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Ken Pepiton Nov 2018
How we start is only part of what we eventually do.

Physically that's easy to see. Being human, adamkind,
we see weak starts often in life.
Colts or pups born a week too soon can be loved to lives as pampered pets,
Siring toys for the enjoyment of those who can afford to fuel them,
For generations, with never a single care,
Past that initial trauma and subsequent subjugation to the will of man.

I don't tell horse stories, dog stories or war stories, if I can keep from it.

But when you want to demonstrate the purest of payback,
revenge getting the bad guy in the end,
having a horse be the hero makes behaving like an animal
more noble to the mind of vengeful man.
It's not true, revenge being noble.
That's a very old lie.

Law is to prevent error by disallowing failure. Law.

Relative to the rest of God's creatures, we, adamkind, seem dependent, weak and vulnerable next to bears being weak
a way-less long time
Than we.
We come into this world weak as a baby anything and we stay that way longer
Than any living creature.

I am an American, by birth.
I was not born to a political party or a family with political roots,
"I ain't no Senator's son."
Still,
I was reared drinking mythic cherry wine
sprung from George's failure to lie
Regarding his woodman's knack with a hatchet.

Sitting on the fence rail Abe split,
town fathers where I lived
were said to have decided the most harmonious of towns
have only gainfully employed darker folks,
while white
trash was allowed to loll around because they was
some employer's kin by marriage.

It all seemed pretty normal, as a child.
The loller-arounders let kids listen when they told
Their friends, who could not read, what the newspapers said.

One block from my house there was a vet's and hobo's flop-house clad in corrugated tin, rusted-round the nail-holes all the way to the ground and the rust had spread, so at sunset,...
I only recall the single story shed having one door.
There were always old white men sittin' on the southside of the shed. At sunset, those old men's whispy white hair

appeared as white flowing mare's tale clouds under
a scab-red wall held up by old men with sunset shining faces...

It was a big shed, a low barn, a bunkhouse,
eight or ten 4-foot tin-sheets long on the north and south
Windowless walls.
The one door was on the south side.
Once I saw an old man selling red paper buddy poppies.
He was missing both legs about half-way up his thighs.
The poppy seller rode a square board that had what I think were
Roller-skates, the key-kind, with metal wheels about a 1/2 inch wide.
Nailed to it's bottom. He had handles made from a carpenter's saw
Without it's blade. He pushed himself with those handles.

That looked fun, to a four-year old.
It looks different now-a-days. Knowing
Those red poppies symbolized
The after math automatics of the war to end war.

Who knows the poppy-sellers son? He would be old.
Does he know how his father lost his legs, but lived?
Does he bear the curse of the curse that lost his father's legs?
Does he honor his father's cause or weep at the thought?

Enough is enough.
My family tree branched in America, but only one great grand-parent,
Three generations back from me, was rooted in this land.
My gran'ma's ma, a Choctaw squaw,
That rhymed fine,
But it's not true. My grandma did not know her parents. She was born an orphan,
And her father and mother were likely strangers.

1910 in southwest Arkansas or southeast Oklahoma or northeast Texas or northwest Louisiana
And the color of her skin is all that proved my American heritage.

My grandma was born poor as poor can be,
she never told me how she survived

To survive a 1925 or so car wreck
in eastern Arizona's white mountains.
I never asked what my grandmother knew,
nor how she came to know.

This is my point.
After you and I have gone into forever more,
Our great grand children may wonder
what we did or did not, since we
Are no longer around to give our account.

These days we can leave our story to our great grand children.
Our own children
And our grand children follow us on facebook back to before they were born.
Shall they judge us idlers wielding idle words for laughs,
or  think us knowers of all we found while seeking first the Kingdom of Heaven
In the place Jesus says it is. You know where Jesus said the Kingdom of our kind lies?

The double minded man is unstable in all his ways,
hence Eve and her broader bandwidth corpus colostrum
Come back later, there is a breath system upgrade evolving.

