You once said I read too much Le Carré
or maybe Guevara, which could be true
but I’m really just a hillbilly at heart
with dreams of going to Chile with you
on a fast boat running guns, but no más
because you, you can dream forever
without ever remembering who I was
lying in your bed somewhere in Argentina
reading Borges, wearing that black beret
you brought with you from Bolivia, sweet
Olivia, daydreaming of nights with Che.

Arthur Burning Arrow
had a lot of talent.
He could capture the salient
parts of the story.

He painted a picture
of a red  river
and the first White settlers
crossing the plains.

He took a lot of pains
with clouds you could feel.
Dust you could sneeze.
Tall grass up to a horse's knees.

Our teacher said
That's a horrific painting!
I thought it was terrific.

Just sayin.

I swear, all I could see
were burning wagons
for a thousand miles.

I’ve finally broken the arrow…
left the reservation..
as the sayings go.
Not without some hesitation…
not without some reservations..
I’m going to walk the White Man’s road.

Broken arrows from my quiver…
left behind like White Man’s litter..
all along this dusty road.
The road that follows the river…
where I use to play and shiver..
catching fish without a pole.

I’ll stop one more time by the water…
wash away the tears and dust and sorrow..
break my bow upon a boulder.
My people have lost their way…
nothing left for me to say..
cut my hair above my shoulder.

I’ll follow the White Man’s way…
Maybe Albuquerque or Santa  Fe..
only my dusty boots will know the way.
Broken arrows from my quiver…
left behind like White Man’s litter..
all along this dusty road.

r  August 2012

free internet 24-hour
Johnny Cash radio station
-all day long
the general listens-
plasma tv on the wall
silent bombs in Gaza
orange blossom specials
-they need plasma, don't they-
burn, burn, burn
-Cry, Cry, Cry-

r ~ 7/29/14

I was walking
and the ocean
was above my knees

I didn't feel the cold
or mist hanging silent
above, but I knew
the darkness, old friend,
longer than I will admit

I knew the waves
in ways I know
I could never explain

You found me there
and called out for me
to come out of that grave
I was sinking in, I don't know
how deep I would have gone
had you not known my name

I should drop to my knees
and kiss the salt from your feet
thanking you with the sea on
my lips and leak salt of my own
offering gratitude for calling

Thank you through the mist
and waves, thank you for
my heart beating, not feeling
the cold, for my lips that never
tasted the lightless far below

Thank you for following
my footprints when I was lost,
drowning in a sea of sorrow.

low, fast moving clouds
make me feel
like i'm standing
still on a mountain

wisps of cotton candy
and wind in my hair

there is a change in the air
a slower, colder
turning motion
all around me

my head in the sky
my feet in the sea.

Evenings like these
black as a keyhole

crossing a shadow cast
on the side of the road

where the ground sleeps
dreaming of smooth stones

and nights without love
earning a dangerous living

like a breath under water
choked on the mystery

of cornbread
and a farmer's daughter

I wake up thirsty
hungry and alone.

A book,
just pages
on leaves, whitened-
river washed,
dried then wettened again;
tears of words
torn from a heart-
his then mine, and mine again.

A book
of poems, written verse,
la poema-
the saddest lines of all,
but not all, no,
not all; not always.

Pages of Odes;
oh, the odes
to fruit,
to wine
and song
of the sea and mermaids;
the pages sing his songs.

A book
of heights
and stone,
he took us there-
a shovel in the sand;
of monuments
and ships
of drunken men and love
once loved,
and loved again.

Words
on silken thighs,
*******
and a red dress-
on a dark night
the stars and moon did shine.

A garden-
he planted a *****
into our hearts;
his dog,
it died
simply
loved too much-
Ai.

A book,
just a book
of pages,
of poems
by my bed-
dog-eared,
much read and loved;
his words ending
the saddest lines of all.

r ~ 8/15/14

I like the sound of the rain
washing away the silent day

And the lonely call
of a home-bound train

A mournful morning
kind of pain

....Give me the sound
of a blue bluejay

over the busy noise
that mocks my ways

I want to pack my bag
and fetch my dog

Whistle a tune
while we walk along...

Come on girl
It's starting to rain

I hear the sound
of the lonesome train

and the blue bluejay
calling my name

(Here's where yer sposed to whistle)

lonely moths -
black and white
and in-betweens

navigating
by the same light

  spiraling -
adapting
- changing

traits
moth-ers know

no need to race
- we are one.

r ~ 10/28/14

http://anthro.palomar.edu/vary/vary_2.htm

In the gloaming
Of near darkened hospital room
A tender touch of a caring hand
Relieving pain
Providing the only light
That remains
In the gloaming
Of the nearly darkened room
Sleep child
I am here

Her kisses were moonshine
and bullets, three shots
to the heart, like a rose
on the canvas of morning,
like art, an eyelash on a poem
that always makes me pause,
three xs at the bottom of a page.

