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Jim Davis  Apr 2017
Touching
Jim Davis Apr 2017
In the last
three decades,
after we became one,
I touched
amazingly beautiful things,
horribly ugly things,  
unbelievably wondrous things

I touched nature's majesty;
hued walls of the Grand Canyon,              
crusty bark of the
Redwoods and Sequoias,
live corals of the
Great Barrier Reef,
dreamlike sandstone of the Wave

I touched magical and strange;
platypus, koalas and
kangaroos Down Under,
underwater alkali flies and
lacustrine tufa at Mono Lake,
astral glowing worms
in the Kawiti caves

I touched holy places;
Christianity's oldest churches,
the Pope's home in the Vatican,
Hindu and Sikh temples and
Moslem mosques in India,
Anasazi's kivas of Chaco canyon,
Aboriginal rocks of Uluru and Kata Tjuta

I touched glimmers of civilization;
uncovered roads of Pompeii,
fighting arenas of Rome,
terra cotta armies of Xian,
sharp stone points of the Apache,
pottery shards from the Navajo,
petroglyphs by the Jornada Mogollon

I touched fantastical things;
winds blowing on the
steppes of Patagonia,,
playas and craters of Death Valley,  
high peaks of the Continental Divide,
blazing white sands of the  
Land of Enchantment

I touched icons of liberty
and freedom;
the defended Alamo,
a fissured Liberty Bell,
an embracing Statue of Liberty,
the harbor of Checkpoints
Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie

I touched glorious things
made by man;
the monstrous Hoover Dam,
an exquisite Eiffel tower,
a soaring St Louis Arch,
an Art deco Empire State Building,
the sublime Golden Gate Bridge

I touched sparks from history;
the running path of an
Olympic flame just off Bourbon,
the last steps of Mohandas Ghandi
at Birla House before Godse,
******'s Eagle's nest and the
grounds over Der Führerbunker

I touched walls of power;
enclosed rings of the Pentagon,
steep steps of the
Great Wall of China,
untried bastions of
Peter and Paul's fortress,
fitted boulders of Machu Picchu

I touched strong hands;
of those conquering
Rommel's and ******'s hordes,
of cold warriors of
Chosin Reservoir,  
of forgotten soldiers of Vietnam,
of terrorist killers of today

I touched memories of war;
the somber Vietnam memorial,
the glorious Iwo Jima statue,
the cold slabs at Arlington,
the buried tomb of USS Arizonians,
Volgograd's Mother Russia  

I touched ugly things;
shreds of light in
Port Arthur's prison,
horrible smelly dust
in the streets from 9/11,
ash impregnated dirt
in the pits at Auschwitz

I touched oppressed freedom;
open ****** plazas
of Tiananmen Square,
smooth pipe and concrete
of the Berlin Wall,  
tall red brick walls
of the Moscow Kremlin

I touched constrained freedom;
heavy ankle and
wrist slave chains
in the South,
little windows
in Berlin's Stasi prison,
haunted cells in Alcatraz  

I touched remnants of madness;
wire and ovens of Auschwitz,
stacked chimneys and
wooden bunks of Birkenau,        
Ravensbruck, and Dachau,
the tomb of Lenin,
toppled Stalins

I touched hands of survivors;
of Leningrad's siege,
of German POWs and
of Russian fighters
of Stalingrad's battle,
of Cancer's scourges  

I touched grand things;
deep waters of the Pacific and Atlantic,
blue hills of Appalachia,
towering peaks of the Rockies,
high falls of Yosemite Valley,
bursting geysers of Yellowstone,
crashing glaciers of Antarctica and Alaska    

I touched times of adventure;
abseiling and zipping in Costa Rica,
packing Pecos wilds and Padre isles,
flying nap of earth Hueys to Meridian,
breaking arms in JRTC's box,
fighting Abu Sayyaf, and Jemaah
Islami in Zamboanga City

I touched through you;
wet sand beaches of  Mexico and Jamaica,
mysterious energy of the monoliths of Stonehenge,
rarefied air in front of the
Louvre's Mona Lisa,
ancient wonders of Giza,
Egypt's tombs and pyramids

We shared soft touches;
drifting in Bora Bora's
surreal waters,
joining hands camel trekking the
Outback's dry sands,
strolling along Tasmania's
eucalyptus forest trails

basking in swinging hammocks
under Fiji's bright sun,
scrambling in
Las Vegas' glittering and
red rock canyons,
kissing under the
Taj Mahal's symphony of arches

We shared touching deep waters;
propelled in gondolas
through the city of canals,
Drifting atop Uru cat boats on Lake Titticaca,
Swooping in jet boats
up a wild river in Talkeetna

