PROLOGUE:

“’We must stop this brain working for twenty years.’” So said Mussolini’s Grand Inquisitor, his official Fascist prosecutor addressing the judge in Antonio Gramsci’s 1928 trial; so said the Il Duce’s Torquemada, ending his peroration with this infamous demand.’”  Gramsci, Antonio: Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Introduction, translation from Italian and publishing by Quintin ***** & Geoffrey Nowell Smith, International Publishers, New York, 1971.

BE IT RESOLVED: Whereas, I introduce this book with a nod of deep respect to Antonio Gramsci--an obscure but increasingly pertinent political scientist it would behoove us all to read and study today, I dedicate the book itself to my great grandfather and key family patriarch, Pietro Buonaiuto (1865-1940) of Moschiano, in the province of Avellino, in the region of Campania, southern Italy.

Let it be recognized that Pete Buonaiuto may not have had Tony Gramsci’s brain, but he certainly exhibited an extreme case of what his son--my paternal grandfather, Francesco Buonaiuto--termed: Testaduro. Literally, it means Hardhead, but connotes something far beyond the merely stubborn. We’re talking way out there in the unknown, beyond that inexplicable void where hotheaded hardheads regurgitate their next move, more a function of indigestion than thought. Given any situation, a Testaduro would rather bring acid reflux and bile to the mix than exercise even a skosh of gray muscle matter.  But there’s more. It gets worse.

To truly comprehend the densely-packed granite that is the Testaduro mind, we must now sub-focus our attention on the truly obdurate, extreme examples of what my paternal grandmother—Vicenza di Maria Buonaiuto—they called her Jennie--would describe as reflexive cutta-dey-noze-a-offa-to-spite-a-dey-face-a types. I reference the truly defiant, or T.D.—obviously short for both truly defiant and Testaduro. T.D.’s—a breed apart--smiling and sneering, laughing and, finally, begging their regime-appointed torture apparatchik (a career-choice getting a great deal of attention from the certificate mills--the junior colleges and vocational specialty institutes) mocking their Guantanamo-trained torturer: “Is that what you call punishment?  Is that all you ******* got?”

If, to assist comprehension, you require a literary frame of context, might I suggest you compare the Buonaiuto mind to Paul Lazzaro, Vonnegut’s superbly drawn Italian-American WWII soldier-lunatic with a passion for revenge, who kept a list of people who ****** with him, people he would have killed someday for a thousand dollars.

Go with me, Reader, go back with me to Vonnegut’s Slaughter-House-Five: “Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time . . .”
It is long past the Tralfamadorian abduction and his friendship with Stony Stevenson. Billy is back in Germany, one of three dingbat American G.I.s roaming around beyond enemy lines.  Another of the three is Private Lazzaro, a former car thief and undeniable psychopath from Cicero, Illinois.

Paul Lazzaro:  “Anybody touches me, he better **** me, or I’m gonna have him killed. Revenge is the sweetest thing there is. People **** with me, and Jesus Christ are they ever ******* sorry. I laugh like hell. I don’t care if it’s a guy or a dame. If the President of the United States ****** around with me, I’d fix him good. Revenge is the sweetest thing in life. And nobody ever got it from Lazzaro who didn’t have it coming.  Anybody who ***** with me? I’m gonna have him shot after the war, after he gets home, a big ******* hero with dames climbing all over him. He’ll settle down. A couple of years ‘ll go by, and then one day a knock at the door. He’ll answer the door and there’ll be a stranger out there. The stranger’ll ask him if he’s so and so. When he says he is, the stranger’ll say, ‘Paul Lazzaro sent me.’ And then he’ll pull out a gun and shoot his pecker off. The stranger’ll let him think a couple seconds about who Paul Lazzaro is and what life’s gonna be like without a pecker. Then he’ll shoot him once in the gut and walk away. Nobody ***** with Paul Lazzaro!”