Such changes to the courage of the mind rolls out more slowly
to the root ideas, labouring to find sustenance,
it is a struggle being a radical idea,
we agree, but we have our part,
as do the flowers
and the spore.
Leaven the whole lump, like it or lump it.

The now we live in grew from far deeper roots than
the roots claimed by the
Self-identified nation through it's cartoons/representations of national desires to rally 'round the flag as if it were the fire,
those desires to herd beneath any shelter from the storm,
Your country, your incorporated allegiance
to the inventor and creator and counter of the money under
the protection of the sword and crown representative
of the flame that burns,
The namers of patriot, the rankeers of ideas
who, by their existence,
naturally, over rule you.
Such powers are granted by the individual, not the mob.
You get that?

The desires of the nation over rule the desires of the individuals who
Com-prize the nation.
Whose side are you on, dear reader?

Is the idea we believed believable?
Ex Nihilo, I don't think so because
I can't imagine how now could be
Accidental-ly.

When my hero wore spurs as he went from the jail office to
Miss Kitty's place, (Gunsmoke on A.M. radio)

What did Miss Kitty do?
I had no clue.
In my hero's world people never
Did the wrong thing
While Marshal Dillon was in Dodge.

So did you think Miss Kitty's place was anything other
than a culturally acceptable
reference to professional social ******* workers
under a strong, smart female CEO
with top-level links to the local cops?

All these are rhetorical questions, this being
Rhetorical if you are hearing me say this.
That means, don't nod or raise your hand or shout Amen, kin!

I see your answer my answer and
I know my answer, so you know my answer.

Step-back, 1961, USA Snapshot
Unitas, Benny Kid Perett, Mantlenmarris, the Guns of Navarone.

Why I recall those things, I know not.
Why I did not say I do not know, I do not know.

Though, pausing to think,
knowing contains the doing of it within it, you know.
What's to do?

Outlaws were more my heroes than cowboys, and marshals, and such
Especially the ones that had been forced out by law.

I grew up in a 1950's junkyard with no fence, one mile north of route 66
On the Al-Can highway to Las Vegas, 103 miles away.
My Grandpa was a blacksmith's son,
who rode a horse he broke and his pa had shod
From Texas to Arizona in 1917, at the age of 18.

by the time I knew him,
He was fifty, settled down, nearly, from the war.
Momma had to work, so, daytime, Granddaddy raised me.

Horses weren't, wrecked cars were,
the toys of my childhood.

Grandpa built a junkyard from cars left steam blown
on the old stage road, from before
the railroad.
The Abo Highway hain't been Route 66 for some time yet…
Hoping…


Hoping sometime to polish this bit of this book, I left myself re-minders
Hoping memory of mental realms might rewind or unwind sequentially
When trigger
Neighed.
That worked, Roy Autry and Gene Rogers were names Sue Snow's
Mormon Bishop granddaddy called me,
back when I first recall My Grandpa Caleb,
a baptist by confession,
who was,
as I recall a *****-drinkin' jolly drunk.
While Grandma made beds in some motel,
granddaddy built boats and horse trailers
and hot rod 34 Chevies,
and he fixed this one red Indian, I could read the word on the gas tank, I knew the word Indian
and this motor cycle was proud to wear the name. I was 4.

A stout-strong man, no fat near any working muscle system,
he could and would
repair any broken thing,
for anybody. People called him Pop.
Pop and Mr. Levi-next-door at the Loma Vista Motel, shared a listing in the Green Book,
so broke down ******* knew where help could be found
after dark in that town.
There was a warnin'ag'in
let'n sunset there
on darker than grandma's skin.

My Gran'daddy's shop had two gas pumps
that were reset to begin pumping with the turn of a crank.
As soon as I could turn that crank,
I could pump gas.
I could fill up that red Indian
Motorcycle.
But "m'spokes was too short
to kick the starter."
I told my eleven year old uncle
and he told
how he would always remember learning
that saddles have no linkage
to horse brakes.
"Not knowing what you cain't do
kin *** ye kilt."

He grew up in the junk yard, too.
My first outlaw hero.