Racing in speed boats
around Sydney's great harbour,
skimming in pangas in Puerto Ayora,
paddling the Kennebec for
East's best petroglyphs,
cruising Salzbergwerk's underwater lake

We touched scrumptious things;
Beignets and chicory coffee at DuMonde's in the Big Easy,
Hot *** with sesame sauce
in the walled city of Xian,
Peking duck, dimsum, scorpions,
snake and starfish on Wangfujing Snack Street

We touched delicious things
Crawfish heads and tails at JuJu's shack
and ten years at Jeanette's,
Langoustine at Poinciana's, Fjöruborðinus and Galapagos,
Cream cheese and loch bagels
at Ess-a' s in the Big Apple

I touched your hand riding;
hang loose waves of Waikiki,
a big green bus in Denali's awesomeness,
clip clopping carriages of Vienna, Paris,
Prague, New Orleans, Krakow,
Quebec City, and Zakopane,
the acapella sugar train of St Kitts

We shared touching on paths;
the highway 1 of Big Sur,
the Road of the Great Ocean,
the bahn to Buda and Pest,
the path to the North of Maine,
the trail of the Hoh rainforest,
and time after time, the way home

Yet,
I could spend
the next three decades,
in simple bliss,
having need for
touching nothing,
other than you!

©  2016 Jim Davis
A poem I wrote last year for my wife!  Posted now since it matches the HP' theme for today - "Places"
Hal Loyd Denton  Nov 2011
Pueblo
Hal Loyd Denton Nov 2011
Pueblo

Stand still great adobe home stretch higher stacked high and long oh cliff dwelling ancient ones you
Passed as shadows you practiced the arts and religions of your people the Anasazi in my mind of all

Peoples you saw true visions of heaven and your building in the sides of cliffs are evidence of this nothing
Else that I know of captures the imagination and gives the look and feeling of heaven the only place that

Outweighs the southwest for mystery is the Sahara with the Southwest and its Mesas canyons plateaus
Then to have a people carve out homes and live in cliffs at night talk about a city of light built on a hill

Some are eight thousand feet straight up what a night spectacle reaching for miles the one in New
Mexico is in close proximity to the Cimarron and the Pecos rivers you can feel the sand stone on your

Hands and fingers feel it under your feet feel the baskets they made the pottery black and gray or white
These are small treasures even today their culture is amazing spellbinding at election they trot out the

Map part is red part is blue well the red of native Americans still reaches from coast to coast just
Reduced to pockets and sadly those are stories of overriding sadness that’s because we pigeon hole them if

they are given honor and recognition for their feats and exploits everyone would be better off
There isn’t any person that can’t teach others fine and grand things about life unless you are desert

People that have sold out your soul bought into garbage that a few are trying to enslave you by their
Twisting truth only to their advantage while you must lie at their feet and be their dogs that kind of

Thinking is best saved for fertilizer let your mind follow the eagle across the desert sky push beyond
Limitations turn defeat and obstacles that block you into new paths of opportunity the Anasazi survived

In a hostile environment of hot temperature low amounts of rainfall what did they do wisely they
Changed the course of small streams that were manageable for irrigation they didn’t defeat them selves

By trying it with rivers that were too big and they used their greatest available asset the winter snow
Some was natural run off that gathered into springs in other cases they manipulated nature for the

Benefit of everyone if you’re in harsh conditions and things are bleak he makes ways where there are no
Ways if you keep getting a beating instead of being loved and receiving a blessing there is an ancient

Cure that goes back farther than the Anasazi his name holds every need you will ever have for now and
always God bless you friend
Robert C Howard Jul 2020
As plaintive tones from a distant flute
     drifted across the mesa valley    
the sun over Spruce Tree House
     began its descent toward dusk.

Above the courtyard, Anasazi masons
     plaster-sealed the final stones
on the great cylindrical tower.
     Collisions of mano and metate
echoed across the canyon as women
     crushed dried kernals into cornmeal.
Others hummed as their skilled hands
     brushed thin black patterns onto
scores of newly crafted bowls and jars.

A young girl rushed up a ladder
     to announce her brothers' return
from ripe mesa top fields,
     carrying baskets of fresh cut
corn, squash and beans on their backs.

A summer of nourishing rain
     promised that storage cists
would be stocked well with food for
     the arduous winter ahead
and seed for the vernal plantings.

Dusk fell on Spruce Tree plaza
     as rich aromas of venison
and fresh baked flatbread
     suffused the crisp October air.
Anasazi is the fourth poem in a cycle called Echoes from Colorado.
Kara Troglin Apr 2013
In the deep of time indigenous tribes
surfaced a red earth with protruding plateaus
and burnt canyons along the Cimarron River.
The ancient Anasazi settled
at the core of this mesa.
Scattered ponderosa pine.
Yet, their sudden demise echoed curiosity.