(ENTER AUTHOR. HE SPEAKS: “Hey, Numb-nuts! Yes, you, my Reader. Do you want to get ****** into reading that Vonnegut blurb over and over again for the rest of the afternoon, or can I get you back into my manuscript?  That Paul Lazzaro thing was just my way of trying to give you a frame of reference, not to have you ******* drift off, walking away from me, your hand held tightly in nicotine-stained fingers. So it goes, you Ja-Bone. It was for comparison purposes.  Get it?  But, if you insist, go ahead and compare a Buonaiuto—any Buonaiuto--with the character, Paul Lazzaro. No comparison, but if you want a need a number—you quantitative ****--multiply the seating capacity of the Roman Coliseum by the gross tonnage of sheet pane glass that crystalized into small fixed puddles of glazed smoke, falling with the steel, toppling down into rubble on 9/11/2001. That’s right: multiply the number of Coliseum seats times a big, double mound of rubble, that double-smoking pile of concrete and rebar and human cadavers, formerly known as “The Twin Towers, World Trade Center, Lower Manhattan, NYC.  It’s a big number, Numb-nuts! And it illustrates the adamantine resistance demonstrated by the Buonaiuto strain of the Testaduro virus. Shall we return to my book?)

The truth is Italian-Americans were never overzealous about WWII in the first place. Italians in America, and other places like Argentina, Canada, and Australia were never quite sure whom they were supposed to be rooting for. But that’s another story. It was during that war in 1944, however, that my father--John Felix Buonaiuto, a U.S. Army sergeant and recent Anzio combat vet decided to visit Moschiano, courtesy of a weekend pass from 5th Army Command, Naples.  In a rough-hewn, one-room hut, my father sat before a lukewarm stone fireplace with the white-haired Carmine Buonaiuto, listening to that ancient one, spouting straight **** about his grandfather—Pietro Buonaiuto--my great-grandfather’s past. Ironically, I myself, thirty yeas later, while also serving in the United States Army, found out in the same way, in the same rough-hewn, one-room hut, in front of the same lukewarm fireplace, listening to the same Carmine Buonaiuto, by now the old man and the sea all by himself. That’s how I discovered the family secret in Moschiano. It was 1972 and I was assigned to a NATO Cold War stay-behind operation. The operation, code-named GLADIO—had a really cool shield with a sword, the fasces and other symbols of its legacy and purpose. GLADIO was a clandestine anti-communist agency in Italy in the 1970s, with one specific target:  Il Brigate Rosso, the Red Brigades.  This was in my early 20s. I was back from Vietnam, and after a short stint as an FBI confidential informant targeting campus radicals at the University of Miami, I was back in uniform again. By the way, my FBI gig had a really cool codename also: COINTELPRO, which I thought at the time had something to do with tapping coin operated telephones. Years later, I found out COINTELPRO stood for counter-intelligence program.  I must have had a weakness for insignias, shields and codenames, because there I was, back in uniform, assigned to Army Intelligence, NATO, Italy, “OPERATION GLADIO.“

By the way, Buonaiuto is pronounced:

Bwone-eye-you-toe . . . you ignorant ****!

Oh yes, prepare yourself for insult, Kemosabe! I refuse to soft soap what ensues.  After all, you’re the one on trial here this time, not Gramsci and certainly not me. Capeesh?

Let’s also take a moment, to pay linguistic reverence to the language of Seneca, Ovid & Virgil. I refer, of course, to Latin. Latin is called: THE MOTHER TONGUE. Which is also what we used to call both Mary Delvecchio--kneeling down in the weeds off Atlantic Avenue--& Esther Talayumptewa --another budding, Hopi Corn Maiden like my mother—pulling trains behind the creosote bush up on Black Mesa.  But those are other stories.

LATIN: Attention must be paid!

Take the English word obdurate, for example—used in my opening paragraph, the phrase truly obdurate: {obdurate, ME, fr. L. obduratus, pp. of obdurare to harden, fr. Ob-against + durus hard –More at DURING}.

Getting hard? Of course you are. Our favorite characters are the intransigent: those who refuse to bend. Who, therefore, must be broken: Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke comes to mind. Or Paul Newman again as Fast Eddie, that cocky kid who needed his wings clipped and his thumbs broken. Or Paul Newman once more, playing Eddie Felson again; Fast Eddie now slower, a shark grown old, deliberative now, no longer cute, dimples replaced with an insidious sneer, still fighting and hustling but in shrewder, more subtle ways. (Credit: Scorsese’s brilliant homage The Color of Money.)

