Elusive
like the wind.
As gentle
as a summer breeze.
With patience and love
I surround her.
Her beauty
like the sun, the moon,
the deep blue sea.
And in her eyes
the mountains
of Tennessee.
She shares her beauty
with us, with me.
I give my love
to her, my Wendy
always and forever.

r ~ 7/5/14

Some in my family say
Uncle Sam was my salvation
when I was a young man
hell, maybe so, I don’t know
but he kept me out of jail
and paid for my education
which is how I found myself
in West Memphis, Arkansas
surveying Indian mounds
that some fool professors thought
were put there by the Choctaw
but I knew they’d got it wrong
all along, it was the Mississippians
which makes perfect sense if you think
on it considering where they put ‘em
but I digress, I must confess it
was my fondness for backroad bars
and blues guitars carved from wood
of crosses burnt by drunks in hoods
and strings plucked by calloused fingers
of old men with shoulders slumped
like sagging barns and Ford pickups
you find out in them parts, singing
songs about long gone women, all
kinds of aching age old pains lingering
enough to make a man’s heart rain
until the US Army Corps of Engineers
blew the levy’s to send those tears
out across cotton fields and mounds
I know the Choctaw didn’t build.

I love the closed system of rain
How much time it takes a drop to get here
A million or more years old
A water molecule evaporated up from the Atlantic
Rained down in Egypt thousands of years ago
Running with the Nile
Washing the sweat off of slaves who built pyramids
Then south to Ethiopia
Later to come up in a village well
Where someone used it to water a barley plant
Evaporating again to be swept up by a front
That poured on Bangkok
Before running off into the South China Sea
Wobbling along the Tropic of Cancer
Over to the North Pacific
Following the northeast trade winds
Then back again to the Atlantic
Rising only to fall and land
Smack dab between the ears of
My sweet mutt Daisy

r~ 22Jan14

I used to stay up all night
driving through pastures
in a sweetheart's daddy's jeep

I remember the moon in the woods
through the trees like a girl
running in white *******

Like a boat losing its shadow
to the wind, you can lie
yourself back into bodies
you never touched

What love there was
flashes by like chrome
on a fender skirt.

Steady lads
You're the farmer
You're the scythe
Sharp like a knife
They're the wheat
Stalks in the wind
Steady boys
They come again
Time to reap.

r ~ 4/17/14

I am wheat
I cry, I cry
Again
You leave your dead
At my feet
Oh why, oh why

At Gettysburg
We cried
Again, again
They rose and died
Below our stalks
They lie, they lie

From Stalingrad
To Leningrad
One million dead, one million dead
The Panzers came
Wheat fields aflame
They burned, they burned

And once again
You leave your dead
Ukraine, Ukraine
Oh, Putin's shame
The innocent lie
In wheat, in wheat.

r ~ 7/19/14

whelming-
evening silence
-soothing quelling dwelling

a much quieter song
- moon pulls the tide along
singing of the sea

sun slides down-
the stars align
exactly as they should-
and shine

rest, earth-
breathe deep-
-we sleep.

r ~ 9/27/14

I've seen too many quiet nights;
no conversation,
no wine to drink to us,
no explanations.
I compete with the Game of Thrones
for your attention.
I lose. The king still dies.
Dragons fly. Same old story.
I lie here reading Pablo
till I weep.
I want to say I love you. But I don't.
Say it, I mean. I want to think
you love me, too.
But you don't. Say it.
Let's have that conversation.
Dragons don't fly.
It's true.

r ~ 5/23/14

I recall
her lost smile

like a sketch
I draw from my memory

and those days in the rain
laughing, drops

hitting the creek
slow as a dream

until a shadow
fell across the mirror

brushing her hair
in a dark room

like a honeycomb
of sad bees

and double entendres
two lifetimes ago.

It is summer -
a quiet night

- the silence
disquieting

all those lights
out on the water -

- stars, like floating
diamonds

moon, you big old pearl
- my lifebuoy

a driftwood fire of dreams
to hold me -

until morning comes
slowly - like a sad-eyed model

- tired of her beauty, wanting
more than a moment in the sun.

What do you say to a child in pain
when nothing can ease the burn,
          the hole,
the enveloping wave
          of darkness?

Words are not a chain
to fastly anchor
          one's soul,
to cling, to save,
          to harness.

Time is the only healing rain
to calm the churn,
          make whole,
to fill the vase,
          drown the sharpness.

And love. Mountains and oceans of love.
This is all I have to give.
My words are not enough.

