglyph
from the beyond

Beasts in the wild
know this
thus the coyote
sings his mad lament
the raven turns his dull eye
toward the east
expecting not light
but a flight of dark wings

And dark wings
command my attention these days
my eye
turned inexorably toward
the night

Where every word
is farewell
where all commerce ends
and I rejoin the stream of stars

Done with all of this.
And surely
it will be bliss.

Sour smell of wood smoke
seaweed flayed and dried
upon the rocks
those huddled stones
prone and obeisant to the grey sea

And there
a star that is settling
into the indifferent waves
leaving us cold and bereft
soon to be entwined
with the night

But do not despair
We will wake with the dawn
bring the candle of hope
in our hands
and much peace

A solemn and ocean-deep peace
shared
with every sentient being
in time
and every being departed
from time

The moon has its quarters
the sun its seasons
I have only this tenuous grasp
on life
a primal sense of loss and love
and the dull roar of the Pacific
in my ear

Like Breugel's Icarus
my brother Michael
dropped into the depths of the sea
unnoticed

Born at the bottom
of a crater of the moon
the sweetest foundling
since creation

His swaddling clothes
were denim and the blues
his pillow
a bottle of rye

This sweet soul
lived half a life
in halfway houses
and cheap motels
reeking of cigarettes
reeling from the *****

When he punched his ticket
on the midnight train to eternity
no one was surprised

I arranged the cremation
a fire that burned
more than one life

I gathered his ashes
and set out
for the crest of the Sierra Nevada

Alone
with my memories,
his ashes
and the cold stone
of those adamant heights

and then east
through the wastes of Nevada
the endless expanse
of the basin and range

A pilgrimage, of sorts
dedicated to nothing
and no one

Just the upthrust range
the solemn and self-absorbed peaks
the dessicated pine
and a wind
that scoured the soul.

I am officially too old
left it all at the station
lost my ticket
and finally
busted by the conductor
for being a poet and a ***
the holy two-fer

Never thought the joke
would go on this long
never imagined
I'd be ******* oxygen
in a posh bar
with Helen of Troy
and me in my cups

Yet here we are
the ships have sailed
the vagabonds have stumbled
home
every swan has flown

And between you and me
Jack
(and while she's in the lady's room)
I am told I was born of a woman
on this day
sixty four years ago

I don't believe it

Birthdays are make-believe
every crease and wrinkle
in the fabric of time
every line in my face
is a testament
to an intricate conspiracy
the stars aligned against me
and on my birthday, no less

They say this ride has a conclusion
people pass on
I have seen fields of grim stones
that attest to this fact

But I'm not so sure.
At this late date
I'm still thinking
I might beat this rap.

We speak the true tongue
a language formed
in the deepest trenches
of the earth's oceans
those places where life was formed
where the elemental heat
of the planet
expresses itself
in steam, confusion
and eruption

We sing in the true tongue
music that is blind
yet sees all
its rhyme set to rhythm
a motion of flesh-hung bones

We stand against every fate
yet our song will endure
it will be the last song

And we paint
with a palette stolen
from the sky
on the day of the most perfect dawn

We are God's thieves
stealing a line here and there
dipping a sad bucket
into a river of stars
holding it proudly aloft
the heart shaped into a song
perhaps a poem
nothing more

Yet more than nothing.
And more than enough.

Druid is Derwydd
in our tongue
the Welsh of my fathers

Our land is called Cymru
and we have thrived here
since ancient times

We live by our cattle
first
our hearts and families
second
and our crops a poor third

We are taught that
a mist descended on our land
in the before times
and cleansed the earth of life

And that a new people came
our people
and brought with them
cattle
all of the trades
and a gift for song

We were called Celts
but now we are proudly
Welsh
the dragon is our badge
and red war our way of life

The Derwydd
are our guides
they follow the stars
know the mystic tides
teach our young
and ease our old
into the afterworld

Never cross a Druid
they say
or feel your tongue
curl into burnt leather
in your mouth

Please a Druid
and luck will
lay by your side

I am called Caedmon
wise warrior
son of Lhur
born in the shade
of a great oak

I was taught all of the high arts
poetry
music
and war

If ever you travel
through our fortress-locked land
you will be welcome
at my hearth

Come
bring your sweet pipes
and play
bare your sword arm
and raid with us

When we return
cattle rich
then the feast will begin
then the bards will sing
and poetry will open your mind
to the harmonies of heaven.

We turned the sun
into a scourge

Burned two cities in Japan.
It was not antiseptic.
It was not friendly.

It was ****** on a scale
that the world
has come to know too well
but by a means
that upset the balance
of nature

The magnetic forces
of the atom unhinged
set off on lunatic paths
to arrive at something
like the sun

Flesh was peeled from bone
that day
faces peeled from skulls

This is not a pretty thing
not a bedtime story
for your kids

Yet our taxes pave a path
to the next generation
of hell-found missiles
aimed deliberately
and directly
at the hopes
the domestic fears
the quiet anxieties
the moments of wonder
of love
the kiss in the morning
goodbye
the welcome home in the evening
of every person alive today.

Is there a way
to say
No?

When Coyote witnessed
the Creator making this world
he thought
I will make a world like that
for myself

And so he formed a copy
of every living thing
from the mud
from the branches
and detritus that he gathered
there on the banks
of the Columbia River

But all of his
carefully wrought figures
elk and deer
fish that sparkle in the shallows
black bear
who hides from two-leggeds
the wings of the air
who mingle with the leaves and branches of the forest
all melted back into the mud
of the riverbank
at the next rain

Undeterred
Coyote set out
on a quest

He found a new country
a pleasant land of vast expanse
with every manner of good things

When Coyote came into this country
his hunger
was greater than myth
sharp as the edge of a knife

And there he spied Crow
on a high cliff
with a mouth full
of deer fat

A plan quickly formed
in the caverns of his cunning

Coyote called out
Chief Crow
I am told that your voice
is as sweet as spring water
as pleasing as a woman
in the night

Sing for me
Great Chief
and I will reward you richly

Crow is a vain creature
and being called Chief
gave him great pleasure

He preened
opened his silver wings to the sun
and sang his rough song
but in a muted tone
in order to save
his delicious morsel

Coyote called out again
Oh Chief!
That wasn't much.
not like the stories
I have been told.
Please sing your song again
with feeling!

Crow rose to his full height
****** his sharp beak
into the air
and gave full voice
to his raucous song
for the sake of every crow
on earth

We know the end of this tale
because Coyote taught it
to our ancestors

The deer fat fell to the ground
and Coyote
trickster
scarfed it in an instant

Hunger dampened
he ambled along the well-beaten path
to find the next fool

And that is the story
of Coyote and Crow.
Keep your pride in check
or be the next one laid low.