The Color of Money (1986) - IMDb www.imdb.com/title/tt0090863 Internet MovieDatabase Rating: 7/10 - ‎47,702 votes. Paul Newman and Helen Shaver; still photo: Tom Cruise in The Color of Money (1986) Still of Paul Newman in The Color of Money (1986). Full Cast & Crew - ‎Awards - ‎Trivia - ‎Plot Summary

Perhaps it was the Roman Catholic Church I rebelled against.  The Catholic Church: certainly a key factor for any Italian-American, a stinger, a real burr under the saddle, biting, setting off insurrection again and again. No. Worse: prompting Revolt! And who could blame us? Catholicism had that spooky Latin & Incense going for it, but who wouldn’t rise up and face that Kraken? The Pope and his College of Cardinals? A Vatican freak show—a red shoe, twinkle-toe, institutional anachronism; the Curia, ferreting out the good, targeting anything that felt even half-way good, classifying, pronouncing verboten, even what by any stretch of the imagination, would be deemed to be merely kind of pleasant, slamming down that peccadillo rubber-stamp. Sin: was there ever a better drug? Sin? Revolution, **** yeah!  Anyone with an ounce of self-respect would have gone to the barricades.

But I digress.

A tomboy, naturally barefoot, gingerly walks the white painted line because the asphalt is just too burning hot.  Scrubby tufts of weedy grass are welcome respites on the way, briefly cooling her steps even if they are stickery.  The ***** soles of her now calloused feet were intentionally toughened just before school got out, with mincing steps across the roughest gravel she could find.  Her mother accommodates her preference, leaving a pan of water outside for her to scrub her feet before going in.  Even then, a black path has gradually appeared leading from the front door in the old orangish carpet.  Two months of summer barefoot every day when she had the choice. Keyed roller skates clamped onto last year’s school shoes were the exception.  She can flat out run anywhere.
  
This particular expedition began like every other thing they did, which was anything to fend off boredom.  She had been sitting on a cement step shaded by an open carport, just three oil-stained parking stalls for three small apartments on the tired poor side of town.  There is a little more dirt on the street here, and grass is a little neglected.  Just like the children, but these kids prefer that anyway.  Two scruffy friends stomp on aluminum cans, brothers sporting matching buzz cuts and cut-off shorts.  They are flattening them for the recycling money by the pound, so the carport smells vaguely of stale beer.  Another boy attempts to shoot a wandering fly with a home-made rubber band gun; rings cut from a bicycle tube made the best ammo.  “What do you want to do?” …”I don’t know, what do you want to do?”  Thwack…  The only requisite for friendship here is vicinity, yet it is still true.  The idea of choosing friends is about as odd as the concept that one could chose where one lives... Strengths and shortcomings are completely accepted because it is just what it is.  

Their amazing three-story tree fort with a side look-out had been heartlessly taken down by the disgruntled property owner last week.  Two months of accumulating pilfered and scrap two-by-fours, nails, and even a stack of plywood (gasp!) from area construction sites had yielded supplies for a growing fort.  A gang-plank style entry had crossed the ditch to the first level.  Nailed ladder steps to the second offered a little more vertigo and a prime spot to hurl acorns.  Another ladder up led up to the third floor retreat, with a couch-like seating area and shoulder high walls.  A breeze reached the leaves up there.   The next tree over was the look-out, with nothing but ladder steps all the way up to where the view opened up out of the ravine.  When the wind blew, it gave merciless lessons in facing any fear of heights.  But now that was all over, discovered gone overnight.

Someone says again, “What do you want to do?” …”I don’t know, what do you want to do?”  “ 7-11? ”  Good enough, so they head out.   Distance measures time.  Ten minutes is the end of the street past the cracked basketball court in the church parking lot.  Fifteen minutes and the lawns end at the edge of the sub-division.  Half-built homes rising from bare dirt and scattered foundations could offer treasures of construction scraps, (where she suspects the stack of plywood came from.) but they keep walking.  Twenty minutes is where industry has scraped away nature, and railroad tracks form an elevated levee.  But time is meaningless if there’s a wealth of it, so there’s no going further until an informal ritual is completed.  Wordlessly they each dig around their pockets searching for equal amounts of pennies.  Each of them carefully arrange them lined up on the rounded-surface rail, and they settle in for the wait.  It could be five minutes or it could be thirty.  They all understand it’s a crap-shoot of patience waiting for the next train. It’s an unspoken test; quitting too early means losing your coins to the one who stays, so that’s not an option.