5/15/14

Listen, it's a beautiful thing
when distilled to its essence;
reduced to its purest form.
A paradox and a paradigm;
a paragon of perfection.
Epic in its arythmetic
progression; poetic.
Like Chinese arithmetic,
so hard it hurts. Yet soft
and exquisite, like a bubble
of love caught in a beating heart.
That place where poetry starts.

Morning will be here
soon enough says the moon,

only the night knows the truth
that lies dark in your heart

where love sleeps forever,
deep, and never dreaming.

In deepest wood
  A home once stood
Roses bloom by chimney fall
       An old stone wall
Lines remnant trail
Gives heed to open well
                     Where lilacs trace
                           An empty space
                       And fills the air
              With scent to wear
                 An apple tree
       And mulberries
           An old home site
                 In morning light

r  ~  9Mar14

whiskey whispers
sound like you

a burning smokey river
-fire down below

kiss my fever

whiskey whispers-
get me through.

r ~ 9/21/14

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

She wants me to come to Kansas
Said she'd introduce me to the band

I asked her if she'd thought anymore
about letting me be her man

She sings a mean Bonnie Raitt
and she wails it from the heart
Gonna tell the truth about it
Honey, that's the hardest part

There's a white train a'comin
north from Wichita

I want to make it to Lecompton
before the snow begins to fall

I know just what she needs
when she's low and when it's dark

She needs that white train
running north from Wichita

I need to lay beside her
and listen to her heart
Gonna tell the truth about it
Honey, that's the hardest part.


r ~ 12/15/14

Mostly for working lunch
Though we have large break room table
But learned quickly that I don't enjoy
Tea Parities amongst my colleagues
r

Time is a witness
to the mark of the moth
in my hair, and I swear
the nights are getting longer

I keep putting it off
hoping I would discover
a star no one knew was there

and I can only wonder why
the bluebirds die
on the power lines singing

if god had a heart
he'd take me instead
and put a thirty ought six
straight through my chest

just for believing
that somewhere there's a nest
with my name on it.

If she would only let me
climb the vines of her braids
lie in the shade by the creek
sip water from her slippers
slip the gown from her shoulders
taste the raisins of her *******
die in her arms 1000 times
the widow beneath a willow.

i've had wild turkey-
kinda gamey
but it'll do in a rush

i've had jim beam, too
along with a little kush

but- jack daniels kicked my ***
and knocked me on my ****


this thanksgiving
i'm going with plain old turkey
cuz i'm smarter and braver

if god will only grant me the serenity.

11/27/14

So much depends upon...
how willing
you are to stand
in line
glistening in the rain
waiting to sign
your name
longing to right
the wrongs
and fix the broken
axles of the red
wheelbarrow
and maybe paint
it blue
as a Blue Jay
flying free
in a blue sky
above white chickens
like shadows
of clouds
over the barnyard.

Someday I will leave
the cold sea

Leave its dark quiet wake
like all the long nights
I've forgotten

I will go sleep
on the soft shoulder
of the mountains

Watch her hands
cupping the moon

Somewhere west
of these frozen sad dunes

Say goodbye to the cry of the gull
and the bluewater wind I love

that leaves me feeling so cold.

play me an air
   a bluebird lament
something meant for the breathing
  to remember

  all i want to hear
is a soft melody
  sad as the winter
still on the wind

     let your bow waltz
on the strings of my heart
     let the sound
  of your fiddle
set sail

play me an air
   like the bluebird did
     while i dance
  with the snow
in my hair.

A cold wall of dis-associative amnesia
Low crawling across the bay
A transient sea ischemia
That spills across the quay
A tide of ghostly blanch
Enveloping all in its way
Like a timid avalanche
On a fugue state winter's day

r  18Jan14

Cold days, dark nights,
yield memories left
like headless corpses
on some ancient field;
seasons and years,
blood, sweat and tears,
the chains and links,
those things that bind;
blinding sharp beak,
black murderous bird,
winging over peaks,
leaving these worldly
lows below behind me;
my dying wish is for
restful bliss in winter's
white sheet stiffly lying.

My coat is black
like the nights
I have long forgotten.

I left heaven
for the taverns.

I did my readings before daybreak
when the moon was far aloft,
but the nights got longer.

I kept putting things off
hoping I would discover a star
I knew was there.

Now I saw logs
and leave the leaves
where they fall.