I’m trying hard to be teachable
But everyday remains much the same
Where the ending is unreachable
And the beginning seems just a game

Rain is pouring down in that dark place
The wind is howling for me to leave
Without a light I can’t find a trace
Give me something to make me believe

Please take this burden from my shoulder
And shine a light that will help me see
I want to learn as I get older
That you will always be there for me

Liebe immer...
Love always

r  9Jan14

No one stays long
in the house of the bereaved

The hounds are lonely tonight
but not the priest

I dream I am still
in Tennessee grieving

Drinking moonshine
and branch water
looking for a fight

The undertaker creeps out
of the farmer's daughter's room

His wife beats a spider
with a broom then sweeps

When Death beats his child
nobody listens to her weep

My mother used to beg,
Son, don't write about Death,
We'll cross that ditch soon enough

I have nothing but respect
for the dead, I said

But there is no doubt in my mind
Death is a bad dog, a real *****.

When I was younger
I slept in the top bunk
over my older brother

- Pretty soon we’re all going to die -
he was fond of saying
while we listened to Credence
Clearwater Revival on an old turntable
with a penny he taped to the arm
to make it sound like a $100

Pretty soon he got me saying the same
words, like moon, mosquitos and darkness
were in his ear, he’d have dreams of
naked women washing his feet
and sparrows looking out of his eyes

He hollered at old man death
when he was wanting some shuteye

- Nobody on earth is like me -
he’d wake up shouting not meaning
to disturb my sleep

He said - I am the white piano
they threw off the bridge -
- the snake bed and the shade tree -
- I am something, yes-sir-eee -

- I’m something not everybody wants
to believe - he’d say sipping on whiskey
bought from a woman up the holler

He told death to - kiss his white *** -
then holler at me to get out of bed
and go trim the grass around the stone
angels planted up in the high pasture.

it isn't all black and white
the choke-hold of history

shades of red and brown
paint the scenery, too

the documented imagery
forgotten in the fray

a little big horn playing mournful
songs as the cavalry marches on
to the tune of galleons and guns


no passport required
when the port was young

émigré and immigrant
displacing native sons

who also once were pilgrims
breathing in the sun.

Dead leaves, a dying tree;
silent in a tattered hat,
pausing in his quiet task,
reading poems of T.E. Hulme.

canyon wren
sings her sweet song
perched upon
the piñon-

for my love
who lies beneath-
the cottonwood
twee twee twee
tsheeeeee.

:)

r ~ 10/3/14

She sews..her needle hot
Stitching her words
Into my thoughts

Repairing a tear
Here and there

A knot drawn tight
Nimble and quick
Thimble silver
Her verse sharp

A rip in the heart
Stitched in time
To stop the flow

My lips sealed
with silken gold
Threading gently
Into the night.

r ~ 8/21/14

whiskey whispers
sound like you

a burning smokey river
-fire down below

kiss my fever

whiskey whispers-
get me through.

r ~ 9/21/14

Just give me
a blindfold
and a cigarette,
or two.

Dying slow in the mountains seemed much easier than simply breathing at sea level.

I've been thinking that maybe I was happier when I was still drinking.

I tried to write a poem called Pointless and never made it beyond the title.

Dying seems easier than breathing at sea level.

r ~ 11/7/14

Lucy kissed a jawbone
bye beneath a diamond sky

2.8 million years
and a gazillion tears ago

That's a lot of sorrow

for a man
kinda like me.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/mar/04/jaw-bone-discovery-in-ethiopia-is-oldest-ever-human-lineage-remai­ns

I said I love you in the field of honor
and she was like a colt, her name
like the moon caught in my throat,
she was water I held in my hands
like the canoe I worked through the river,
and she was a flash at two-thirty
in the morning of the suicidal knife,
and she was a fire of pine cones,
a butterfly that lit on the float of my pole,
and she was like the night herself.

first love, a blue coyote-
- first heart, a red red moon

first day's not dawned-
love sings a song
a'top a desert dune

genesis of loneliness-
indigenous to wistfulness
- first cry of love
against the first night sky

blue coyote sings
to a red red moon.

r ~ 10/3/14

we see the smoke
and hear the drums -

it gets old - the news
of war - no more glory

-  the dead are dying
old and young

- we see the smoke
and hear the drums -

living in our rooms
above the fray -

we turn away
like yesterday -

we see the smoke
and hear the drums -

another day.

r ~ 10/17/14

A baby's smell.
A rare seashell.
The things sublime
that make you rich.