Heat presses down and the breezeless air smells like telephone-pole creosote.  She sits in a dusty patch of shade found next to an overgrown ****.  She knows it tastes like licorice and breaks off a stem to chew, but doesn’t know what it is.  The boys throw rocks randomly until she finally stands up to join in, tempted by the challenge of flight and distance.  Then she stands in the center of the tracks, looking one way then the other, searching for the first random distant glimmer of the engine’s light at the horizon.   A flash, so she places her ear to the metal Indian-style, and the imminent approach is confirmed.  She calls out, “its here!” and double checks her pennies’ alignment.  Heads up or tails, but always aligned so the building might be stretched tall or wide, or Lincoln’s face made broad or thin.  That happened only rarely, since it could only be rolled by one wheel then bounced off.  If it stuck longer, the next wheels would surely smash it into a thin, elliptical, smooth misshapen disc of shiny copper.  Its only value becomes validation of a hint of delinquency, Destroying-Government-Property.  Once she splurged with a quarter, which became smashed to just a gleaming silver, bent wafer discolored at the edge.  Curiosity wasn’t worth 25 cents again though, so she had only one of those in her collection.

The approaching engine silently builds impending size and power, so she dashes back down the rocky embankment to safety because after all, she is not a fool, tempting fate with stupid danger. She knows a couple of those fools, but she finds no thrill from that and is not impressed by them either.  Suddenly the train is here, generating astounding noise and wind, occasional wheels screaming protest on their axels.  She intently watches exactly where she placed her coins, hoping to see the moment they fly off the rails that are rhythmically bending under the weight rolling by.  It becomes another game of patience, with such a long line of cars, and she gives up counting them at 80-ish.  Then suddenly it is done and quickly the noise recedes back to heat and cicadas.  The rails are hot.  Diligently they search for the shiny wafers.  Slowly pacing each wood beam, they could have landed in the gravel, or pressed against the rail, or even lodged straight up against the square black wood yards down the tracks.  They find most of them, give up on the rest, then continue on.

She has thirty cents and at last they reach the afternoon’s destination.  7-11’s parking lot becomes a genuine game of “Lava”, burning blacktop encourages leaps from cooler white lines, to painted tire stops, to grass island oasis, then three hot steps across black lava to the sidewalk, and automatic doors swoosh open to air conditioning.  She rarely has enough money for a coke icey; she is here for the bottom shelf candy, a couple pennies or a nickel each.  Off flavors but sweet enough.  She remembered when her older brother was passing out lunchbags of candy to the neighborhood kids for free, practically littering the cul-de-sac.  She had wondered where he got enough money for all that popularity, or could he have saved that much from trick-or-treat? She wondered until he got busted shoplifting at the grocery store.  The security guard decreed that he was never allowed in there again, forever, and the disgrace of sitting on the curb waiting for the mortified ride home was enough to keep him from doing it again.

Today she picks out a few root beer barrels, some Tootsie-rolls (the smaller ones for two cents, not the large ones that divide into cubes) a candy necklace and tiny wax coke bottles, and of course a freeze-pop.   Sitting on the curb, she bites off small pieces of the freeze pop, careful not to get tooth-freeze or brain-freeze, until the last melty chunk is squeezed out the top of the thin plastic tube.

“What do you want to do now?” …”I don’t know, what do you want to do?”

A calm and cool breeze
Passes through the leaves of the trees,
Persuading the branches to sway,
Like algae in a turbulent sea.
Without a cloud in the pale blue Arizona sky,
The sun radiates down-- hot and glaring.
It reflects off the shiny paint of the cars around me,
Illuminates the brown mountains in the distance.
And magnified through the thick lenses of my glasses,
It blinds my sensitive eyes.
The surrounding sempiternal desert
Is so clear and sharp,
That no one nor nothing can hide
(With the exception of the beings who can blend,
And despite my tiring efforts,
I am not one of them.)
The nearest Creosote bush
Eminates of the smell of water,
As it passes through a hose.
I am instantly transported back home
Where sand is replaced by grass and plants
That require regular watering to survive.
When I close my eyes I can see
The illusion of a waterfall, created by the uncoiling hose
As it ejects tepid water for us to traverse.
But upon unveiling my windows,
I allow the sandy landscape to penetrate into my soul
And I am brought back to the present
Where life subsists, illogically,
Through a dearth of water, and inordinate sun.

