"prairie" poems
worlds converge in a papercup
come, come you on the tambourine
me on the harmonica
let's make music without the adjectives
let's live on the jingle-jangle of coins
tara na! this pavement
is our carnegie; metaphors
sans adverbs -- no illusions, no fantasies.
you and me and this street --
dancing like gypsies on a prairie
later tonight, while the moon watches over
we'll upstage the stars
with **** adverbs & adjectives
Mar 31, 2012
Mar 31, 2012 at 8:57 AM UTC
White-furred hill flowers bow
Gust-bent,
Wet in April snow,
Lavender beneath their
Downy coats.
Tender soldiers of spring
Grasp wind-blown gravel steeps,
Stand to beckon brown grass,
Soft-call the life in sapless trees
To ring with green again
Against Old Bully Winter’s
Blustering.
Quaking aspens,
Earliest to leaf in yellow-green,
Curling grama grasses,
Tough food for buffalo,
Cannot boast first life each Montana spring;
Only zombie-lichens,
Rock-fast mosses
Throw off winter’s death
Before the crocus' rise.
On eastern Montana hills
No street-hemmed dandelions
Colonize in chute-dropped ranks;
No time-tamed tulips
Live on wind-round knolls.
Here, the yucca’s bayonet-sharp ******
Here, the wild onions’ scent-strong hold;
But these arrive after early chill,
Following the purple crocus on the hill.
Jan 4, 2012
Jan 4, 2012 at 8:36 AM UTC
April doesnt hurt here
Like it does in New England
The ground
Vast and brown
Surrounds dry towns
Located in the dust
Of the coming locust
Live for survival, not for 'kicks'
Be a bangtail describer,
like of shrouded traveler
in Textile tenement & the birds fighting in yr ears-like Burroughs exact to describe & gettin $
The Angry Hunger
(hunger is anger)
who fears the
hungry feareth
the angry)
And so I came home
To Golden far away
Twas on the horizon
Every blessed day
As we rolled And we rolled
From Donner tragic Pass
Thru April in Nevada And out Salt City Way Into the dry Nebraskas And sad Wyomings Where young girls And pretty lover boys
With Mickey Mantle eyes
Wander under moons
Sawing in lost cradle
And Judge O Fasterc
Passes whiggling by To ask of young love: ,,Was it the same wind Of April Plains eve that ruffled the dress
Of my lost love
Louanna
In the Western
Far off night
Lost as the whistle
Of the passing Train
Everywhere West
Roams moaning
The deep basso
- Vom! Vom!
- Was it the same love
Notified my bones As mortify yrs now
Children of the soft
Wyoming April night?
Couldna been!
But was! But was!'
And on the prairie
The wildflower blows
In the night For bees & birds And sleeping hidden Animals of life.
The Chicago
Spitters in the spotty street
Cheap beans, loop, Girls made eyes at me And I had 35 Cents in my jeans -
Then Toledo
Springtime starry
Lover night Of hot rod boys And cool girls A wandering
A wandering
In search of April pain A plash of rain
Will not dispel This fumigatin hell Of lover lane This park of roses Blue as bees
In former airy poses
In aerial O Way hoses
No tamarand And figancine Can the musterand Be less kind
Sol -
Sol -
Bring forth yr Ah Sunflower - Ah me Montana
Phosphorescent Rose
And bridge in
fairly land
I'd understand it all -
11.1k
#STICK’EM UP with LIQUID NAILS
DANGER ! EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE
See Other Caution on Back Panel:
I’m hot for you Cowgirl – you’re so flammable my glue-gun starts to melt; my screwdriver starts twisting when you loosen that low-slung belt. You make me feel like laying re-bar in a freshly-poured foundation. Shoot me up with that caulk gun baby – I need you like salvation. Ten and one-half fluid ounces – pull off your top, pop a love-cap in me. Fingerin’ your trigger while the job is gettin’ bigger so take me for a ride to the hardware store, honey, cause I’m seeing red and feeling white on your golden background’s sheer delight. Hammer me a heart-full, spike me on a cross of blonde, I’m hanging ten, surfing the tube of your magic wand. I’ve been in love ever since I first waterproofed my seamy undersides with you… stand over me in those red, red boots, you Liquid Nails Girl – and from your pure white Stetson let righteousness unfurl. You won the shoot-out long before you even drew, my dear. Lost hope of the Wild West, Final Frontal Feminine Frontier – there’s only one side of you… your GOOD side. Just one look and your fearless gaze silences the foes, my blooming prairie rose.
