The Gopher was born
Underground.  He spent so much
Of his life there.  His eyes never adjusted
To the lack of light, he simply
Tunneled in the dark, half-blind.
He never knew the color
Of his fur (it was brown, the same color
As the dirt he lived in (whose color
He never knew either)), but he assumed
It was black. While ambling through
The black (brown) soil, it so happened
That the plump and innocent Gopher
Unwittingly clawed his way to
The surface.  His dwarfish eyes scanned the fairway
Laid out beneath him.  It was in that brief moment
That he witnessed the difference
Between rough and fairway, saw white sand traps
Scoop out the sides of hills, and first watched
Red and yellow oak leaves
Drift to the ground.
And for this short while the Gopher was awestruck,
Riveted to the spot.  As the lawnmower’s blades
Swept closer, the Gopher could not move at all; and in
An instant, he returned to
The endless black he had come from.

In 1984, I assimilated this southern drawl and slow sly wit.
Whilst i felt so foreign, at first, and had to sit in the woods alone
and meditate, I met this one gopher tortoise one day. He slowly startled me when he stuck his long neck out and offered me a bite of a gopher apple.
It tasted like the bubble gum I used to get with Detroit Tiger baseball cards in. We slowly became best friends. I met his convex mate and others with his first name he generously shared his burrow with.
His home was home to crickets frogs and snakes, he asked me to join them.

I was too big, of head or ego, I really don't know, why I did not join him.
I still wander the woods where frequent fires have burned, and find on sand hills, among the creamy white flowers  
and ***** stems,
the gopher apples. And plant them in memory of my friend, so slow and wise.
I see him time to time,
but find him rare and rarer.

Just a story.
When I was a kid... yes there was a time I was a kid, the garden was just South of the house.  Mom and I worked in the garden a lot.  Sometimes when she was not in the garden I would lay between the carrot rows, pull a carrot out of the sandy soil, brush off the sand and have a very fresh yummy carrot.  They were soooo tender they seemed to melt in my mouth.  Anyway, when I was finished eating the carrot I would put the top back into the hole.  No one was the wiser.  No one knew the difference or so I thought.  I did notice the carrot top would wilt which looked a little suspicious but... there was a gopher problem so maybe the gophers ate the carrots.  Sounded like a good story to me.  "Did the gopher eat the carrot mom?" "Yes probably so."

I found out years later.... Mom knew who the gopher was.  BUSTED.

I was telling this story to my grand daughter Lucy after school one day.  Her eyes brightened up and said, "That is a funny story grandpa."  So here it is added to the memories of a grandpa.  Lucy keeps telling people, strangers even, "you should hear this. Grandpa tell them about the carrots."  The story has latched onto her 5 year old brain and won't let go.

So... the next time you are eating a carrot... don't fib to your mom.

I WAS born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat, the red of its clover, the eyes of its women, gave me a song and a slogan.

Here the water went down, the icebergs slid with gravel, the gaps and the valleys hissed, and the black loam came, and the yellow sandy loam.
Here between the sheds of the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, here now a morning star fixes a fire sign over the timber claims and cow pastures, the corn belt, the cotton belt, the cattle ranches.
Here the gray geese go five hundred miles and back with a wind under their wings honking the cry for a new home.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water.

The prairie sings to me in the forenoon and I know in the night I rest easy in the prairie arms, on the prairie heart..    .    .
        After the sunburn of the day
        handling a pitchfork at a hayrack,
        after the eggs and biscuit and coffee,
        the pearl-gray haystacks
        in the gloaming
        are cool prayers
        to the harvest hands.

In the city among the walls the overland passenger train is choked and the pistons hiss and the wheels curse.
On the prairie the overland flits on phantom wheels and the sky and the soil between them muffle the pistons and cheer the wheels..    .    .
I am here when the cities are gone.
I am here before the cities come.
I nourished the lonely men on horses.
I will keep the laughing men who ride iron.
I am dust of men.

The running water babbled to the deer, the cottontail, the gopher.
You came in wagons, making streets and schools,
Kin of the ax and rifle, kin of the plow and horse,
Singing Yankee Doodle, Old Dan Tucker, Turkey in the Straw,
You in the coonskin cap at a log house door hearing a lone wolf howl,
You at a sod house door reading the blizzards and chinooks let loose from Medicine Hat,
I am dust of your dust, as I am brother and mother
To the copper faces, the worker in flint and clay,
The singing women and their sons a thousand years ago
Marching single file the timber and the plain.

I hold the dust of these amid changing stars.
I last while old wars are fought, while peace broods mother-like,
While new wars arise and the fresh killings of young men.
I fed the boys who went to France in great dark days.
Appomattox is a beautiful word to me and so is Valley Forge and the Marne and Verdun,
I who have seen the red births and the red deaths
Of sons and daughters, I take peace or war, I say nothing and wait.