the one positive aspect concerning Tucson’s blistering heat is what women wear on display are details one would never notice or think about if it were not right there in plain view an evident preference based solely on sweltering circumstance is no brassieres yet vogue goes beyond this lovable lapse women being fashion mindful arrange interesting medleys of flimsy diaphanous chemises various lengths of shorts thin-threaded summer dresses peculiar styles of tresses and fairly informal shoes or barefoot in essence everything about women’s wear in Tucson is noticeably informal revealing to the eye the barest facts that said there are those who fall under the dictate of Latin or Goth influences regardless how scorching the sun black is their uniform and finally the no matter what season or time of day hooded sweatshirt set and their hoodlum world

2

nightlife in Tucson is dull for a big city ex-resident several Friday evenings a month he visits plush bar arriving about 6 PM sitting at bar sipping 2 sometimes 3 drinks chatting with whomever then walking home about 7:30 - 8 and that is his rather sedate social life but on this particular Friday night with full moon 2 days away and Venus in his thoughts he thinks to go to sky bar outside monsoon rains are letting up opaque gray sky fragrance of creosote in air he looks at reflection in mirror feels deep depression

3

they are supposed to meet meant to meet destined fated to meet but they will not meet because there is a season for love in a person’s life but that time is gone it is too late for him too many hearts racing then erased lies deceptions disappointments nights alone under-appreciated without love so many years too much bridge under the water concerning her she is emotionally occupied her dog Sweeny on last legs a drawn-out too personal sadness to share besides she is not looking for an older man possibly a younger man who can ease her fears of loss and aging

4

the drainage system in Tucson is not well thought out when it rains it floods she wears Chaco sandals wading through puddles feeling intoxicated by scent of creosote after divorce 20 years ago she became drunken drugging **** until she adopted Sweeny changed her life it is like she is feeling relapse knowing Sweeny will be gone soon she cannot bear the thought decides to start at the Buffet total losers bar then work her way north up 4th Avenue a lot of ground to cover

5

an older man with loud gravelly voice and pink eye introduces himself as Frank says he moved here 25 years ago from New Jersey accent still intact orders ***** martini pulls out 6” KA-BAR military knife throatily grumbles i manage she decides she’s had enough of the Buffet does not finish drink decides to skip the Shanty Maloney’s O’Malley’s glances in the windows of Che”s sees gossipy **** she does not want to run into crosses 4th Avenue looks in the window at Plush sees self-important **** she does not want to run into crosses 4th Avenue again settling for seat at Sky bar

6

he gazes at her and his heart melts she is so lovely in subtle alternative demeanor it would be easy to admire her for rest of his life if he were female he’d want to look just like her but he sees she is not interested in him he looks away remembers the first step when he looks at a woman he searches for qualities that attract him because he wants to desire her yet this tendency creates an imbalance or disadvantage he is rendered weak to a woman’s beauty or whatever traits he idealizes self-realizing this propensity he turns his gaze away

7

she glances around large room notices him smiling at her eyes glance passed him she thinks he looks remotely familiar but the mustache appears ridiculously out of style too much character in his face he appears small maybe 5’8” or 9” probably drives a mini-***** just not her type whatever then she remembers the first step when she looks at a man she searches for qualities she is critical of because she wants to be impervious to his power

been pecking the pole since the forties

we think,

how delightful.



yet it must be changed and moved

in case it falls down, what would we

do then?  he asked.



i decided not to think about that, and

rejoice in the creosote

of the new thing.



may be the woodpecker will

too?



sbm.

Hills, brown rustic reds
skies pile colored layers on
Rattlesnake vertebrae bones
scent of creosote
high desert home

Lover, painter
wild poppies - orange paper
petals, sepal magnification
watercolor, oil painted
gradations

Abiquiu home,
desert ghosts, coyotes
wildflower gardens grown
to pick, to paint perfection
a flower
alone

From the dusty mesa her looming shadow grows
Hidden in the branches of the poison creosote.

She twines her spines up slowly towards the boiling sun,
And when I touched her skin, my fingers ran with blood.

When ever I touch the ground that’s hot
With the sole of my foot that’s bare,
I never fail to recall a time,
And the memories lingering there,
Of a day when I was just a boy,
Beneath equatorial skies,
And the tactic used to keep me indoors
While the missionaries rested their eyes.

My mother was sick with malaria
The curse of the tropic zone,
And while my dad was away on the hunt
Their station became our home.
And after lunch when the sky was hot
And the morning’s work was done
They took my shoes away from me
To keep me out of the sun.

