#montana
The way that Villard Street composes a tease I take every time,
as if I'll get all the way to Bozeman Creek;
drive my car into the culvert and wash away a year or 15...
Or how the trees on South Willson won't let me forget
the bookstore I loved before, back then--
_Back when?_
...when it was there. Never mind.
Leaves breeze-swaying/dancing to the rhythm of a laughter
caught bitter in a swelling throat.
I remember a reminder. 7th & College. I'm not supposed to be here
by now.
A future my youth had rejected.
Never signed up for.
There's a piece of my fingerprint removed; it's shaped like
Scott Street--like rain in Osborne Village.
There's a piece of my Gallatin ghostwalk that's the color of Polo Park Mall.
It makes a Province of sense, but States nothing at all.
I'm invisible here.
_Might be there too._
But my insides--my infrastructure--were built for Corydon Avenue
and the R.M. of East St. Paul.
You-me mailed a promise to me-you back then
_BACK. WHEN?_
NEVER MIND.
from this Cat pawed zip code to R2E 1B9 and then what?
_been a long time_
Been a while for brown eyes to run dry. Drag my blue through the mud on Pembina Highway,
Dry my tired center out and sew me up, I guess, with
a stitching
of 11th and Alderson. Try to debride these festering wounds
I gave myself, back in Kildonan or sliced open on Bird's Hill Road.
_Had long enough to heal, ain't ya?_
I guess I've had long enough
May 23, 2025
May 23, 2025 at 11:34 AM UTC
We both had enough of the poison Springtime
So you picked me up, and you started driving.
The street's Westbound,
rain and wipers pound.
We can be reborn if we can just depart
our town.
Race away--
--like we'd set fire to Bon-Ton
Lose a day...
...take 84 past the county line.
Let the rain keep time on the sunroof
'til we're fine.
Do they ever feel it?
--Someone does!
The grinding. Rewinding,
hit play to repeat
and then
get paid.
The payoff?
You'll stave off
14 lies from their dead end eyes
for one fortnight.
Be forthright.
Am I blind?
Or do I detect that
our headaches kind of rhyme?
Make us reborn this time; phoenix down and back upright.
Continued the drive and the world we're righting.
We killed our time
and came back to life
Just in time to return to our twinkling
town lights.
When we have our fill of the pissant Summer,
let me pick you up and we'll head out driving.
past the Cannery
until Rouse turns free
our zipped up obits that we can't speak
cleanly.
Race away--
--like we'd set fire to Bon-Ton
Lose a day...
...take 84 past the county line.
Let the rain keep time on the sunroof
'til we're fine.
Let the rain keep time
on the sunroof.
You'll be fine...
Apr 23, 2025
Apr 23, 2025 at 2:28 PM UTC
There once was a man from Montana
Whose favoritest butter was canna:
He'd spread it on hotcakes
(Which made of them potcakes),
And add some sliced up banana.
Feb 25, 2025
Feb 25, 2025 at 11:49 PM UTC
#
Along the priarielands--
rolling hills previously
roamed
by wild buffalo.
Grouse
sage hens
prairie chickens
pheasant
hungarian partridge
and now you--
You, in that pretty, flowing
summer dress- walking that
line.. between planted field
and wild prairiegrass
and not a blade is broken.
Wind-- moving the grass and
nearly-ripened crops like
slow rolling waves
out on the sea.
Me.. watching you
move.. just watching you-- move..
along that line between
beautifully-planted
and natural..
and moving with understanding;
flowing--
ever-growing
knowing.. sweetly knowing
that there's a glowing
from what you are showing-- me;
Not a blade of grass or crop is
ever harmed by your movements
instead.. like me, they thrive--
leaning into you
whenever you are near.
. . .
I am the grass
the blade
the crop-- ready for harvest
the bison
and the upland bird
the forever wave hello
of the tall grass of the prairie.
And you are as much a
part of it all
as you are of me.
Like the native grass
and the native Lakota
that have both
always known its ways..
you were always meant to be here.
#
Sep 11, 2022
Sep 11, 2022 at 2:11 PM UTC
We met in our freshman year gym class. That sounds like the making of a romantic comedy, right? We both know that that's not how this will end.
I'm watching a single broken thread
Of a spider web
Bellow in the sunlight
Of my bedroom.
The spider keeps crawling
Up his broken thread but
Keeps hopelessly
falling back to the bottom.