Navajo sensed a struggle of two infinite worlds,
a quivering inundation.
Circling its haunted ominous shape,
a skull with one eye, the apparition of light
rose into a blue desert sky.

Violent storms crackle hot lightning
strikes in a sulfurous summer-
an oracular hothouse.
Navajo talk of spirits or the gateway
to fire. Heaps of iron and lodestone
lodged in the cap. Only two
brazen, cat totem poles guarding its passage.

Standing among the mesa
to feel the verve of the earth.
A New Mexico sun beats down
burning the drowsed terrain.
To see the legendary shaman glow
in his ephemeral blue nimbus.
Bathed in gaudy turquoise.

Sensing the dark encroachment
of a ghost. Near the bony hills, soared
a turbulent black bird in full flight,
upward.
A ghost poem assignment for workshop class. Critiques?
r Nov 2014
your boot was turned the wrong way
on the post out by the highway
- sharp toe pointing to the south
away from where you've been

you're no stranger to the rangers
living dangerously on the edge
- sidewinders in the sagebrush
whispering to the wind

the anasazi built this home
stacking stone one by one
- far above the canyon
of petroglyphs and wrens

i knew i'd find you by the fire
talking to the ghosts of smoke and drum
- in the ruins above the dunes
reminiscing with your friends

- reminiscing, reminiscing
on the blue mesa.

r ~ 11/6/14
Robert Ronnow Aug 2015
Blackbrush -- Coleogyne ramosissima
the dominant understory shrub
in the pinyon-juniper canyons.

Mountain-mahogany -- Cercocarpus montanus and ledifolia.
Single-leaf ash -- Fraxinus anomalus
and possibly a western hophornbeam

by the small birch-like leaves
and the shredding bark
in a moist stretch of joint trail.

The joint-fir, green ephedra
looks like an ocean plant.
Could the wind or white water rivers alone

have shaped these sandstone, red rock forms?
Network of canyons, inverse of mountains.
It had to be ocean

ebbing and flowing, emotionally, like wind,
moving atmosphere, thicker
shaving, scraping, polishing, gouging, digging

fish canyons
then, shallower, dinosaur swamps
now, dry, rock gardens.

Explain the human history with water:
did the Anasazi visit neighbors
along the canyon rims and deep within,

combination caves and red-rock houses
small windows, doorways, just crawlways,
with corn gifts on summer evenings

when the canyon bottoms held permanent, not intermittent,
streams? After them
came the Ute and Navajo, Spanish and English.

Ravens dine on road ****.
A few long red roads connect some canyons.
The unprotected flats are overgrazed, rabbitbrush.

It is interesting
that as I learn the woody and herbaceous plants,
walk the desert foothills, I too could stay.
www.ronnowpoetry.com
Robert C Howard Aug 2013
There's a time machine whirring in my head
    that needs no dials or crystals.
        I shut my eyes and whoosh I’m off to tour my universe.

        I am five eating  sherbet
    nurse-brought to ease the ache
where tonsils lately flared and burned.

A sheepskin's offered at the high school gym.
    Hands swirl pressing ink into paper
        that binds a home to me and me to labor.

        I toss Dad a curve and it snaps in his glove.
    We sip Boston Coolers on the stoop.
I watch a shovel of earth fall to his casket.

Checking the mirror I escape the garage
    steering past farms where ancestors whisper,
        “Welcome home, son, won’t you stay awhile? ”
    Glad for the offer I cannot accept, I drive on.

My machine can fast forward too
    and the future beckons like Odysseus’s Sirens -
        promising pleasures and hidden perils.

        Next month’s journey to Anasazi lands
    is already mapped and scheduled  
and we are camera ready.

After some future dusk
    I will join the ancient ones in the past tense,  
        but for now, undaunted by submerged rocks
    I advance steadily toward the Sirens’ song.

There is a time machine whirring in my head.
    You have one too.
        There is much to see – and time is dear.

                Come ride with me!

June,  2006
In 1850, all of my paternal ancestors were farmers.  By 1900 none of them were.  My wife and I drove through 40 miles of vital agriculture today and I hated to get back to the city.  Fortunately our house is about 1/4 of a mile from a field where the corn is at least 12 feet tall.
ShamusDeyo Mar 2015
Out in the West, a Tale is told
By Wise weathered Indians of old,
Passed down as a Shamans Tale
It told of Guardian Spirits...