A wishing well.
A gambler's tell.
The quilts of time
that have no stitch.

An ocean swell.
A schooner's bell.
The poet's rhyme
that has no niche.

r ~ 30Jan14

Far into the night
I spied a long dead star
like that dark light
I saw through the pane
of your window,
like a signal for me
that it was all clear now
to move on to another exile,
another woman, another
island to banish myself,
another liaison with dawn.

I was ten when
I got caught stealing
blue chalk from the pool hall.

My daddy wore me out
with a black leather belt.

He said *What'd I tell you
about writing sad poems
on the back of the stones
at the orphan's graveyard?

I took my name off of the *****
donor registry. I don't wish to wish
myself on any-body. I'm a hard man
to live with, you see. You've seen
the way I treat(ed) my liv-er; any way.
Anyway...if you really want a piece
of me take my heart. Cigarettes and
women haven't yet ruined the best part.

Death can do strange things,
like time-lapse photography,
undress those quite bored, or
make a patron saint out of a fool,
turning sleek idiots into monks
more mysterious than Rasputin.

What a place to drink, the casino
death runs, nothing fancy or beautiful,
a blind man called Dark Island
taking requests on a piano with keys
worn dull as bone handled knives.

A place the lost can find work, graceless
and not made in America without a living,
all these odd jobs death can do, like art,
factory smoke blown in the eyes of women
in Senegal making overalls for Walmart.

you came to the rodeo
with your latest portfolio
of sidekick apparatchi(c)ks

colorful lily - a realpolitik mariposa
and gloriosa - tall like a ponderosa
while i rode the appaloosa-
cool like - little joe

do they make you hum
a sweet song like i do?

sitting on your spanish saddle
booted to skeedaddle
when i beat the buzzer
while buzzards circled-
beneath a purple sun

you came that time
when i rode
-on the blue mesa.

r ~ 9/24/14

My right ear has triple tinnitus.
It's true. I kid you not.
First there is the deep, low mourn of a foghorn,
with a louder high pitched ring above.
But stuck somewhere in between
is a beautifully sad Charlie Parker saxophone number.
It's soft notes range frome mid to low and drown
the foghorn and annoying ring while carrying
me away to dream.   My own nightly internal
Charlie Parker radio.

r ~  23Jan14

Suffering from cabin fever, I raided my cache of end-time sardines and went slipping and sliding down to the dock to feed the near-shore birds.

One lone Repelican sat upon a bollard by the boat launch seeming frozen to the spot.  He was looking pretty grimm.

Taking pity on this cold, hungry waterbird former Marine-turned-Feeb, and apparently not stuck on I-275, this kindhearted Democrab was soon out of end-time sardines.

Telling him that I was sardine-poor but had one question I would like to ask concerning an investigation into questionable publicly financed bollard homesteading practices, the repugnant Repelican was not happy with me and stuck his long bill in my face while threatening to break me in half (like a boy) and throw me off of the effing dock before flapping away in a huff.

He called me later and asked to do lunch next week. Sardines on him.

r. ~  29Jan14

To ocean's roar--the sea oats dance
To music of--nor'easter's glance
Holding fast on--windswept seashore
Lending hand to--rippled dunes' chore

Paniculata's--feathered lance
Leaves not the sand--to nature's chance
To leave in dunes--an open door
To ocean's roar

Sea oats seeking--perfect balance
Barren beach and--storm's dalliance
Shorebirds nesting--while sea gulls soar
Still ocean tries--and shouts for more
Sea oats bending--yet still they dance
To ocean's roar

r ~ 9Mar14

Mud, whiskey, death
and bad debts, the river's
high water, mysterious birds
flying south disappearing
like a youngest daughter,
no good men, bad intentions,
changing seasons, unexplained
pains, all of these are reasons
I've seen good women weeping
after the hardest rains came.