YEE – HAW ! Be my angel, be my dream, my valentine rodeo queen, be my bodyguard, my therapist, long & tall & hard & wet – be my Liquid Nails Girl forever and I’ll ride right into your sunset…
Sep 10, 2015
Sep 10, 2015 at 9:28 PM UTC
The wind blows on the prairie
The wind blows on the moor
The wind blows in the ferry
None compare to your speech before.
Apr 5, 2014
Apr 5, 2014 at 2:14 AM UTC
THE BUFFALOES are gone.
And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands and how they pawed the prairie sod into dust with their hoofs, their great heads down pawing on in a great pageant of dusk,
Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.
And the buffaloes are gone.
7.7k
Alone the third thing can't be known.
Alone, I am a cold, dark stone
In a universe yawning lusterless,
Spinning void of aim.
Then light shines
In eyes and skies
Of gray and blue
And I am a new daymoon.
Night leads the day
As day ushers night;
Light follows darkness
As darkness the light.
I follow, you pull;
Take my arm, check my stride.
You and I mark time and tide.
We meet.
We pass.
We kiss.
Eclipse.
Heart quivers and the heavens shift.
"Let us go then, you and I,"
Wend our way across the sky.
The unknown beckons
To me and you
Where green meets hues
Of gray and blue.
Infinite line: horizons new.
Misty islands ships drift past,
Clouds cut by spires of stone, steel and glass,
Cities bright in alley pools,
Magic light on windswept moors.
Prairie hills in gentle rain,
Northwood pines sun washed again,
Spring moss upon the forest floor,
A different green on the unopened door.
"Let us go then, you and I,"
Together take the road untried;
Wend our way across the sky:
A little sphere of green and blue
'Round which we dance,
Me and you.
Feb 14, 2019
Feb 14, 2019 at 10:47 PM UTC
There's gods all around that pound you
While the men in high heels surround you
How much longer 'til they've found you?
Suzy, do you know what you've done?
She had her ways of seduction
A femme fatale if there ever was one
A high class killer and a smart one
But everyone fails once or twice
You spent the night in the hacienda
Curled up on the white veranda
To kingdom come they'd like to send ya
Suzy, do you know you're on your own?
The sun will rise tomorrow
Do you need some time to borrow?
Listen to the morning swallow
You've got to come up with something quick
How does it feel to be a rebel?
To wake up dead next to the devil?
You've got one more deal left to settle
Suzy, I hope your aim is good
Is that smoke in the distance?
Is it a campfire or an instance?
Is there anyone out here to witness,
Whatever Suzy has up her sleeve?
The gun that she carries
Belongs to the man she married
And tonight, along this lonesome prairie
Suzy will meet him once more
Feb 10, 2016
Feb 10, 2016 at 2:28 AM UTC
Inside the drainage basin
Bounding my soul
Fluid dynamics
Condense
Phases of water
Gather in the
Mountain towers
Over time
Gravity plus precipitation
Converts
Into snow pack
Come spring
That snow pack
Braids it's way down the mountain
Co-mingling with groundwater
Bubbling up in springs
Gathering momentum
In mountain streams
A constant conversion from
Potential to kinematic
Energy
Streams make their
Way into prairie rivers
Meandering along
Through riparian pockets
Of biodiversity
Reaching a levee
Then breaching
Local, national, and international boundaries
Are no match
As my soul
Finds it's way to base level
In the ocean of your love
Oct 30, 2014
Oct 30, 2014 at 7:15 AM UTC
The porch bends beneath me,
its gray boards sighing.
I light a cigarette,
send my breath to the wind-
maybe White‑Shell Woman
will carry it to the horizon.
He's fired again,
last kitchen inside forty miles
that could stand him,
bridge burned behind.
At lunch I’ll call,
say get out
or Daddy and Jimbo
will haul your whiskey bones
to lie with the rattlesnakes.
I swore to Mama and to Owl,
I will keep the night honest,
I wouldn’t spend my years
driving a man to dialysis,
watching Irish blood unravel
like wet lace.
But I remember the long Covid winter-
two bears in one den,
one soft, one starved-
when Spider Grandmother
wove us together
in the dim blue light
of tele-novellas and snow.
I almost believed
it was love again.
He pops up like a coyote
in the truck’s passenger door,
smelling of smoke and ruin.
Eighty‑five down the prairie road,
bug‑spattered glass,
sky bending blue,
fields gold as escape.
This isn’t working, I whisper.
We want different things.
Don’t, he says,
fingers crawling my thigh
No-
I shove.
Sweetness peels,
the sleeping volcano wakes.