The veranda air was still as a grave,
Not a sound to could be heard outside
Save the click-click-click from the beetles
And the grasshoppers jumping to hide.
Or the scratching scaly slither,
Of a snake on the flowerbed verge,
Or the distant cry of the crested crane,
These are the sounds that merge.

The sight of the distant Koru hills
Shimmering in the haze
Beyond the frangipani trees
Return once more to my gaze,
And the prickly spiky Crown of Thorns
That lined the garden ways,
These are the sights that ribbon back
From my early Kenyan days.

The smell of the room was a mixture
Of scents on the garden air,
And creosote coming up through the floor
From the pilings under there,
And paraffin from the pressure lamps
Which hissed as they gave us light.
With the hint of oil of pyrethrum
Sprayed round the eves at night.

The step to my door should I venture
At noon was as hot as a stove,
The soil on the paths and driveway
Would burn if ever I strove.
And the thorns in the earth would pr ick me
As I cautiously picked my way through
To the shade of the frangipani tree,
From there I took in the view.

So, when ever I touch the ground that’s hot
With the sole of my foot that’s bare,
I never fail to recall a time,
And the memory lingering there,
Of a day when I was just a boy,
Where the images I find,
Set smells and sights and sounds of
Africa sizzling in my mind.

Redding, California July 4th 2005 temperature 105° Fahrenheit

The Ugly Coupling of the blue sousaphone suckling
Buffalo Buffalo

didn't know the blue mouth piece widget
was no inspired milk spigot  
soaked with Mr. Creosote
in *****'n beer laden banana bins

weewoo weewoo the maniac is behind you

(its funny how when i'm feeling particularly uninspired my poems always come out like this....)

chuckling happily listening to singing nonsense
with headphones on
9 beats, repeated triplets, phrases

spoken in a mumbling rhythm

(....just jumbled references, slant rhymes and free associations)

dreams of peace in the middle east
as eyes turn upward to see a collard shirt and mohawk looking back
"my god what have you done"

the sign on the railway station says "Common Destination,"
the ties of our tracks are uniform, creosote covered, splintered,
spaced uniformly as is the wont of the arm-in-arm soldiers,
different regiments in the same army, though as they march,
some on the high, some the low road, in defense of the values,
right, right, right.

no believing in forever land, dreamt of poems forever burning,
real life farenheit bonfires lit by brown uniforms and such, thus,
now, when a poem completed and shared, 
it is instantly disfigured,
by flames harnessed to lick
the slate page clean, immediately, 
presenting yet  another opportunity,
to protest, persistently,
endless be my own turnkey hands renewing,
my write to right.

my write to right,
my pupose; my only intent, even in love poems,
ogdiddy witty ditties, long dialogues with the creator, all purposed,
all written while standing one on left foot, are we not all
poets of the ways to increase the sum total of
righteous and kindness in the world.

'tis right to write,
but go further and farther,
write to right.

to ease, comfort, shoulder and hand extensions, be the lean-to,
the shelter when there is no shelter, for there is no
owning words, and no limitation on clear vision and
the right to write.

time stops in winter

here.



we find it manageably quiet.



today we drives to conwy busy

with people making holidays

is lovely.



yet i cannot find it easy.



i buys the trousers i have wanted for such a long time

from the pound rail.



look at cakes as is my hobby.



talk about angels and return home.



quiet.

apart from the men laying  tarmacadam opposite.



it smells nice as does the creosote from yesterday.



while the music plays softly.

coyote yelping helps;
the winds, too, distract him
from the now

the Comanche who
put the arrow in his back
lays beside him

gone before him;
that is condign comfort
to him

he cannot speak, nor move
his tongue, but he smells the
*****, the creosote

he sees the clouds,
stingy white whiffs in a hot
summer sky

as good a day to die
as any he reckons, and
he feels no pain

again the yelping,
closer now -- are they talking
about him?

will they beat the buzzards
to his body? would they begin their
feast while his eyes are yet open?

he closes them; the flapping of
the wings does not arouse him--he
knows they are on the Comanche

beaks and talons at work
he lets himself drift, content the
vultures are choosing the dead

but they fly off; the coyote pack
approaches--the pads of their paws
patter on the hard caliche

he lets himself sleep
dreaming now of sweet green grass
and good water

and the coyotes begin their work:
the ***** and he now a solitary offering
for the ravenous dogs

The barren sidewalks of Palmetto ,
yesterdays shoppes in boarded disarray ,
hushed avenues , empty Water Oak parks ..
Creosote treated railroad ties fill Spring air
currents , Friday afternoon capability shattered ..
Windblown , meager paper evidence collects at
curbside , this abandoned village , forever reduced to a four way stop on Sunday nights* ..