Oh, come on you black-eyed
***** Night. Spite me
with sleep. Strike me, like
a cottonmouth. Sing me
your dark song, like a footfall 
in my hallway, like a night watch-
man dropping his lantern,
a last turn of the fan, a whisper
of a mystery, a kiss with wisteria
and moonshine on your breath.

A man who cannot dream
is a man without a woman,
like someone thinking of a tractor,
the loss of a limb, the bequest
of a brass bed, a rundown plantation,
a large white house with a black
dinner bell but no supper,
a wayfarer going nowhere,
a vanished explorer
sometimes lost in his own room.

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.

Only half watching the Sochi Olympics and
     wondering why all of a sudden ice hockey
without brawling gap-toothed players
      seemed so captivating as the puck was blocked
effortlessly by a graceful skating illusion
      did I realize that behind that face mask and
and billowing raven hair was a bright-red              
       lipsticked beautiful face that totally shook
my floor. In my state of inattention I found    
       myself attracted to a hockey player
Scared the hell out if me until I realized that
       it was women's competition

r ~ 9Feb14

If I look long enough I'll see
mammoth bones with butcher marks,
a broken flint blade between the ribs
- an empty crib, Madonna's face, a swan
on a snake with two heads - instead
of lightly stained pine grains
on the back of a dusty shelf half-
full of myself, old books and odd things
with lost words waiting in the wings.

snow comes early this year
in southern climes

- records broken


radio man talks
of a warming globe

- a broken record


seas have risen
many, many times
and frozen, too

- in southern climes


have I shown you
my wooly mammoth tooth?

it's very old.

r ~ 11/1/14

All of his letters ended in goodbye
instead of to be continued

someday we're all going to die
my brother, he would say

now he's got me saying the same
words like the moon and darkness
that only we could hear

he'd listen to the blues and sip whiskey
until morning, then wake me
from my sleep, tell me to go out

and cut the weeds
growing up around the stone
angels in the field.

I should silence
this troublesome whispering
inside my heart

I've already considered
the plain facts
of absence

Falling headlong
into its gorge
too soon

Not knowing who might
drown in their own eyes
night after night

It's not my wish to punish
or pain another soul
beyond my own.

You may as well dance
to the tune of a blue moon.

Or sing a lullaby to the sun,
eat a bellyfull of stars,
try to keep away from bars. :)

How do we write about love?

It's too hard to capture in words,
and in verse it's even worse.

But the hardest thing of all
isn't when we fall,
it's when we let it go.

How do you say that, you know?

Asked to write a poem of yellow, what could I possibly have to add that would celebrate this word found within the sun, the moon, at times, the stripes of a bumblebee, a butterfly, a yellow jacket's sting,  the brilliant splash on a painted bunting, the goldfinch, canary, a yellow breasted warbler, baby chicks, a rubber duck, a baby duck, too, a dandelion in spring, a sunflower, a rose of sorts, a lily, daffodils in a field of wheat, rubber boots upon your feet on a rainy day, a slicker, too, a school bus, a number two pencil, a taxi when you're running late, a tangy lemon, a banana, sometimes a grapefruit, butter on a pancake, egg yolk for your western omlet, lemon drops, cheese, macicheese, and a cheese pizza, too, yellow hair on a farm boy, a piece of straw in his father's mouth, his yellow-haired beautiful sis, her yellow polka-dotted dress, a yellow kitten, a dog in a sad movie like old yeller.

So nice, the color yellow, on a sunny day in May.

r ~ 5/3/14

Yep

We knew him well
his jest
most excellent
alas, not infinite

Where be your gibes now?
Your gambols? Your songs?
Your flashes of merriment,
that were wont
to set the table on a roar? (Hamlet, V.i)

We laughed,
we cried
amused and touched

Borne on your back,
anguish unspoken

Poor Yorick.

r ~ 8/12/14

After the wind has finished
with her mischief, and night
black as a Crow caws the dawn
and as the ocean's cold hands
fold and unfold, tomorrow
will surely bring some sorrow
only time will tell, while I while
away the long hours listening
to the tapping on my windows
wishing again, just once again
that it was you and not the rain.

I dreamed you came aboard
to commend me to the sea
and I dreamed you rode a horse

to your wedding sidesaddle
even though the only thing
you let between your legs

was the melancholy strings
of the cello, you with your instinct
for music and dangerous suitors

I still place to this day what is left
of the afternoon in care of your hands
kissed by so many strange men

whose names you can't remember
on the long nights we spend
together without sleeping

in the same bed alone we are
dreaming the dreams
we dream when all love is lost.