150 elk

tall grass

cool mountain breeze

-


all my mistakes in life
add weight to a scale
of self-judgement–

so far i sense
a balance—

yet it feels to me like
i've let so much ballast
get washed overboard...




s jones
2022



.

Eastern Montana Badlands
1930s....

Coal where one found it,
Scoria hills,
Layered lignite
Waiting near the surface.

Burning lignite beds,
Smoldering centuries old,
Scarring and turning clay to scoria,
Crumbling rock,
Testimony to lightning fires
Beneath the hills.

Crude mines backed into cliffs,
Pick and shoveled coal
Free for the risky taking
Heated homes.

Coal caves,
Low and gaping,
Horizontal shafts.
Wagons first, then
Trucks backed in.

Crowbars and picks
Brought lignite ceilings
Crashing in rotten shatters
Mounding, sometimes burying
Trucks below.

My father told me
How he helped
Chris Ginther,
Deaf coal miner,
Hammer holes,
Insert charges,
Long fuses, trailing.

Old Chris packing holes,
Tamping,
Tamping,
Tamping...
Lighting fuses,
Tamping,
Tamping,
Tamping.

My father said he'd yell
"We need to go!"

Old Chris
Seemed never to hear,
Tamping,
Tamping,
Tamping,
Until finally...
Sauntering out
Before the rumbling Thump.

I can see the two,
Chris and my father,
Just a boy,
Lost in lignite clouds,
Coughing.

the clock smiles
and it is a sad smile

and coming through an open window
tiny red eyes on dainty feet
scurries around
the 4 corners of my prison  

where the dice roll
but never fall

 so,

hold on,

st christopher
former saint
taken off the calendar

O lost angel
guardian angel

say a prayer for me,

and like the shadows
thrown by the corner boys
as sunset approaches

i'll follow you down

into the tall
grass
where the lions wait
for wounded
dreamers

can you spare
a little faith???

O, st christopher

I ve been locked up
way too long
in this crazy world

please.

tell me.

how far is heaven?

she always posted my bail and
never asked what I d done
and she paid the back rent
twice
always had dinner for me

she loaned me money
and I never paid her back

and when I was gone

for 2 or 3 days
she didn't ask where I'd been

she broke my nose
with a non-stick frying pan

she broke my heart with a letter

she s the best I ever had

Honey,
if you read this:
i'm in the county jail,
call the bail bonds man
I need you more than ever

YOUR THE BEST I EVER HAD!

Title lost in one fell swoop
The left hand held the ace,
Portraiture of destitution’s
Fools chanced quick about-face.
Should have shown the King of Hearts
Rightly kept the Queen
Played instead an interception
Game of in between…..
Been this ****** way all my life
Folly chasing foil,
Dreams of cleaning up a pile
In plunging deep for oil,
Cursed, I seldom  got there,
Chasing failure’s ghost.
Instead I played my ******* ace
Then watched his straight flush coast.

M.
Smoked in a dim, dark place.
26 January 1967