I named the spider Charles,
Cause it sounds like
One of your many nicknames for me.
I'm trying to make Charles' web into
A metaphor for you.
Are you broken like the string,
Are you doomed like Charles,
A modern day Sisyphus?
I have an English degree.
I can make anything a metaphor.
I've known you for 11 years now; how many of them have you been dead for? I'm tired of you being dead. Can't you just make fun of my hair again? Remember how good we were at algebra?
I miss you not being dead. I drove you to your best friend's funeral. I hardly knew that kid. My only sustaining image of him is the memory of him breaking down a door, drunk, because he wanted to **** one of my friends.
But the truth is is that I sobbed harder than anyone at his ******* hopeless funeral.
You told me you were gonna go out like him.
And because I looked down
into that cheap (bargain deal) coffin,
Which never should have been
An open casket, and
Into your friend's half-lid
Blue tinged eyes,
And suddenly,
it wasn't him.
It was you,
My sweet, old friend.
Aug 5, 2022
Aug 5, 2022 at 7:21 PM UTC
The waves of the dam
near Ogosta Stadium are raging,
and the opponent of the Glory
is insecure and afraid.
Powerful choruses
the hosts sing
because the moment is coming
for a convincing win.
This is FC Montana.
Club with heart and a century of history,
with ups and downs flooded
always striving for the top and a better change.
With a school springboard for talent,
the only one that is free.
Coaches who believe in children
and in their future glorious successes.
The traditional colors are blue, white and red -
gathering people in a sacred union.
Blue hearts tremble in a fast rhythm,
expecting the match to conquer.
Small and big fans
with songs they strive,
the loyalty for their team to sustain
and give the necessary support.
Every day they long
for the strong emotions,
they share for the future.
Mar 14, 2021
Mar 14, 2021 at 8:32 AM UTC
lots of tasty foods
colorful seasons changing
as Black Sea shivers
Mar 7, 2021
Mar 7, 2021 at 7:51 AM UTC
Buzzing drinks, this purple sky
shrink around the orange street lights.
You told me once, it might be nice
to know what the look
of a winning hand looked like.
Cliched sighs were my reply.
Kept me from at least two lies.
Lines of Alaise, I'm swinging blind.
I'll play your best cue as it lies.
Sing something sweet to me
Raise your brown eyes to meet our city.
My blue ones always sink;
when the chorus kicks in
you look so pretty.
I know you're not right for me.
And, baby, I'm no good for anybody.
But at least we share some needs
and the midnight view from the bridge on Orange Steet.
Stumbling steps and shaky laughs
and creasing lines in clasping hands.
I told you once I'd take a chance
to see the sly curve
of your wine-soaked shy glance
Buzzing signs, citrus street lights
Let's fall in love with urban blight.
Our voices loud, we're walking blind.
So here's my best play, one last time.
Sing something sweet to me.
Close my blue eyes--I love this city.
Your brown eyes sing to me.
We're the chorus now, babe--
you're bright, but I'm witty.
Know it's been a ******* week.
And I know I'm no good for anybody.
But let's still our shaking knees
and kiss a new year on the bridge on Orange Street.
Apr 23, 2018
Apr 23, 2018 at 9:53 AM UTC
I've been a feature here for four years now.
You're an armchair or a doormat
Once you've been around
awhile.
I wanted fresh breath and a brand new face.
Maybe a companion just to
take up space beside
my side.
But the "EXIT" light was on too long.
"Eventually, they heed it or they just become
fading notes in a song
that we forgot we sung."
Or at least that's what you told me...
Or at least that's what I'll write here...
And what about you...?
It's a tangling grid of street names I
keep
tangled on my tongue
3 inches under my eyes
(They ask directions).
An end result of a series of
hasty,
maybe-good decisions
I made 4 years ago.
(Seek validation).
And what about you...?
There's a comfort here we can't escape,
take two for granted
and call to cancel coffee dates.
There's an ease that breeds friendships like ours,
Convenient and seasonal;
Friendships that really aren't.
"Rose Park" names our neighborhood
A few blocks slant, we prob'ly shouldn't
talk today...
Similar coordinates
A useless map. Mistake by any
other name...
Second chances, we won't get them.
And I guess we don't deserve them.
The State's an acci-
dental sigh.
The town's a too-comfortable lie.
And you, I guess
are just another neighbor of mine.