Have you seen a red sunset drip over one of my cornfields, the shore of night stars, the wave lines of dawn up a wheat valley?
Have you heard my threshing crews yelling in the chaff of a strawpile and the running wheat of the wagonboards, my cornhuskers, my harvest hands hauling crops, singing dreams of women, worlds, horizons?.    .    .
        Rivers cut a path on flat lands.
        The mountains stand up.
        The salt oceans press in
        And push on the coast lines.
        The sun, the wind, bring rain
        And I know what the rainbow writes across the east or west in a half-circle:
        A love-letter pledge to come again..    .    .
      Towns on the Soo Line,
      Towns on the Big Muddy,
      Laugh at each other for cubs
      And tease as children.

Omaha and Kansas City, Minneapolis and St. Paul, sisters in a house together, throwing slang, growing up.
Towns in the Ozarks, Dakota wheat towns, Wichita, Peoria, Buffalo, sisters throwing slang, growing up..    .    .
Out of prairie-brown grass crossed with a streamer of wigwam smoke-out of a smoke pillar, a blue promise-out of wild ducks woven in greens and purples-
Here I saw a city rise and say to the peoples round world: Listen, I am strong, I know what I want.
Out of log houses and stumps-canoes stripped from tree-sides-flatboats coaxed with an ax from the timber claims-in the years when the red and the white men met-the houses and streets rose.

A thousand red men cried and went away to new places for corn and women: a million white men came and put up skyscrapers, threw out rails and wires, feelers to the salt sea: now the smokestacks bite the skyline with stub teeth.

In an early year the call of a wild duck woven in greens and purples: now the riveter's chatter, the police patrol, the song-whistle of the steamboat.

To a man across a thousand years I offer a handshake.
I say to him: Brother, make the story short, for the stretch of a thousand years is short..    .    .
What brothers these in the dark?
What eaves of skyscrapers against a smoke moon?
These chimneys shaking on the lumber shanties
When the coal boats plow by on the river-
The hunched shoulders of the grain elevators-
The flame sprockets of the sheet steel mills
And the men in the rolling mills with their shirts off
Playing their flesh arms against the twisting wrists of steel:
        what brothers these
        in the dark
        of a thousand years?.    .    .
A headlight searches a snowstorm.
A funnel of white light shoots from over the pilot of the Pioneer Limited crossing Wisconsin.

In the morning hours, in the dawn,
The sun puts out the stars of the sky
And the headlight of the Limited train.

The fireman waves his hand to a country school teacher on a bobsled.
A boy, yellow hair, red scarf and mittens, on the bobsled, in his lunch box a pork chop sandwich and a V of gooseberry pie.

The horses fathom a snow to their knees.
Snow hats are on the rolling prairie hills.
The Mississippi bluffs wear snow hats..    .    .
Keep your hogs on changing corn and mashes of grain,
    O farmerman.
    Cram their insides till they waddle on short legs
    Under the drums of bellies, hams of fat.
    **** your hogs with a knife slit under the ear.
    Hack them with cleavers.
    Hang them with hooks in the hind legs..    .    .
A wagonload of radishes on a summer morning.
Sprinkles of dew on the crimson-purple *****.
The farmer on the seat dangles the reins on the rumps of dapple-gray horses.
The farmer's daughter with a basket of eggs dreams of a new hat to wear to the county fair..    .    .
On the left-and right-hand side of the road,
        Marching corn-
I saw it knee high weeks ago-now it is head high-tassels of red silk creep at the ends of the ears..    .    .
I am the prairie, mother of men, waiting.
They are mine, the threshing crews eating beefsteak, the farmboys driving steers to the railroad cattle pens.
They are mine, the crowds of people at a Fourth of July basket picnic, listening to a lawyer read the Declaration of Independence, watching the pinwheels and Roman candles at night, the young men and women two by two hunting the bypaths and kissing bridges.
They are mine, the horses looking over a fence in the frost of late October saying good-morning to the horses hauling wagons of rutabaga to market.
They are mine, the old zigzag rail fences, the new barb wire..    .    .
The cornhuskers wear leather on their hands.
There is no let-up to the wind.
Blue bandannas are knotted at the ruddy chins.

Falltime and winter apples take on the smolder of the five-o'clock November sunset: falltime, leaves, bonfires, stubble, the old things go, and the earth is grizzled.
The land and the people hold memories, even among the anthills and the angleworms, among the toads and woodroaches-among gravestone writings rubbed out by the rain-they keep old things that never grow old.

The frost loosens corn husks.
The Sun, the rain, the wind
        loosen corn husks.
The men and women are helpers.
They are all cornhuskers together.
I see them late in the western evening
        in a smoke-red dust..    .    .
The phantom of a yellow rooster flaunting a scarlet comb, on top of a dung pile crying hallelujah to the streaks of daylight,
The phantom of an old hunting dog nosing in the underbrush for muskrats, barking at a **** in a treetop at midnight, chewing a bone, chasing his tail round a corncrib,
The phantom of an old workhorse taking the steel point of a plow across a forty-acre field in spring, hitched to a harrow in summer, hitched to a wagon among cornshocks in fall,
These phantoms come into the talk and wonder of people on the front porch of a farmhouse late summer nights.
"The shapes that are gone are here," said an old man with a cob pipe in his teeth one night in Kansas with a hot wind on the alfalfa..    .    .
Look at six eggs
In a mockingbird's nest.