Before his hand
can teach me the rest,
I already know:
there is no leaving.
The road is long,
lined with white crosses,
and the Ghost Buffalo
that's been leading me
down it
all my life.
Aug 5, 2025
Aug 5, 2025 at 3:41 PM UTC
In the yellow,
cold light
of the wine-dark
night,
'tween the brand-new mall
and the Roman Site,
he staggered
alone,
drunken
with "Magon"*
and memories.
Vast,
so vast is the night -
vast
as the memory
of an English
prairie,
and an emmer-haired
maiden
he'd walked
to the ferry
on a summery day.
Vast,
so vast
is a night
masquerading
as a want of sight.
© LazharBouazzi
Jul 19, 2018
Jul 19, 2018 at 12:18 PM UTC
Around the table,
Literacy discussion turned elitist...
Bemoaning some poor Johnny,
Son of a plumber who does not read
Beyond the practical need,
And has no desire to.
I stopped to check my sense of what I had just heard...
Was transported to a prairie farm;
Thought of my Father, then in his eighties
Who felt no need and no sense of loss
For not having read Shakespeare nor Kant
For missing Milton's Paradises and Hemingway,
For by-passing Black Elk Speaks and C.S. Lewis.
Every morning, he read his Bible;
Some nights he read the mail's
Motley collection of literature:
Ads and politicians and fanatics,
Demanding money and his time,
But mostly money.
"I don't have time to read!"
He'd shout when I suggested a novel.
What literature he had was in his head,
Poems memorized when he was a boy
In a two room school, or
His own lines, written as a young man,
Describing work and friends
Long distant now, but still alive
In memory.
Dad taught me how to read
In different literacies and different texts:
Nuances of sky to read the weather -
What chill or storm or drought was on its way
("Storm's coming, boys! Let's get that hay!");
Cows and calves and bulls,
(Which one was sick or well, dry or bred);
Ways to diagnose mechanical ailments
("Start with the easiest options first");
Metals, to know which welding rod applied
("Aluminum sags, and cast iron cracks");
Grain, rolled crisp between hard hands,
(a test of ripeness);
Cement, to blend the perfect mix,
("Clean gravel/sand, no dirt, not too much water!);
Conservation,
("Always keep some grain on hand" &
"Keep your fuel above half-tank").
So many literacies...
Dad, the Master Reader of them all...
No wonder he'd no time for books.
Dec 20, 2011
Dec 20, 2011 at 9:26 PM UTC
within the solitude of the dreadful span
of the blackened and bowed sky
the deep withered grass bends in the moonless dark
quieting the cold and murmuring earth
hushing her into fitful sleep
the air is hard
and the wind lacerates the night
razor incisions left behind
in the icy flesh of obsidian hours
open wounds howl like wolves
on the trail of prey in flight
I hunger for you
under the restless stars
Feb 4, 2025
Feb 4, 2025 at 11:29 PM UTC
An animal shriek
in the snowiest silence
is swallowed by eyes deep and brown,
not like mine.
Which're shallow and icy and
clouded with Sundays
shrugged off of shoulders
from peak down to plain.
These mornings are silent,
constructed from cinder blocks;
skeletal, rusting--yet inwardly
wailing.
Why in the world can't I set those shouts free
when the achiest Mondays release
all their caltrops
and I stagger through work weeks
on sore, shredded feet?
It's because of the way
that your shrieks echo off
of my wrought iron eyelids
when frost fills your veins.
It's because of the way
that I melt every Thursday
and wash down the side
of the night in cold sheets.
I can't shout out loud
and I can't melt the quiet
that screams from the mountains
to snow on the prairie below.