Apr 11, 2017
Apr 11, 2017 at 11:51 AM UTC
the coaxing leering laughter and the coke crusted smiles hold me together through my daily trials until the mountains fade and plains stretch far and my childhood chains resurface along with old scars.
Dec 30, 2016
Dec 30, 2016 at 2:36 AM UTC
these foothills
rolling in pine and
grassland meadows,
where silvery lupine
follow the melting snow,
hint of the mountains to come
in spiny crags that
catch a cumulus pocked sky
cottonwood tufts rain
this day after solstice
Jun 30, 2016
Jun 30, 2016 at 2:23 PM UTC
A searing night. A price
tallied out and settled up.
I'm sipping down the size
of the smaller plights of times like these
in towns with bloodshot eyes.
Your coyote grin,
the gravel in
my creosote laughter were paving
the longest paths to saving graces
and filling up deaf ears.
I'm spilling every ounce
of all my guts
on your ears in the alley where I threw
up last year
when I disappeared from your birthday.
Your coyote grin,
eyes glistenin',
you laughed kinda quiet while walking.
Familiar paths. We're talking crazy
through bitter whiskey sneers.
But I think, this hot night,
I'm ready to believe...
Between the asphalt and the stars
Between the almost-fights
and rushing cars
Between the blurring downtown bars...
We'll find some common ground.
The town's lit up, we'll trickle down
to a point of least resistance
where we can bid farewell to arms.
Or I'll find my way back home
to 1130 Longstaff
where my walls can close me in.
Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 9:32 AM UTC
The moon jumps into the bathtub,
a crystal mirror reflecting the night sky,
black creatures dancing with insects on the surface.
An old man sits on his porch at the earliest hours,
sitting in his sepia rocking chair,
back and forth,
back and forth.
I’m home.
Apr 19, 2016
Apr 19, 2016 at 11:23 AM UTC
That night we
decided that our streets led nowhere,
so we followed them any place.
Apartments
to grass outside the Molly Brown,
cracking faces, sidewalks, traced our way...
North on 7th,
getting warmer.
Inverted frowns
are getting larger
Now
I'm wondering if these
half-formed
flimsy, brittle life-plans
and
half-drained,
dented, warming pint cans
of Schlitz
clutched inside our fists
suggest that it's worth it
To pin our hopes on approaching
footsteps of Summer?
Or just halt our frozen
progress through the Wintertime
when we reach your front door.
We just kept
decoding all our scrambled rambling
'til we'd set the world on its head.
Keep walking,
keep laughing at our young mistakes,
sober night backdrop to beer soaked breaths.
X'd out eyes
and gravel sidewalks.
Bozeman Autumn.
Watch out, mailboxes
'cuz
We're wondering if these
half-formed
flimsy, crack-filled answers
and
empty,
drained, five dollar pitchers
of Pabst
humming 'neath our caps
will help us draw our maps
and stick a pin in the Summer,
page turned on Winter,
or just melt our thawing
progress to another time
when later days trickle down.
Oct 21, 2015
Oct 21, 2015 at 4:49 PM UTC
Who are these farmers,
And who, these fertile fields,
Verdant under native grass,
That stand un-plowed,
That shake beneath the plow,
That lie now fallow,
That bear the planted seed,
That wear the heavy grain,
That await the Harvest pain?
And who, these Harvesters,
And who, these close-shorn fields,
Desolate in short-cut stubble,
That stand, stiff in silence,
That wear the heavy tracks,
That have endured the harvest,
That yielded up their dead,
That bristle through the falling snow,
That whistle wind-song low?
And who, these merry Farmers,
And who these stubbled fields,
Glistening beneath the melting snow,
That warm beneath the glowing sun,
That host the migrants of the sky,
That tremble the biting plow,
That accept the falling seed,
That wait beneath the welcome rains,
That cycle through the seasons once again?
Jul 30, 2015
Jul 30, 2015 at 9:29 AM UTC
City limit space expands,
it's threaded through with veins--
grey-black dendritic strands
span
across this moldy brain
of a city.
Our rotting nights spray hits around
the places players play.
The impulses will whitewash all complaints
'til the glaring day.
I wanna spit-shine every storm drain,
stain the cracked sidewalks in white,
take this town to Sunday morning Mass,
though she was born for Friday nights.
We're gonna trickle past addresses
now,
Electroshock through habit streets
these crosswalks sneer with snide expression.