For Our Mother Earth and Father Sky
On Sacred Lands only reverent pass by
Those with Selflessness Come through
To pray to Mother Earth and Father Sky

Give thanks for Brother Sun and Sister Moon
Some that the rite goes back to ancient eons
Brought by the Anasazi to all his Children
In praise for what they were given.....

A wanderer Came upon these Sacred lands
With ****** in his heart, and blood on his hands
Father Sky sent his Spirit Hawk as Guard on the Land
His cry in the Sky reached the ears of the Wolf Spirit

A pile of bleached Bones the angry man came upon
The Gaurdian Wolf Spirit Howled out a Warning
As the Man's Spirit broke the Sacred Circle
Bounding the Bear Spirit came to ****

His Claw reached in and took the Hatred from his Heart
But without it the Man lost his Spirit and Began to Die
His death quick but not alone, he landed on a pile of bones
With his Companions He lay, til the day he was just bone dry...JMF

All the Work here is licensed under the Name
®SilverSilkenTongue and the © Property of J.Flack
I believe a little, wolf spirit aka quinnfinn inspired me
Robert C Howard  Jan 2015
Sipapu
Robert C Howard Jan 2015
At the third world's first sun,
the Anasazi climbed
through a narrow Sipapu
and pressed footprints in the dust
of a new unspoiled universe.

In secluded canyon hollows
watered by softly chanting springs,
they piled rocks upon stones
shaping vast adobe cities
mortared with pastes of moistened clay.

At Mesa Verde - Chaco - de Chelly
fields of maize sway,
brushed by the canyon winds
while Pueblos danced in the plazas below
to the throbbing beats
of skin-stretched hollow log drums.

Today their children’s children
circle fire pits in sacred Kivas
raising chants and prayers
to their hallowed ancestors.

Wearied by famine and conquest,
Pueblo eyes scan the heavens
searching for a new Sipapu
to lead them to a better world still.

September 11, 2006
Robert Ronnow Oct 2017
Plenty of sleep, no more tv, the wars in the Middle East
are resource wars, disguised as religious debates.
So Dad would say.

A beautiful winter day, hunting
season. A Gun In Every Home, in light of U.S. mass shootings
seems an irresponsible poem. 10K clicks

most popular poem on line, NRA enthusiasts and conservative
talk show hosts quoting it. Not really, no worries, poetry
makes nothing happen. Which is something, magic.

               *                     *                     *

I wonder if I'll have to someday defend that poem,
as in a Russian or Chinese show trial, Salem witch trial,
McCarthy anti-American committee or a college
political correctness safety hearing. Oh well.

What does it mean? Doc Wiseman says that's not how we decide
things in this country, lynching and chasing people with dogs.
You'd think twice about bombing Iran if Iran had the bomb.
Assume a defensive posture.

I've been reading Walzer's
Just and Unjust Wars, much like explaining how to tie your shoes,
or teaching an artificial intelligence to walk, talk
and think about God.

               *                     *                     *

The citizenry doesn't need weaponry sufficient to win a war,
just enough to give pause during its normal pursuit of pleasure
(hunting deer on a beautiful, clear winter morning).

Hunting and gathering and agriculture, local and small
or these almonds I'm eating from California's Imperial
Valley and all the water it took to grow 'em.

Slowly
          drip irrigation
                               takes hold.

Technologies
such as the Anasazi and other aborigines used are uploaded
for sustainable survival.

Much good goes with the bad,
school shootings with school science shows, art shows and
      Shakespeare's plays.
How to stop the unhappiness of ISIS

those lonesome souls from interfering with the evolution
of the species? With love. What did Christ mean
(and what did Wallace Stevens mean by imagination)?

               *                     *                     *

Accept (but contain).
Trust (but verify). Ha ha! Reagan was a pretty funny guy.
It must bother a president, a regular fellow who'll pack his suitcase and
      go back
to Iowa when his term is up, to know he's ordered the death
of a janitor on the night shift at a nuclear reprocessing plant
in a proportional response to a mullah's anger. Jurors

in the trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
have sentenced him to death. For his role in killing four people
and wounding hundreds more. There was no visible reaction
from Tsarnaev, 21, in the quiet courtroom.
Justice. In his own words "an eye for an eye."
Survivor Jared Clowery said he was happy not to have had to make the
      choice between life and death himself but he stands behind the jury's
      decision.

"There's nothing happy about having to take someone's life."
Good people without guilt or gloating. Yet
my thought was now we must forego the possibility of knowing
this young man's mind. There's still time to ask him questions
as in Dead Man Walking. To understand is to love
requiring the patience of the scientific method.

               *                     *                     *

Yesterday's single greatest joy
was solving the equation
T = 2π(r3/GMe)½
for Haley's comet orbiting
the sun.

And sitting in the sun
on a winter day.

— The End —