Feb 1, 2015
Feb 1, 2015 at 2:51 PM UTC
~for Maya, the Persian Canadian farmer in the dell~
your poetic riddling questions without hesitation re
my claim conceptual
refuting with factoids actuarial experiential derived,
that cows need milkshake making daily by sunrise
nonsense
so you wake me up groggy on a Miami Saturday 6:00am
with a reciprocal poetic to a dashed off to contra my
code of conduct poem-mine;
and all that stumbles through my almost reset rested,
main stem cortex is an a ancient hebrew homily:
on Sabbath Saturday, even the cows sleep late
ok;
just tween us rare passes the day that a glancing phrase doesn’t register a stabbing whine “of me, of mine do sing” and your point counterpoint incision demands inspiration instant re-mission
around 10am when the amiable barn aminals sipping cuppa #3,
and the chicken children want a weekend brunch xtra feeding
are done, in the yard, put out to
pack n' peck n’ play
so that’s an intro to this work
that jumps the line of a
hundreds of other’s poems promised and overdue:
insight inside your crafted wake up slam slap was
pretty **** near the makers mark bourbon of this distillers
bourbon barrels bulbous poem’s bibliothèque that
has an impatient waiting list
of poems waiting anointing
each a personage~poem of that day it was birthed inscribed
this particular one for you,
~
my complexity non-Napoleonic
just humanoid each, here are my leaders from and
into a veining so lovely colored
each poem a waving wheat stalk
before these old tired eyes close to closing hear once more
“of me, of mine do sing”
so I follow all of you by dimming yellow light,
for this is the soil of nutriment rich from where my
words grow taller and the yellow infusion feeds my wheats,
the amber, the red hard and soft, the whites, the durums,
and mon préféré, prairie spring white,
which is my secret nickname for a duality woman,
poet and farmer,
posing riddles
that deserve answers*
maybe
—-
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2503650/little-ole-me-a-riddle-of-sorts/
May 12, 2018
May 12, 2018 at 11:17 AM UTC
the artistry in you
snapping bubbles
through your hair
resting feather
the coop
the hibernation
every bit of your work
a statement of
beast and sacrifice
sweet mother
holy sister
undying scientist
like windows
like soil
in which life grows
good earth
good prairie
miles and miles of you
swaying in the wind
inculcated within me
this immortal passion
to watch you sprout life
to watch you work
to watch you love
a blissful void
a simple kiss
a wonderful purple
this incomprehensible galaxy
makes sense
when I see your eyes
scanning billions of blades
of grass
when I witness the tortuous
beauty
of your smile
when I hear you
read your poetry
it’s the gift of nature
unprecedented
unexpected
un-censored
unlike anything I’ve ever
experienced
your love
Jessica
your love
is ineffable
Jun 18, 2016
Jun 18, 2016 at 11:31 PM UTC
Delicious hues of blue
Behind linen clouds
Stampeding
Slowly
From horizon
To horizon
As swirling calls of birds
Cheer them on.
Jun 4, 2019
Jun 4, 2019 at 3:19 PM UTC
Maybe he believes me, maybe not.
Maybe I can marry him, maybe not.
Maybe the wind on the prairie,
The wind on the sea, maybe,
Somebody, somewhere, maybe can tell.
I will lay my head on his shoulder
And when he asks me I will say yes,
Maybe.
4.4k
KEEP a red heart of memories
Under the great gray rain sheds of the sky,
Under the open sun and the yellow gloaming embers.
Remember all paydays of lilacs and songbirds;
All starlights of cool memories on storm paths.
Out of this prairie rise the faces of dead men.
They speak to me. I can not tell you what they say.
Other faces rise on the prairie.
They are the unborn. The future.
Yesterday and to-morrow cross and mix on the skyline
The two are lost in a purple haze. One forgets. One waits.
In the yellow dust of sunsets, in the meadows of vermilion eight o'clock June nights ... the dead men and the unborn children speak to me ... I can not tell you what they say ... you listen and you know.
I don't care who you are, man:
I know a woman is looking for you
and her soul is a corn-tassel kissing a south-west wind.
(The farm-boy whose face is the color of brick-dust, is calling the cows; he will form the letter X with crossed streams of milk from the teats; he will beat a tattoo on the bottom of a tin pail with X's of milk.)
I don't care who you are, man:
I know sons and daughters looking for you
And they are gray dust working toward star paths
And you see them from a garret window when you laugh
At your luck and murmur, "I don't care."
I don't care who you are, woman:
I know a man is looking for you
And his soul is a south-west wind kissing a corn-tassel.
(The kitchen girl on the farm is throwing oats to the chickens and the buff of their feathers says hello to the sunset's late maroon.)
I don't care who you are, woman:
I know sons and daughters looking for you
And they are next year's wheat or the year after hidden in the dark and loam.
My love is a yellow hammer spinning circles in Ohio, Indiana. My love is a redbird shooting flights in straight lines in Kentucky and Tennessee. My love is an early robin flaming an ember of copper on her shoulders in March and April. My love is a graybird living in the eaves of a Michigan house all winter. Why is my love always a crying thing of wings?
On the Indiana dunes, in the Mississippi marshes, I have asked: Is it only a fishbone on the beach?
Is it only a dog's jaw or a horse's skull whitening in the sun? Is the red heart of man only ashes? Is the flame of it all a white light switched off and the power house wires cut?
Why do the prairie roses answer every summer? Why do the changing repeating rains come back out of the salt sea wind-blown? Why do the stars keep their tracks? Why do the cradles of the sky rock new babies?