Listen to six mockingbirds
Flinging follies of O-be-joyful
Over the marshes and uplands.

Look at songs
Hidden in eggs..    .    .
When the morning sun is on the trumpet-vine blossoms, sing at the kitchen pans: Shout All Over God's Heaven.
When the rain slants on the potato hills and the sun plays a silver shaft on the last shower, sing to the bush at the backyard fence: Mighty Lak a Rose.
When the icy sleet pounds on the storm windows and the house lifts to a great breath, sing for the outside hills: The Ole Sheep Done Know the Road, the Young Lambs Must Find the Way..    .    .
Spring slips back with a girl face calling always: "Any new songs for me? Any new songs?"

O prairie girl, be lonely, singing, dreaming, waiting-your lover comes-your child comes-the years creep with toes of April rain on new-turned sod.
O prairie girl, whoever leaves you only crimson poppies to talk with, whoever puts a good-by kiss on your lips and never comes back-
There is a song deep as the falltime redhaws, long as the layer of black loam we go to, the shine of the morning star over the corn belt, the wave line of dawn up a wheat valley..    .    .
O prairie mother, I am one of your boys.
I have loved the prairie as a man with a heart shot full of pain over love.
Here I know I will hanker after nothing so much as one more sunrise or a sky moon of fire doubled to a river moon of water..    .    .
I speak of new cities and new people.
I tell you the past is a bucket of ashes.
I tell you yesterday is a wind gone down,
  a sun dropped in the west.
I tell you there is nothing in the world
  only an ocean of to-morrows,
  a sky of to-morrows.

I am a brother of the cornhuskers who say
  at sundown:
        To-morrow is a day.

O Viking Gods of the Norse,
you governed the mighty seas.
your boats were built of gopher wood;
and you made wise use of a breeze!

Smelly Feet

In the sun, feel the heat,
and the odor of my smelly feet.
All people squeezing their nose,
from the cheese between my toes.
Shoes melted on the road,
smell spreading to the next zip code.
Even I'm wearing a gas mask,
sipping whiskey from my flask.
Feet burning as I start to run,
stick a fork in them, they're done.
Still a mile left to go,
I can see my feet as they glow.
Leaving melting skin far behind,
left sunglasses home and going blind.
Hot tar starting to melt,
I'd do anything for a conveyor belt.
Soaking feet when I get home,
Pretty soon, I will see bone.
My house is just down the block,
vultures circling as they stalk.
Getting worse is the odor,
laughing at me is the Caddyshack gopher.
The Rock wants to know what I'm cooking,
it's my feet, that is brewing.
The smell is spreading worldwide,
my feet are now Kentucky fried.
People cheer as I reach my door,
**** my feet are very sore.
Sprayed my feet with tough acting Tinactin,
burned so bad it melted the rest of my skin.
Soaked my bones in cold water,
never have I felt a road more hotter.
Sprayed Fabreze for about an hour,
then I took a long cold shower.
Moonshine and pain pills dull my pain,
it was my own fault so can't complain.
Now I wear special shoes,
my smelly ***** feet even made the news.

The squirrels played havoc around the house,
picking stuffing from the porch swing,
packing it into their cheeks, until they were swollen,
pregnant, to fluff their nests with synthetic cotton.

They bounded about the yard stopping to squeeze
fallen walnuts, like supermarket melons, to see
if they were ripe or rotten.  Their neighbors,
the gopher and raccoon and rabbit

were overrun by the squirrels myriad brood.
Some (squirrels) sought refuge in refuse, chewing large
holes in the trash bins. This would feed many a raccoon’s
hungry mouth, but none of them would show thanks.

When the numbers began to spill over from the trees,
the squirrels began occupying the gutters, causing sheets
of ice to cataract, frozen down the sides of the house,
and then when the old man found stuffing from his swing

in the attic, enough had become enough. Something
had to be done. This blatant malfeasance must
be dealt with, and so he would devise a plan, a trap.
The old man stood watching the plump little devils

bounce and leap around his yard, when he saw the bin.
And wriggling the fingers on his upturned paw, a sinister
plan curled onto his face in a dark smile.  He went out
to the trash bin and filled it with water, only halfway,

no more. He dropped a lightly pumped, bald
basketball into the bin, and smiled when the first
squirrel drowned in it. Everyday, the old man wriggled
his fingers and smiled his dark smile,

until he found synthetic swing stuffing
in his bed, and realized he had lost.

My mound is wet
Probably due to the weather
Lots of rain

It hurts to be a gopher
Small and furry
Yet sublime

The combo of cuteness and evil
Is damning
Leads to bleeding

Getting stuck in L.A. tubs
Fleeing from Sheba the cat
Fighting for grannies' vegetables

There is nothing here
No noteworthy existence
Just all the disturbances

You ever wish that you were a wild animal?