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.

mesa rises
a ship
sans sails

the moon
strips
the creosote
to blond
bone

it's errosion
causes
the desert to
ripple

beaches
hidden

tides
going
out
sea

nyctinastic
sirius flowers
open their
lazy eyes

the moon may
croon to
waves
dashing
on the
shipwreck

but

even the moon
makes
things


grow


SoulSurvivor
(c) 7/9/2016

by Barry Lopez**

I'd heard so much good
about this place,
how the animals were cared for
in special exhibits. But

when I arrived I saw even
prairie dogs had gone crazy in
the viewing pits; Javelina had no mud to
squat in, to cool down; Otter was
exposed on every side, even in his den.
Wolf paced like a mustang,
tongue lolling and crazy-eyed,
unable to see anyone who looked like
he did–only Deer, dozing opposite in
a chainlink pen.

Signs explain
the animals are good because
they **** animals who like oats
or corn too much.

Skunk has sprayed himself out,
with people rapping on his glass
box. Badger's gone to sleep
under a red light and children ask
if he's dead in there (dreaming of dead
silence). And
Cougar stares like a clubbed fish
into one steel corner all morning, figuring.

Only Coyote doesn't seem to care, asleep under a
creosote bush, waiting it out.

Even the birds are walled up here,
held steady in chicken-wire cages for
the staring, for souvenir photos.
And this, on the bars for Eagle:

      The bald eagle was
      taken as a fledgling
      from a nest in New
      Mexico by an
      Indian. He planned on
      pulling feathers for cer-
      emonial headdresses
      every year. The
      federal government seized
      the bird and turned
      it over to the
      Desert Reserve
      for safekeeping.

Bear walks in his own
***, smells concrete
and his own **** all day long.
He wipes his nose on the wall,
trying to **** it.

At night when management is gone,
only the night watch left,
the animals begin keening: now
voices of Wood Duck and
Turtle, of Kit Fox and everyone else,
Bear too, lift up like the bellowing
of stars and kick the walls.

14 miles away, in Tucson, are movie houses,
cold beers and roads out of town,
but they say animals know how to pass the time
well enough. And after a few beers
they'll be just like Indians–
get drunk, fall down and spoil it all.

Dusk sets on the quiet desert
Eerie shadows hide behind saguaro soldiers
And sanguine striped snakes
Sneak back into the earth
Rowdy coyotes meet among the rocks
To cry at the moon
Who never cries back

The wind roams so freely through the desert
Stopping where she likes
To dance with the wildflowers
Or tickle the sun soaking geckos
She laughs as she passes by
And the sands chase after her
Begging to ever be so light as to
Keep company with the clouds

The mountain wraps his unfaltering arms
Snugly around the valley
A regal jacket of deep greens and browns
Laid across his towering shoulders
He lets his gaze follow the hustle and bustle
Of life in the desert as suns set and rise
From the place he has always been
Greeting each javelina and jack rabbit
As they settle into his solid embrace

The wind moves manically
Passing through the creosote bushes
With just enough time for a polite greeting
Before she rushed off to tease the birds
She touches every piece of her beloved desert
But she can never settle or linger too long
For fear of losing herself all together

The mountain feels his weight
Pressing so firmly against the earth
He faces anyone who challenges him
And he only rumbles with laughter
When they strike
But he begins to wonder what lies beyond
Where the liquidy sun shimmers in the air
He cannot abandon his post
For fear of crumbling into pieces of himself

The mountain cradles the wind
Slowing her down long enough
To warmly welcome her home
The wind tells the mountain
Stories of the desert

The river is quiet
with velvety darkness.
The moon leaves her perch,
the clouds as her garment.

A trail of dreams,
lucent with meaning,
battered, not broken,
follows, careening.


He rowed through the bayou,
  Searching for the stars;
But the branches of the cypresses
  Had captured them in jars.
His little iron lantern,
  Flick’ring kernel of light,
Won’t discern though it burns
  Gold as sylvite.