Likely, I am alive today, because
On the day I discovered I could pump gas as good as any man,
I also discovered that real motorcycles were not built for little boys.
This is an earlier voice which I wrote a series of thought experiments. The book is finished, most parts, some reader feedback as to interest in more, will be high value gifts from you to me, and counted so.
Don Bouchard Apr 2015
Carl didn't finish school
Preferring to work on my father's farm
Breathing prairie dust and smoke
Seeing suns rise and fall
Living under the weather
Freezing or sweating to the season
Reading the wind
Cursing the heat that brought migraines
Smoking Salem cigarettes

Alone in his bunkhouse
With his regrets
Three meals a day with us
A car or truck demanding payments
Kept him coming back to work

The draft cards came;
Neighbors left, but Carl stayed.
One day I asked him,
"Why didn't you finish school?"
"Why weren't you drafted?"
"Are you going to marry?"

"I can't," was his reply.

I asked him why.

"Because I tested as a border-line *****."
At 10, I had no idea what "*****" meant,
Had never heard Stanford-Binet,
Didn't realize the damage of labels,
But now I do.

When authorities mis-measure
the capacities of a man,
And labels shackle,
They fail to see or know
The genius in a Carl.

They didn't stop to think
What gifts he had
Nor had they seen
The perfection
Of his creations
There on the bunkhouse table.
Perfect miniatures of our farm machinery:
Tractors, cultivators, harvesters,
Cut from plastic and metal stock,
Measured intricately to scale,
Fitted with loving care,
Glued and painted
Complete and ready
For some small-minded man
To drive into a miniature field.
Mis-measured Man
I SHALL cry God to give me a broken foot.
  
I shall ask for a scar and a slashed nose.
  
I shall take the last and the worst.
  
I shall be eaten by gray creepers in a bunkhouse where no runners of the sun come and no dogs live.
  
And yet-of all "and yets" this is the bronze strongest-
  
I shall keep one thing better than all else; there is the blue steel of a great star of early evening in it; it lives longer than a broken foot or any scar.
  
The broken foot goes to a hole dug with a shovel or the bone of a nose may whiten on a hilltop-and yet-"and yet"-
  
There is one crimson pinch of ashes left after all; and none of the shifting winds that whip the grass and none of the pounding rains that beat the dust, know how to touch or find the flash of this crimson.
  
I cry God to give me a broken foot, a scar, or a lousy death.
  
I who have seen the flash of this crimson, I ask God for the last and worst.
The Old Man sat out front and watched
As the sky started to change
The clouds were forming quickly
They were looking rather strange

He said "It's time to round  'em up"
"Get ready for a ride"
"We've got to get the horses"
"And get them all inside"

"A day, maybe two at most"
"We'd best get set to hunker down"
"It won't be long before"
"We see more white than brown"

"Those clouds on the horizon"
"The way they dip and make that hole"
"That's the Window Into Winter"
"On that, I'd bet my soul"

He walked into the bunkhouse
Grabbed his gear, and looked around
He yelled, "That's The Window Into Winter"
"Snow, will soon be on the ground"

Now, normally, the clouds roll in
There's a storm and then the snow
With The Window Into Winter
It gives us time, it lets us know

"Someone get a list made"
"We need supplies, and need them fast"
"That Window won't stay open"
"It's gonna close, it will not last"

"Heed the Window into Winter"
"It gives us one more chance before"
"Jack Frost and all his helpers"
"Come knocking at our door"

Now, remember when you see it
Between the clouds up in the sky
There's a hole between the mountains
And that says, that Winter's nigh

It's The Window Into Winter
Now get along and get to work
Bring the horses in and hurry
There's things to do, so do not shirk