Sounds a bit indecent, but reckoning the sense of freedom, order, and understandings
;then, you'll look at it through a bird's eye

Doesn't it seem like animals have no issues at finding their purposes?
They seem to know exactly what is it, in which what they are living for
Oppose to us humans, they seem to be less frightened by death
Do you think animals have religious beliefs?
Some divine stranger they must let control their life.
Or are they responsible enough themselves?
And/or only have faith in what it mean to live
...Just live

The things in which they used to do is still their tendencies today.
Give me one lion that don't hunt anymore?
One pack or tribe that is ran by female?
One chimpanzee who think swinging from trees is out of style?
One shark who think blood is disgusting?
I never met a gopher who wasn't hip enough, who didn't "dig"; digging wholes
Every cat I know rub their skull, ribs, backbone, tailbone and tail; in one motion against other creatures for what I figure as comfort.
Shepherd, Yorkshire, or hound; however, they all get on the mailman's nerves

Humans... We just seem lost
Not knowing where we belong
Steady trying to figure out right for wrong
Attitudes always going up or down
Need to much to crack a smile
The slightest ordeal can make us frown
A successful human is visioned as having access to the whole world

Do you ever see a honey bee left behind in a swarm?
Or a polar bear climbing a tree when it's warm?

Their world has no critics
No trends
No high expectations

Just eat, sleep, and ****

Is that it?
Or there's more to it?
Two separate lives
But I'm influenced

The departure of the swallows took place on                                
My birthday this year, winter began.
They’re beautiful birds aren’t they Chris. Grasp the hand slowly.
Oh and it’s mild weather we’re having isn’t it?
Just splendid for a chance to wander through the forest.

Every man’s got a field to plow but where will I harvest              
When my niche ran south just to sit amongst the rats
And converse through the evening about Ivan’s insecurities.
Edward, grasp me quick and sever me from society.
Sip from the spring, grab a loaf and run cause
I’ve grown reckless and thrown off my yoke.                              
This young man is naturally far ahead of time,
That’s from the nurture of his hard of hearing mother Catherine.  
Where do I rest where do I eat, the dust in my mind
Is subjected to a sweeping repeat without being collected.
A slow rise, I hate taking off the covers but this night I walked
Without them yea I was nocturnal negation of Shadrach.
And boy you’ve taken far too long to deliver the paper!
My coffee’s been hot for half an hour and cold for two.
(Tap on the window) Excuse me which way is Beersheba?          
Now I know you know so please just bare with me and listen.
Yea yea Jason get out of here I know those tricks, I’ll
Get there some day and when I do it’ll all be worth it
Don’t you dear try to break my ankles. Hey drop the razor
Little boy you can’t shave yet and November is approaching.
Nothings equal to this and everything I’ve ever know
Makes perfect sense now, the explanation is certainly
The longest. Where have I been all my life,
Were you hiding under the desk waiting for an atomic
Bomb to drop, no I was just sitting in the subway counting
Change when the little black girl came up to me and
Asked me for two dollars so I gave her four and somehow
Five turned back to nine, the paper transported, my split
Identity got sewn back together and the cosmos is on my side.

Oh extra large I know what you’re talkin about.
Out there I walked through walls let me circumvent
Iron and brick with a gaseous coronary torrent.
I’ll eat my own heart out with one gentle bite
And smash that lime against the wall at your words.
I grow tired…
I need to get out of here I need to get out of here.
Through the yellow hallways around the corner open the green door.
I want to be on the top bunk so I can see the son rise,
After all that’s me don’t you know, genetically Japanese.
Get down from there!
Like a monkey? Okay!
I am the greyhound come to eat the wolf, just let me out.
These feathers are not clipped yet you can’t do this
(As long as I know right from wrong I’ll be okay I’ll sing my song)
I’ve seen them do it on TV just follow through…
**** the wrong force broke, just gotta set this straight.
What the hell are you doing kid?
I don’t know ask him.
And then he said tighten the bolt it’s gonna fall apart.
Yea the center cannot hold.
Gophers are amazing creatures you know, it’s not easy to tunnel under ground.
But if you’re not a gopher don’t go down the hole,
You might get lost.
I took a trip up to Lake Placid last summer, my kids loved it.
I’ve been holding my breath for five days now.
What’s this muscular leprechaun doing in my way,
If I could get those keys off your belt I could probably **** you.
Try it and I’ll break your head.
That’s a good idea, maybe then the light
Will finally be turned out.
Try repelling all of the moisture from your cells
Well now I guess now I just need to wait for my pants to dry.

Opening my mouth for a female will corrupt me.
Okay stapler I hear you but this is serious now,
Almost time for Vinny to come south. I have no need
For ink anymore check the flesh tattoo it’ll spit out a seed.
Stick that tranquilizer in me, I will remain tranquil and awake,
While I stare at the wall and connect unseen signs with familiar phrases.
You’re dreaming kid, no I’m reopening the wells of my father.    
Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher,
Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin.
Hey have you seen this kids coat?
It’s far away but you can find me where I wrote.

Sear me sear me I see it coming anyway
Wait wait wait, I take it all back.