You saw him there,
  A statue of wax;
You took your hammer
  And shattered the glass.
Though, like a bird,
  He’d molted his cloak,
You remembered the password—
  To which he awoke.


You did not know (for how could you?)
  That I was all alone.
But still you deigned to look at me
  And bind my broken bone.

My anxious wings had taken flight;
  The perch bore not a trace—
You taught me how to not recoil
  When human hands embrace.

You didn’t know what you had done.
You didn’t know what you had done.
You couldn’t have known what you had done.
  But thank you anyway.

Oh, Jonathan—
May your heart enfold:
Can’t you see your gold?
Can’t you see you’re gold?


The constellations still evade—
  I’ll climb the tree.
Keep ascending; no dismay
  (This I decree!)
I’ll catch a star, I swear, some way—
  On wings of chim-choo-rees.
But if I die before that day,
  Will you take one home for me?

. . . . .

There in that desert,
Hot as the stars,
I played my harp
And you the guitar

And with the smell
Of creosote
On the cool wind
You shed your coat.


Wending through the branches,
  Aloft in the sky,
Laughing and joking
  All through the night,
You found your love,
  To my great delight—
And when you pair embrace,
  I can’t help but sigh.

Let me bear that spear
  Thrown by your dad.
(“Don't worry or fear;
  The blood’s not so bad!”)
No!—could you have been saved
  Had I been there in time?—
For I’d rather brave
  That dagger in your spine!


Jonathan, my dearest friend,
  Won’t you lift your eyes?
Though you bleed and from there grieve,
  The seed of God’s inside.

I see your fear, though not so clear,
  For you take care to guard.
But you will neither raze nor pierce
  Your son where you’ve been scarred.

You hardly know how much you’ve grown.
You hardly know how much you’ve grown.
You can’t imagine how you’ve grown.
  But you have. You have.

Oh, Jonathan—
May your heart enfold:
Will you see your gold?
Will you see you’re gold?

. . . . .

The grass may wilt and flowers fade,
  But He steadfast remains.
And though carved ice resigns to melt,
  It runs into the lake.

For what are we but jars of dust?—
  Made that we may bear
The image of Him who painted us,
  Who deigns to hear our prayer.

We do not know where we will go.
We do not know where we will go.
We can’t begin to fathom where we’ll go.
  But—know it’s not in vain.

. . . . .

When moths at last consume my clothes,
  Will you remember?
Where stone-faced, dusty night arose,
  Will you remember?
When light endures its final throes,
  Will you remember?
Should I be lost within this grove,
  Will you remember?

When street-doors shut and grinding slows,
  We will remember.
Though hunters maim and shades enclose,
  We will remember.
All praise to God—the veil’s deposed;
  We can remember.
Because from death the Son arose,
  We can remember
  He will remember.

When, from my grave, the cypress grows,
  You will remember.
And when you sleep 'neath mountain snow,
  I will remember.
The epilogue eternal goes—
  “We shall remember!”
Forevermore we shall compose,
  cleansed by the ember.


      Oh, Jonathan—
      May your heart enfold
            (And should I be told?):
      Do you see your gold?
      Do you see—you’re gold?

Having left paradise some time back,
and watching tint fade, rose sky
goes lavender, washes into deep blue.
These ultra violet filters, pandemonical,
fly googley-eyed and I am stuck
in hard realization of incapacity
to adapt to current color scheme.
Can grey go further black
until soot is creosote?
Tar now tumbles and bubbles
in nostrils, blindness leaving only
sense of smell, an oil field carnage.
Green by any means,
flags with dollar signs,
majestically waving and when
complete soul is sold out,
I disperse upon a riptide
of foamy grey matter.
Silicon Valley earthquake
sends forth satanical tsunami,
washing away World Wide Web
and your pretend paradise too.

A red kite passed between the sun and I
momentarily delighting with its shadow,
a shrill cry launched at an empty sky, happy

Hot creosote of neighbours fences
smelt of care and the eighties
while my own untreated panels bleached

By the stream, illegal fishermen dawdled
while the world chose not to care
and for now this snow globe held unshook

face down
       in the drain
my diary i write
       drops
in my brain
       soot
clings
       to my creosote
never burnt off
resolute
       chimney
unwept memory polluted
of days
past
clinging.