4.4k
We lived briefly outside and at once
all of our one lives one innocuous evening.
I think it must’ve been a round ten.
We’d gone, really and already, in every sense,
a-stoop-smoking to clear the air of Murakami
and his personal identity. I guess we knew
we’d end up breathing significantly
before time came to shepherd us back in.
On the stoop, aglow in rosewood smoke,
in the streaked light of our chosen nostalgia
and strawberry hope, we pointed to things
we really saw—everything—pressing their
dimensions sharp through the buttery plaster
of our personal identities, like certain words
I happened to glimpse, in and out of Murakami.
I was startled when a car cut through the viscous
street in front of me like a hand underneath a piece
of cloth. It bent still shadows around a perfect
globule of movement and returned each to rest
only after each of its past moments had passed.
That’s when I saw my smoke trail slowly leave me,
unapologetically, heading across the invisible prairie
on its horses to drink by the bending river in the street.
It asked me if I knew, now, why I should come along.
I pointed and asked: What was that I just saw?
Where?
There by the street. What was that?
Oh, that was just
antlers on a fire truck this past Wednesday.
I don’t understand.
Of course you don’t. You won’t remember I said it.
Then why’d you say it?
To remind you you’ll forget.
Oh, I see. Thank you, then. I was about to
forget I’d forget. Now I know
I never will.
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 5:46 PM UTC
Calm breathes in the prairie,
Sunburned in dungarees,
The grasses bow at its presence.
May 4, 2010
May 4, 2010 at 4:01 PM UTC
Daydreamer waiting for her surprise
She's always sitting on the bench outside
Watching through the golden glasses
She sees through her eyes a world that unties
Beautiful creatures and where love prevails
She always wonder why her beauty does not impales
As she holds so many wonders
A sweetness in her bright almond eyes, behind the glasses that sat crookedly on her nose
She focused her eyes on a flat prairie
Where the unaccustomed eye sees only ordinary
In hers, the dale was a beautiful swathe of shiny green grasses
Trees are clothed in delicious cream and pink blossom
Jasmines dancing to the winds, choreographing autumn breeze
The sun casting its last golden rays
Changing its yellow into hues of tangerine and fire red
Her perfect world, she whispers
She is a daydreamer
With eyes so full of love that will make you melt
She is beauty and love
Looking at her shadow slowly shrinking down her feet
Only her can see the magic
You will find her outside
Waiting for the man to share the same picturesque landscape
Seeing her reflection on him just like a mirror
Sharing a moment, a smile, a touch, a gaze
Closing their eyes to a slow and soft kiss
Alas; she is still waiting on this
Waiting to meet him flesh and bones
Dreaming about it everyday
This love she's never met,
Yet she seems to glimpse him in every corner
And because of it, her heart craves for blossoming flower
Her heart is bound to a fictional imagery of him
Creating imaginary moments and opportunities
Clinging to a false sign that precipitates desires
The desire to lay her eyes on him and feel his lips on hers
The desire to feel her body shivers with his skin on hers
The desire to feel his heart beating to her caress
the rush in her veins, with just his look
She will be an eternal daydreamer
Until she finds him sitting on the bench outside for her
For an eternity of love
Dec 21, 2017
Dec 21, 2017 at 1:42 PM UTC
On a New Year's Day in Reykjavik
I stood at the very top of that old city,
intending to visit the Cathedral there.
All at once, there it was. And it was in charge.
A gust of wind so strong that it grabbed and
slid me, speeding across several metres of ice,
only to slam, face first, into the broad chest
of a resident British Embassy staffer.
Genially, he smiled down and introduced
himself with gentlemanly aplomb.
No wonder they had an empire. At least for a while.
Oh, that wind! Ever seen snow moving horizontally?
Or felt a hole being drilled, in one ear, almost out the other?
Deep in the ancient countryside, on the way to the sea,
is a lonely valley, held captive by the power of a brutal
Gigantic troll. There, this wind has its greatest rival.
Even if you can't see them, just tell me you don't feel them...
In Reykholt now, that bullying wind buffets a cozy house,
but to no avail, for angels watch over a newborn baby girl.
Her mother, just a girl when we first met,
now sings tenderly to her own new daughter.
Both are princesses of this beautiful island country.
Finding kindness, that tough old wind has sent
Halldora's lullaby across the open ocean,
over wide blue skies, and onto this snowy prairie
where I hear it and cradle it softly, and so gently, to my heart.
Jan 10, 2016
Jan 10, 2016 at 7:10 PM UTC