These are the gardens of the Desert, these
The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful,
For which the speech of England has no name--
The Prairies. I behold them for the first,
And my heart swells, while the dilated sight
Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo! they stretch
In airy undulations, far away,
As if the ocean, in his gentlest swell,
Stood still, with all his rounded billows fixed,
And motionless for ever.--Motionless?--
No--they are all unchained again. The clouds
Sweep over with their shadows, and, beneath,
The surface rolls and fluctuates to the eye;
Dark hollows seem to glide along and chase
The sunny ridges. Breezes of the South!
Who toss the golden and the flame-like flowers,
And pass the prairie-hawk that, poised on high,
***** his broad wings, yet moves not--ye have played
Among the palms of Mexico and vines
Of Texas, and have crisped the limpid brooks
That from the fountains of Sonora glide
Into the calm Pacific--have ye fanned
A nobler or a lovelier scene than this?
Man hath no part in all this glorious work:
The hand that built the firmament hath heaved
And smoothed these verdant swells, and sown their slopes
With herbage, planted them with island groves,
And hedged them round with forests. Fitting floor
For this magnificent temple of the sky--
With flowers whose glory and whose multitude
Rival the constellations! The great heavens
Seem to stoop down upon the scene in love,--
A nearer vault, and of a tenderer blue,
Than that which bends above the eastern hills.

  As o'er the verdant waste I guide my steed,
Among the high rank grass that sweeps his sides
The hollow beating of his footstep seems
A sacrilegious sound. I think of those
Upon whose rest he tramples. Are they here--
The dead of other days?--and did the dust
Of these fair solitudes once stir with life
And burn with passion? Let the mighty mounds
That overlook the rivers, or that rise
In the dim forest crowded with old oaks,
Answer. A race, that long has passed away,
Built them;--a disciplined and populous race
Heaped, with long toil, the earth, while yet the Greek
Was hewing the Pentelicus to forms
Of symmetry, and rearing on its rock
The glittering Parthenon. These ample fields
Nourished their harvests, here their herds were fed,
When haply by their stalls the bison lowed,
And bowed his maned shoulder to the yoke.
All day this desert murmured with their toils,
Till twilight blushed, and lovers walked, and wooed
In a forgotten language, and old tunes,
From instruments of unremembered form,
Gave the soft winds a voice. The red man came--
The roaming hunter tribes, warlike and fierce,
And the mound-builders vanished from the earth.
The solitude of centuries untold
Has settled where they dwelt. The prairie-wolf
Hunts in their meadows, and his fresh-dug den
Yawns by my path. The gopher mines the ground
Where stood their swarming cities. All is gone--
All--save the piles of earth that hold their bones--
The platforms where they worshipped unknown gods--
The barriers which they builded from the soil
To keep the foe at bay--till o'er the walls
The wild beleaguerers broke, and, one by one,
The strongholds of the plain were forced, and heaped
With corpses. The brown vultures of the wood
Flocked to those vast uncovered sepulchres,
And sat, unscared and silent, at their feast.
Haply some solitary fugitive,
Lurking in marsh and forest, till the sense
Of desolation and of fear became
Bitterer than death, yielded himself to die.
Man's better nature triumphed then. Kind words
Welcomed and soothed him; the rude conquerors
Seated the captive with their chiefs; he chose
A bride among their maidens, and at length
Seemed to forget,--yet ne'er forgot,--the wife
Of his first love, and her sweet little ones,
Butchered, amid their shrieks, with all his race.

  Thus change the forms of being. Thus arise
Races of living things, glorious in strength,
And perish, as the quickening breath of God
Fills them, or is withdrawn. The red man, too,
Has left the blooming wilds he ranged so long,
And, nearer to the Rocky Mountains, sought
A wilder hunting-ground. The ****** builds
No longer by these streams, but far away,
On waters whose blue surface ne'er gave back
The white man's face--among Missouri's springs,
And pools whose issues swell the Oregan,
He rears his little Venice. In these plains
The bison feeds no more. Twice twenty leagues
Beyond remotest smoke of hunter's camp,
Roams the majestic brute, in herds that shake
The earth with thundering steps--yet here I meet
His ancient footprints stamped beside the pool.

  Still this great solitude is quick with life.
Myriads of insects, gaudy as the flowers
They flutter over, gentle quadrupeds,
And birds, that scarce have learned the fear of man,
Are here, and sliding reptiles of the ground,
Startlingly beautiful. The graceful deer
Bounds to the wood at my approach. The bee,
A more adventurous colonist than man,
With whom he came across the eastern deep,
Fills the savannas with his murmurings,
And hides his sweets, as in the golden age,
Within the hollow oak. I listen long
To his domestic hum, and think I hear
The sound of that advancing multitude
Which soon shall fill these deserts. From the ground
Comes up the laugh of children, the soft voice
Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hymn
Of Sabbath worshippers. The low of herds
Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain
Over the dark-brown furrows. All at once
A fresher wind sweeps by, and breaks my dream,
And I am in the wilderness alone.