Once the hole has closed up tightly
And the clouds are all but one
Then The Window Into Winter
Will be no more, the fall is done.
She worked on a property that I did too
And she lived in the main homestead~
I lived in a bunkhouse where I had my gear
And where I slept in a bunkhouse bed~
I never wanted to get to know her
As I really needed to not get the sack~
But she kept on being way too nice
And she kept on coming back~
She wore a raincoat on that rainy night
That she knocked upon my bunkhouse door~
And asked if I could spare a cup of coffee
As she sat down on my rug near by the fire on my floor~
I said take off your raincoat why don't you
She then said as if she was singing a song~
Well you did asked me once to drop around
When I had nothen on~
What the hell are you smiling about I said
Then she stood and removed that coat~
My eyes almost left their sockets
And there was no way I could clear my throat~
Next morning she donned that coat again
And slowly walked out of my door~
Looking over her shoulder and said
Coffees good .. I'll be back for more~
Never have I loved raincoats so much
Can't wait to see that one again~
And now I go into a coughing fit
Whenever the boss says , God I'd **** for rain ~

Terrence Michael Sutton
copyright 1988 .
Dave Hardin Nov 2016
Draw The Lumberjack

His toque screamed French Canadian,
Jacques perhaps, prominent nose
broken in a brawl over a woman named Suzette or
a close brush with a widow maker,
****** Niagara soaking his flannel shirt,
dripping from the delta of lines describing
a beard reeking of cigarettes and bug dope
trimmed, if he trimmed at all,
with a sliver of band saw blade
stuck fast in a lump of tree gum,
whiskers, after all, affording
a degree of protection from clouds of black flies,
one twinkling eye nesting in a profile
crinkled by wood smoke and ribald
bunkhouse jokes, widening in mock surprise
at a sour note from a squeezebox broken
on a drunken Saturday night,
fanciful elements  I avoided drawing
in a slow, steady hand, embellishment
sure to queer my chances with the juror
poised to swing a bottle of champagne
against the stern of my boat
load of God-given talent, a launch
I await patiently after all these years
taking a break from the two man
cross cut saw, smoking
in the shade of all these doomed trees.
She worked on a property that I did too
And she lived in the main homestead~
I lived in a bunkhouse where I had my gear
And where I slept in a bunkhouse bed~
I never wanted to get to know her
As I really needed to not get the sack~
But she kept on being way too nice
And she kept on coming back~
She wore a raincoat on that rainy night
That she knocked upon my bunkhouse door~
And asked if I could spare a cup of coffee
As she sat down on my rug near by the fire on my floor~
I said take off your raincoat why don't you
She then said as if she was singing a song~
Well you did asked me once to drop around
When I had nothen on~
What the hell are you smiling about I said
Then she stood and removed that coat~
My eyes almost left their sockets
And there was no way I could clear my throat~
Next morning she donned that coat again
And slowly walked out of my door~
Looking over her shoulder and said
Coffees good .. I'll be back for more~
Never have I loved raincoats so much
Can't wait to see that one again~
And now I go into a coughing fit
Whenever the boss says , God I'd **** for rain ~

Terrence Michael Sutton
copyright 1988 .
Robert Ronnow Jun 2018
Is war coming? Are we headed for another crazy cataclysm?
My sons, draft age. Only now can I appreciate the pain
so sharp it drains the color from one's eyes, your reason
for living gone in a spasm of violence to be forgotten
never by survivors. This fear could become real as no movie
is surreal enough to distract attention from the certainty
you did not do enough to deflect man's trajectory.

All could be well in the end but history portends
a periodic bloodletting followed by a quietus
without mercy. What's the best that can be said:
he died beside his friends and buddies. Steady
on to your own inquest and rest. A perfect rest
that improves upon the inadequacy of your efforts.
What solace can be found in the remains of marriage.

So you better fight back now even if that means
war comes sooner. At least you're fighting back, but how?
Take a minute to meditate on purpose. Science
cannot save you, neither can religion. Abstaining
from violence with love, letting prisoners go, detaining
no one at the border, inviting Chinese and Russian
scientists to our shores, defusing your own anger before it detonates,

none may be enough to save your sons.
A war president needs war, whatever. A trained
and deadly warfighter. You become what history wants
you to become. You survive if you're lucky, if not
so what, your old parents will be alive only briefly to mourn.
Then they too go to their good graves and the pain dies down.
In the meantime a new generation builds a new space station.