Mildewed thoughts we'll hardly think.
A conversation you're repressing
I'm smoothing out my wrinkled brow
Another weekend's blurred out
blank confession
melts off the tips of tongues,
I can taste it now.
Circulation space expands,
we're threaded through with veins--
this bio-asphalt plan
spans
all through this molded frame
of a body.
But rotten thoughts, like ships aground,
teach sailors how to pray
when impulses have buried all complaints
'neath the foaming spray.
I wanna shade out every bruise now,
paint the dumpsters all in gold.
Missoula, listen: You're a lady.
I don't give a **** what you've been told.
A moldy brain dreams slattern makeup
for a prizefight town each night
so let's take up every artist's brush,
paint shadows on these barroom eyes.
We're gonna flow right through these boule-
vards.
Electroshock through habit streets.
These dim lit yards and spoiled thoughts
are hyphens placed between each week.
A conversation you're repressing,
I'm smoothing out my wrinkled brow.
Our city's made-up face is running
off the tips of winter and I taste it now.
Feb 15, 2015
Feb 15, 2015 at 1:19 PM UTC
There's a tiny park a short walk from here
where no one ever goes.
Though it's always abandoned,
I like to walk there when it snows
'cuz it seems like
a relative.
Don't complain to me, my friend
if your face is feeling raw;
It gets cold here in Montana,
and December nights get long.
and they have not
failed me yet.
So salt your frigid frown
and lay down bets on warmer times
in five more months, the thaw will come
and we just might quit rolling snake eyes.
Icy air is not your enemy
and neither are this small city
or I.
The same park, it has a baseball field,
leaf-covered, looking old
the dugout's still in good repair,
but the basepaths overgrown
remind me of,
A New Year's alone
Remember one warm night when we thought
we were in the mood
to walk to the convenience store
for some box wine and some food?
we played cards,
locked in my room...
Now we're crying California tears
from laughing all night long.
And you don't really hate Montana,
you're just doing Winter wrong.
So lay your anger down
and hedge your bets 'til nicer days
don't stay inside, 'cuz you don't have to.
Graft my smile over your grimace,
this dull white-out's not the end for us
and neither is the bitter cold
outside.
Oct 1, 2014
Oct 1, 2014 at 4:38 PM UTC
White-furred hill flowers bow
Gust-bent,
Wet in April snow,
Lavender beneath their
Downy coats.
Tender soldiers of spring
Grasp wind-blown gravel steeps,
Stand to beckon brown grass,
Soft-call the life in sapless trees
To ring with green again
Against Old Bully Winter’s
Blustering.
Quaking aspens,
Earliest to leaf in yellow-green,
Curling grama grasses,
Tough food for buffalo,
Cannot boast first life each Montana spring;
Only zombie-lichens,
Rock-fast mosses
Throw off winter’s death
Before the crocus' rise.
On eastern Montana hills
No street-hemmed dandelions
Colonize in chute-dropped ranks;
No time-tamed tulips
Live on wind-round knolls.
Here, the yucca’s bayonet-sharp ******
Here, the wild onions’ scent-strong hold;
But these arrive after early chill,
Following the purple crocus on the hill.
Jan 4, 2012
Jan 4, 2012 at 8:36 AM UTC
All day making hay, we watched the empty sky.
Summer heat, clinging shirts soaked, powder caked in dust.
Though we worked a Montana field,
I knew when my father said,
"Hurricane weather."
By two or so, a few small clouds, high and innocent,
Were forming to the west; we did not stop to rest;
A field of second cutting hay down,
Windrows of perfect hay
Fed the tireless machines we rode.
By supper time, a line of gray progressed,
Menacing from north to south and moving east.
"Supper'll have to wait, boys," and Dad was right.
We raced the sky and quickly coming night.
Unnatural calm and breathless air held dust above our rows;
We pressed on, knowing that the winds were on their way.
Bright bolts began to stab across the plain;
We guessed the storm was half an hour away.
The race was nearly finished, our baling nearly done,
When lightning struck around us, sure as any gun.
We looked for Dad, and he baled on, so what to do but follow?
But when the rain and hail fell, our work was done.
Laughing as we ran, we piled into a truck;
Let the tractors stand to face the storm alone
As rain and hail poured anger at our bales,
And we, the merry balers, headed home.
Jun 21, 2014
Jun 21, 2014 at 9:57 PM UTC