Time to write a poem, time to write a rhyme  
Write about the world, and the end of time  
-
This happened once before, right before the Flood  
Noah built an ark, made of gopher wood  
-
As in the days of Noah, people running to and fro  
So busy busy busy, yet they know not where they go  
-
The world that was then, was drowned in water deep  
The world that is now, will become a burning heap  
-
The Book of Revelation is soon to be fulfilled  
First Seal is soon to break, you could very well be killed

We have seen the magic bullet
Cure all disease.
Cows won't go extinct.
Lush, green pastures run to the waters' edges.
Twisted ankles in gopher holes are passe.
Trees are well-placed for shade beneath a relentless sky.
The lands are full, plush and crowded
With work-a-day leather. Wool is everywhere.
The barren creeks are clear of poison.
The grunts and runts of the stead
Blissfully graze, munching towards our tables.
Brown eggs thrive in computerized out buildings.
We are idle. No wars, disease or poverty.
It is either life or death by choice.
We implant, are implanted, removeable,
And sustainable as any Victorian.
In place of the Immaculate Heart,
I hang a picture of my old pet, Sophie,
Walking on a balance beam,
With a strange black V high in the sky.
And with all this, we grow fat.

Toiled for days, toiled for weeks, toiled for hundreds of years
working his fingers to their bones he’s crafting an ark out of gopher wood.
Noah tried ever so hard to tell and be a teacher
A choosing one from God he spoke as if he was a preacher.

No one heeded to his warning and Noah cried and prayed that they all would.
It’s now getting to late and he’s wishing that they all were godly good.

Getting ready to sail on an ocean full of angel tears
he’s not afraid, he’s content in his ark and he has no fears.
Two by two they came from all the creepeth corners of the earth
He’s so happy that he has his wife and wives for his three sons from birth.

For Forty days and forty nights the angels wept from heaven
And down on earth every living thing’s nostril was begging.
The master didn’t really want to take their breathing air
It had to be done because he had a plan and he did care .

It was a beautiful night when the dove with an olive leaf took to fight
bearing a gift showing Noah he was always right
and dry land isn’t too far from his sight.

After enduring a test of faith and with no despise
he was told and given a promise
and in return for his believing eight souls had rainbows were put in there eyes.

AMEN

(Curt A. Rivard Sr.)

(SirCARSr.2-17-13)

The people to the left of me want to get married, but not to each other. Mawwiage is a funny word. Gopher? Potato. Crawdad. Wobble. Jiggly bits. Harmonica. Put your arm on it, cousin. Guzzle. Doozy. An ornery snool. Troglodyte. Haysoos was a troglodyte, that's one of the most hilarious sentences I can think of. Dudebro and ******* are nice. Dankrupt. Barbie. The urban dictionary gave an example sentence using Barbie: if Barbie is so popular why do you have to buy her friends? Perhaps if I memorize that line and say it, I'll get a half second of laughing, showing I have the value to entertain others for about two seconds. That'd be a nice feeling. I'd feel peach-fuzzy. A woman is standing with a rainbow of candy in a ziplock bag. I can't make this stuff up. Life is so incredibly fascinating. Just kidding. But really, that's some bright stuff on display in her transparent bag.

Mr Dodd paid a visit
to the man in the tree;
he asked the man to tell
of the sights he could see.

The squat little man—
who spent his life behind leaves—
shook a bough by Mr Dodd and said
“You would never believe.”

“But why would you live alone in that tree?”
asked old Dodd, and he began to climb a branch.
But the man in the tree lazily
warned Dodd to stand

Where he stood—
from a high-up limb, the man’s voice
wandered down to Dodd’s ears.
“There is a road that slices

Through miles of fields,
herds of cows and small houses,
and leads to a hulking metal city
where lines of gloomy people trickle out.”

Back in his cottage, Mr Dodd dreamt
of the road and the fields and the cows;
but the city unsettled his sleep,
and he woke at last knowing how

Little he knew.
Then Dodd made breakfast for the millionth time:
a buttery bun and some cornflower tea—
he couldn’t smile at the noise of the kids in the town.

He went through the day in his usual way:
he tapped on his xylophone,
he painted his thousandth self-portrait,
he read from his book in a slow monotone.

After lunch he liked to sit in his garden
and smoke from his chestnut pipe
with the eight-inch hickory handle
and the green green herbs inside.

The sunlight pressed the smoky stink
into the weave of Dodd’s vest
When Gilbert—Dodd’s groundskeep—appeared,
seeming so distressed.

“Your sunflowers’ stems have all broke!” breathed Gil;
“I hit them with the mower—”
Mr Dodd saw the sunless stems
and nervous Gilbert cowered.

But Dodd looked Gil straight in the eye
and asked him a question instead:
“Have you ever seen the city, old Gil?”
“I only heard tell,” the relieved Gil said,

“But what I’ve heard is that they that go
can’t come back alive.”
Dodd sent Gil home, who leaving said:
“I also mowed over a gopher; I think he might have died.”

The next day, Dodd went back
to the man in the tree.
“Hello again, Dodd” drawled the voice from the leaves.
“I’m leaving today for the city,”

Spoke Dodd towards the voice.
“But how much nicer it might be to stay
with me in my tree; you could see everything—
all here for you on display.”