Since the vortex will be ******* up the poor,
let's not let the rich escape untouched. All go down
together, no one hoards gold or gets away with fiction.
If we have to fight let's make sure we fight as one,
the sons of the rich side by side with the poor's sons
and their daughters. You want slaughter? Then
let every city and back road know the new order.

I would rather watch Lalaland ten times over than have
to write this poem. I can leave home and live
in a tent or bunkhouse, eat dinner out of a tin cup
and drink water from a wooden bowl, give up
music and most of my memories to save my sons,
to save the world and avoid this war.
But that rarely happens. One is lost and found in what happens.
www.ronnowpoetry.com

--title from a recording by Ornette Coleman
Willard Wells Dec 2015
It was cold my first trip to Nome. Okay, it's always cold in Nome. It was February, still going down to -55 degrees some days. This was generally a one or two night stay. You really only needed a day, but the weather is unforgiving and so sometimes you wait most of the day. It is still dark up above the Arctic Circle, which Nome is only about 150 miles south of. The ocean ice will not start breaking for a month or two.

The morning started with an early flight from Fairbanks to Anchorage. It makes for a long day with approximately a 500 mile flight south so I can grab a 1,000 mile flight north to Nome. The first flight in had no delays so there was hope for the day. The hotel I booked which sounded quite grand was “The Nugget Inn”. It felt good knowing I would be in a nice hotel in this barren land.

It was a clear morning as we came in over the Bering Strait. I waited about 30 minutes to get my bags, then headed outside to see if I could flag down a ride. Taxis here in a village are a car passing by. You just waved before they go on by and hope they see you. It does not matter where you're going, Nome is not that big. Paid my three bucks and took a seat and said good morning to the driver and one other. The process is passenger in and passenger out until your destination comes up, but no hurry as you enjoy the warmth of the car.

Checked in and got a key, so I could begin my adventure at “The Nugget Inn” and Nome. I got to my room and checked it out and yes I was in for a surprise. The room was configured like a bunkhouse shack, two beds on old rusted iron frames. A small table and chair between the beds with a very small lamp. Well this was work and not a vacation and I was at the edge of the world.

The room had the feel that it was the same as in the gold rush days. And when I pulled up the blanket to check on the sheets. I am sure they were there when Jack London was here. Since the sheets were worn down to no more than gauze. So I take my first night in the city of Nome. And sleep tight under northern lights.
Re-write of what was a poem. It is I think part of a series and the later part of the series is called "Cold Island Girl".  Thanks for reading.
Don Bouchard Nov 2021
Carl didn't finish school,
Preferring to work on my father's farm
Breathing prairie dust and smoke,
Seeing suns rise and fall,
Living in the weather,
Freezing or sweating to the season,
Reading the wind,
Cursing the heat and migraines.

Smoking Salem cigarettes
Alone in his bunkhouse,
He never mentioned his regrets;
Three meals a day with us,
A car or truck demanding payments
Kept him coming back to work

The draft cards came;
Vietnam called;
Neighbors left,
But Carl stayed.

One day I barraged him,
"Why didn't you finish school?"
"Why weren't you drafted?"
"Are you going to marry?"

"I can't," his reply.

I asked why.

"Because I tested border-line *****."

Just 10, I had no idea what "*****" meant,
Had never heard Stanford-Binet,
Didn't realize the power of labels.

Now I do.

When authorities mis-measure
The capacities of a man,
When labels shackle,
We fail to see or know
Imago Dei before us.

We didn't stop to think
What gifts he had,
Nor did we see the perfection
Of his creations on his bunkhouse table:
Perfect miniatures of our farm machinery:
Tractors, cultivators, harvesters,
Cut from plastic and metal stock,
Measured intricately to scale,
Fitted with loving care,
Glued and painted,
Complete and ready
For some small-minded man
To drive into a miniature field.
Sinjun Jul 2018
The sky is there;
the spruce and pine point to it.
A quarter moon
hovers scarcely through it.

For very soon
there will only be the stars
to lamp the night;
and the yellow windows
of bunkhouse light.

And there, the steady
murmur and the laugh
of those who do a cord
or two - or half.

— The End —