I awoke
at the crack
of dawn

to a blood red sun
-a bullet hole
in a faded work shirt

with a creak in my bones
a quick kiss and a groan

I thanked her
and slipped out
the back door

before her old man
came home.

r ~ 8/30/14

What will be his legacy
After such a deep long sleep
Rising to the Golan Heights
Rue Sabra and Shatila
In circling Pharohs Army
Or clearing strips through Gaza
Roaring Lion Rebel Angel

r 13Jan14

new light comes early -
low and uncertain
- cold and unsurely

slowly

winter is waning -
fading her darkness
away

- begins a new day.

thinking only of work
- eating my own business
minding my food

and manners

people small talking too
loudly with mouths full

- best get back and busy

- all this talk of ebola
isis and clowns with machetes -

slender man and little girls
- kidnapped girls forgotten

collateral damage
- somewhere else
someone else's -

hard to concentrate
on  important things
like metrics and data calls -

site density- history
- work things and holidays -
you know

i should buy pumpkins
on the way home today

- halloween is coming soon.

r ~ 10/15/14

artifacts arranged
chronologically -

flint and wood
allied with cordage -

sharp-edged bronze and iron
- a skull with cut marks
beside a copper
-tipped alloy bullet

on the shelf between
war and peace
and anthropology -
an anthology

- details emerge
in the painting
- killing is our nature
and dying

- a still life.

r ~ 10/26/14

When I look over
my shoulder
all I see is a star
shining through
a dark hole
and hear a strange sound
like wind crying out
through the trees
or the creaking
of limbs
a dark shape
passing over the moon
like an omen
of a mad woman
I once knew
a ghost ship
spreading her legs
like a cross
arms reaching out
her name lost
to my memory
something that sounds
much like my doom.

Must we only dream
   of wise kings who know
that rivers must flow
   peacefully
so a woman can sing
   her children to sleep
and fathers not weep
   holding them
in grief too heartbroken
   to rage
at the violence men bring
    in this age
that should be long left
   behind us?

Dandelions stand tall
   above the grass.
Inviting, daring. Brave.
    I have the energy
but not the heart
    to mow them down.
The grass rejoices.
   My conscience frowns.
My dog sleeps on.

r ~ 7/6/14

home in the mirror
appearing nearer

but i'm not driving
or even trying
to turn around

i'm burning down

bridges behind me
all I can see

over my shoulder
looking for closure

the colder and closer
i get to the sea.

I dreamed of two men
cold as ice in dark hats
handcuffing a woman
before tossing her in the back
of a black barred truck
with stars on the sides
and a To Protect and Serve
bumper sticker stuck like
a punchline and a baby girl
and young boy were crying
standing behind the yellow lines
but two has never been
a number that adds up to
nothing because it's only legal
to pass one at a time in these
dark days of executive orders
you fear because you know
it's all the evidence they need
to make you disappear.

That curving space
between her *******,
a perfect place
for my chin to rest
as I dreamt a scene
along the Seine
of the perfect *******
of my sweet Pauline.

r ~ 6/20/14

He was a West Virginia farm boy.
His name was Walton, Cpl. John.
I **** thee not; we called him John Boy.

Two bunks down from me
in a barracks at Fort sux Dix, NJ,
he would write poetry after lights out
by penlight. Drill Sergeants called him a *****
when one of the recruits hung a poem in the chow hall
that Boy had written about missing his little sister.

Boy could weave a line from Whitman
or Frost or Byron, even Emily
flawlessly into a conversation.
I would try hard as hell to keep a straight face.
Boy never cracked a smile. No one else ever caught on.
Funny as hell. And pretty **** cool.

Like during the class on E and E
when asked to summarize lessons learned.
"Resist much. Obey little, Drill Sergeant".
He earned a smoke break for that.

When asked where his home was during an inspection
by the company commander, Boy replied
"Perhaps it is everywhere-on water and land" or
"under the soles of your boots, Captain".  
That one got him two days KP.

Most famously, when asked how battles are lost he replied
"Battles are lost in the same spirit as which they are won, Drill Sergeant".
That one got a big Ooorah and earned him his corporal stripe.
Drill Sergeant wasn't sure what he meant, but liked the sound of it.

We were stationed together for almost two years, Boy and I.
We deployed together. He would scribble by penlight in the bunker,
then scramble across the sand and call in close-air, then back to the poem
while the ground was still shaking, constantly blowing sand off of his journal.

Boy was hit in the left femur by a ****** round one night
while calling artillery coordinates down range.
He always left his field book in his sleeping bag.
I looked through it before it was gathered up
with the rest of his gear for shipping over to Ramstein.

Eighty-three pages of ******* awesome poetry about his daddy's farm,
his grandfather's mountain home, the snowy woods during deer season,
the first girl he loved, dogwoods in bloom, his mother's death in an auto accident.
A beagle pup that he once had.

Boy went home to West Virginia with one less leg.
I called him one Christmas a few years ago
after finding his phone number through a mutual friend.
We shot the usual ****. We were both a little drunk.
I asked Boy if he still wrote poetry. He said no,
he didn't have time with all the ***** that needed drinking.
Not much left to write about, he said. Anyway, poetry's for sissies.

r ~ 5/17/14