No, Mr Dodd thought better of it—
he threw his pack over his shoulder,
nervous of what's new and unknown
and the thought that his life here was over.

Am I scared of you?

Am I the bashful gopher?
Hiding terrified in this hole?
NO!
I am the bloodcurdling bear
Coming from his shadowy cave

Am I scared of you?

Am I the gloomy dog?
Walking away gradually, tail between legs?
NO!
I am the fatal wolf
Ready to attack his prey with terror

Am I scared of you?

Am I the cautious possum?
Hiding at the deepest night?
NO!
I am the spirited hawk
Ready to lunge at any second

So now I ask you…

Are you scared of me?

I stole his girl
And now he's going crazy
I was always the one
His perspective was always hazy
He thought she loved him
But she endured him
He thought shed never leave
But then she met me

He's on the run
On the run
From his dreams
His dreams
But she's on me
She's on me

I've never had too many regrets
I think what you do should be over
And when it is, you gotta learn
But he'll always be her little gopher
Running around for her
Making money just to spend it all
Because he's on her tail
Setting himself up to fall

I feel bad
I guess I do
But it ain't me
It's you
And then it's me too

so one time i was using my **** whacker
and suddenly, a brown gopher appeared
the gopher said that if everything is poetry,
then a panda **** is the best poem ever written

maybe the tree branches and the sky like to talk to each other
i wonder if they're into bird watching
but honestly, I would bird watch the hell out of the sky
and eat a ******* while doing it

I want to say hi to you
& show u my quarter collection
there is a tunnel and a dog barking
Sometimes the cleverest person is an idiot.

I trip around a corner
Adjacent from the other
All hears the wall
Being built by ones own brother
A king sits front row
While his mother is center stage
He knows he's lost control
But he keeps bottled all his rage
Angels dance reluctantly
Hands grip hands circled up
We all fall down expectantly
Who knows who grows the rows
Mystical marijuana hoes
I'll keep making 8 faces growl
As you steep so low to use eleven
How dare you use that tone of lip
With me boy, dont you know
I'm am you creator, nah, na, na
I couldn't be for I am much two young
And I couldn't be for I am your brother
And I couldn't be for I am a little bit evil
I'm am NOT your creator
But the one you look to when all else
Have so horribly failed
You look to me for a hint of which trail
But militantly I sprinkle false truths for you to stumble into
And because you trust way too much you take them as proof
This red snake slithers down the rabbit hole only to have its nose bit by a gopher who happens to be the rabbits best bud so don't believe all you perceive but reality is not what others breath but what you can conceive

Last night, the barn cat caught a gopher
Later, her eyes told me
"it was delicious."

I am boasting of knowing something about Pergamum,
and the altar from there, that is now in Berlin,
and the library that was in that city, where as one
of the cities linked to the Satan of Revelation,...
------
Inserting myself, the meat minded man, qwerty guy,
I am not alone in thinking these are unprecedented
times to be alive and literally reading defined and
cross translatable buzz words that trigger points,
like bullets, but
itchy, or spark, cringe, sometimes, ew, feel
where
whose pain? Yeh we know, now, Iyobe, he talked back,
wisdom has no problem with that, ask James, 3:17,

powerful truth, I used to escape an infamous cult,
in the summer of 1985, which happens to be
the last time I saw Wendell Havatone, Sr. alive,
that 4th of July, in 1985.

The part of friends who approach laughing, every time
you remember a friend, that's the spirit, we share.

Just true, no wu wu doctrine ritual walk, you live
long enough, you know.
…………….

...I am not defining sorrow,
I am not sorrowful, nor sorry.

I am ordinarily silent,
my fingers speak more e-loquaciously
than my lips, yet saying
thus saith the tyrant in my mind, guy in charge,
boss, saith, accept the cast and acknowledge
reception, then be not deceived, no tool in the bag
is non essential,

to be excited about life, become excited about dying,
right, with chutz pah - ummpapa,

steady increase in the overall confusion, mixing material
substances to invoke reversion to the common thread,

the survivor animus, she prima donna, mother superior, Y-
certainly we understand the taste in the white of the egg,

-wait, I'll check.

Shad-dah' ee, the Almighty, all powerful, all schadenfreudlich
Dada's still art
you are the other people, too.

- laugh after you know, you knew, secrets
- heart felt truths we treasure as children,
- wishing some one really dead, as seen on TV.
- Ow, intended for adult audiences, greasy gopher guts.
- anatomically correct Barbie dolls, mentally challenging.

Salt of the earth, pillars in the house
of my god, who has sons
and daughters, stories abound, certainly -- bound by something,

some herding instinct near the mean path of least resistance.

Armed with 2023 word processing technology,
we confess to stretching the vernacular idiolect past positive
resistance to the polar opposites being the most sublime
iteration of our situation, see,
I am wind, and you are water, and, oh, oh, no,
yeh way cool, heat rises, join me, be yourself, no problem

cloudy skies are good things in July.

Noah was a man...he pleased Almighty God
He built an ark of gopher wood, from plans that were not flawed
-
The plans that Noah used, God Almighty did supply
Noah and his family, would stay both safe and dry
-
That was then and this is now, Noah rests in peace
As in the days of Noah, God's Judgment will not cease
-
Then there's ***** and Gomorrah, destroyed by Holy Fire
And this world accepts their sin...excuse me God is not a liar
-
Soon very soon, the Wrath of God will pour
Pour upon this nation, in the form of World War

crusty snot ring.. dirt coated
rosey cheeks and twinkling eyes
proceed to explain the intricacies
of the mole hill the dog was digging in
grimy fingers tell a different story
with grass stained knees to fill in the gaps
yet the excitement of the tale grips me
as I hear about the most giant gopher ever
and the fight that ensued between my ole hound
and a chipmunk straight from the fires of hell
I ask him to repeat the really good parts
thrilled, he explodes forth with all new details
seems giant squirrels have invaded my backyard
and only my rascally black lab can stop them
hearing gravel on the driveway
I envision the face of my daughter
as she spies the condition
survey’s the scene
at least this time grandpa is clean

Vivid Cottonwood images lay across my natural muse ...
Lake dancers sway in the shadows , Georgia red clay
bears earthen testament to her aquatic wonders , teeming along
every living shoreline ..
A prayer before bucolic entities , Bream , Shellcracker and Gopher tortoise , Whitetail Doe and Cottontail rabbit ...
To Bear Creek , cascading mother of Port Lake , to deep western forest as far as my eyes can bear witness ...
The deep blue eyes of my creator , juniper green cover and songbird filled canopy , to the sweet ambrosia of native grasses singing in the afternoon winds ...

long, distorted wood grain ovals
how old would this desk have been
if not hacked down
with dulled axes
drug across the mountains
hooked to a cable
dropped from on high
smashing into your brethren
bark and branches fly
as you, haphazardly get chained to a truck
and driven to a mill
in which they will shave your skin off
slpit you into 4 or 5 workable blanks
which will be shipped to smaller,
more specialized mills…
could you have held nesting squirrels
or perhaps housed an owl or woodpecker
were your tippy top branches stout enough
for an eagle to have nested –
in amongst a myriad of boards
what is left of the mighty forest god
is planed flat
sanded and varnished
and sent to a carpenter
still tragically holding onto his craft
looking at electric tools as an affront
to what can be hand carved
and lovingly tapped together
with wooden dowels and glue –
I sit at a craftsmen’s labor of love
a piece he spent hours of due diligence in creating
painstakingly fitting and matching woods
and think about the forest I love
and how today, there is an empty space
full of underbrush and gopher holes
where once a giant was born, stood,
lived
and died –

I pulled him in the little wagon
the dry grass was browned by the sunshine
his joyful squeal egged me on and I ran faster
the uneven ground was deceptive
and one wheel caught a hidden old gopher hole
the wagon bounced high and flipped
as I let go I saw a different expression on his face
one of terror and uncertainty…
the wagon flew towards the old red house
as I tumbled to the ground
I looked back to see tears trolling down his cheeks
but of laughter, not pain
when finally he could catch his breath
he simply uttered,
“can we go again?”

Loaves
Of dry bread
Rest on my
Dusty windowsill

Someone
Just said my name

I didn't answer them.

I'm worried about dust
Getting in the cracks and
Holes of the dry bread
On my windowsill.

Something tells it's going to happen.

Much like
Everything else
That's been going on
Lately.

What is that something?
Who is it?
Are we all just seers
Locked in our own perspectives?
Like horses with
Blinders on?

I think about money
I think about gold
I think about a white picket fence
Surrounding a manicured yard
With one of those silly garden gnome
And a flamingo with a Santa Clause hat on it

(It is Christmas time)

And then I think about a field
And I see a wolves den
And a birds nest
And a beavers dam
And a gopher hole

I see the roots of a redwood
Planted by the hands of the Gods,
Staking their land with their
Winding tentacles.

We've always done this.
Before we were even able
To call ourselves a "we"

Separation and conflict
As a species
Has always been so.

There is a truth, but
What we lack that the animals have not
Is respect.

They eat their neighbors
And the neighbor know
That this must be so.

What they take comfort in
Is they know the sun will rise
Again for them in the morning.

They do not think they deserve it,
For they fight to survive every day,
Losing brothers and sisters,
Siblings and spouses;

The loss is their payment for the light of the moon and the sun.

They earn it.

The dry bread on my windowsill has molded.
The once gray dust has turned green.
I waited for a bad thing to get better.
I waited for a bad thing to do the right thing.

I'll have to toss it
And bake
Another loaf.

The egg-white mannequin sings, walking down
Pothole-gray sidewalks. To the Met he goes.
What is he looking for? Of course! His toes,
Which have been lost since the lawn-gnome facedown.
It had been Sydney versus Roslyn for
The title, King Crab. And the prize, you ask?
Peppermint wine in a trapezoid flask.
As the battle wore on, they struck a gopher,
Chopped some toes, and played with Play-doh.
The damage caused Google Translator
To speak only Spanish about pink meadows.
Eventually things came to a close.
The victors won with Nike’s bluster.
And off went the mannequin for his toes.