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.

I. Cogida and death

At five in the afternoon.
It was exactly five in the afternoon.
A boy brought the white sheet
at five in the afternoon.
A frail of lime ready prepared
at five in the afternoon.
The rest was death, and death alone.

The wind carried away the cottonwool
at five in the afternoon.
And the oxide scattered crystal and nickel
at five in the afternoon.
Now the dove and the leopard wrestle
at five in the afternoon.
And a thigh with a desolated horn
at five in the afternoon.
The bass-string struck up
at five in the afternoon.
Arsenic bells and smoke
at five in the afternoon.
Groups of silence in the corners
at five in the afternoon.
And the bull alone with a high heart!
At five in the afternoon.
When the sweat of snow was coming
at five in the afternoon,
when the bull ring was covered with iodine
at five in the afternoon.
Death laid eggs in the wound
at five in the afternoon.
At five in the afternoon
At five o'clock in the afternoon.

A coffin on wheels is his bed
at five in the afternoon.
Bones and flutes resound in his ears
at five in the afternoon.
Now the bull was bellowing through his forehead
at five in the afternoon.
The room was iridiscent with agony
at five in the afternoon.
In the distance the gangrene now comes
at five in the afternoon.
Horn of the lily through green groins
at five in the afternoon.
The wounds were burning like suns
at five in the afternoon.
At five in the afternoon.
Ah, that fatal five in the afternoon!
It was five by all the clocks!
It was five in the shade of the afternoon!

II. The Spilled Blood

I will not see it!

Tell the moon to come,
for I do not want to see the blood
of Ignacio on the sand.

I will not see it!

The moon wide open.
Horse of still clouds,
and the grey bull ring of dreams
with willows in the barreras.

I will not see it!

Let my memory kindle!
Warm the jasmines
of such minute whiteness!

I will not see it!

The cow of the ancient world
passend har sad tongue
over a snout of blood
spilled on the sand,
and the bulls of Guisando,
partly death and partly stone,
bellowed like two centuries
sated with threading the earth.
No.
I will not see it!

Ignacio goes up the tiers
with all his death on his shoulders.
He sought for the dawn
but the dawn was no more.
He seeks for his confident profile
and the dream bewilders him.
He sought for his beautiful body
and encountered his opened blood.
Do not ask me to see it!
I do not want to hear it spurt
each time with less strength:
that spurt that illuminates
the tiers of seats, and spills
over the cordury and the leather
of a thirsty multitude.
Who shouts that I should come near!
Do not ask me to see it!

His eyes did not close
when he saw the horns near,
but the terrible mothers
lifted their heads.
And across the ranches,
an air of secret voices rose,
shouting to celestial bulls,
herdsmen of pale mist.
There was no prince in Sevilla
who could compare to him,
nor sword like his sword
nor heart so true.
Like a river of lions
was his marvellous strength,
and like a marble toroso
his firm drawn moderation.
The air of Andalusian Rome
gilded his head
where his smile was a spikenard
of wit and intelligence.
What a great torero in the ring!
What a good peasant in the sierra!
How gentle with the sheaves!
How hard with the spurs!
How tender with the dew!
How dazzling the fiesta!
How tremendous with the final
banderillas of darkness!

But now he sleeps without end.
Now the moss and the grass
open with sure fingers
the flower of his skull.
And now his blood comes out singing;
singing along marshes and meadows,
sliden on frozen horns,
faltering soulles in the mist
stoumbling over a thousand hoofs
like a long, dark, sad tongue,
to form a pool of agony
close to the starry Guadalquivir.
Oh, white wall of Spain!
Oh, black bull of sorrow!
Oh, hard blood of Ignacio!
Oh, nightingale of his veins!
No.
I will not see it!
No challice can contain it,no swallows can drink it,
no frost of light can cool it,
nor song nor deluge og white lilies,
no glass can cover mit with silver.
No.
I will not see it!

III. The Laid Out Body

Stone is a forehead where dreames grieve
without curving waters and frozen cyprseses.
Stone is a shoulder on which to bear Time
with trees formed of tears and ribbons and planets.

I have seen grey showers move towards the waves
raising their tender riddle arms,
to avoid being caught by lying stone
which loosens their limbs without soaking their blood.

For stone fathers seed and clouds,
skeleton larks and wolves of penumbra:
but yields not sounds nor crystals nor fire,
only bull rings and bull rings and more bull rings without walls.

Now, Ignacio the well born lies on the stone.
All is finished. What is happening! Contemplate his face:
death was covered him with pale sulphur
and his place on him the head of dark minotaur.

All is finshed. The rain penetrates his mouth.
The air, as if mad, leaves his sunken chest,
and Love, soaked through with tears of snow,
warms itself on the peak of the herd.

What is they saying? A stenching silence settles down.
We are here with a body laid out which fades away.
with a pure shape which had nightingales
and we see it being filled with depthless holes.

Who creases the shroud? What he says is not true!
Nobody sings here, nobody weeps in the corner,
nobody ****** the spurs, not terrifies the serpent.
Here I want nothing else but the round eyes
to see his body without a chance of rest.

Here I want to see those men of hard voice.
Those that break horses and dominate rivers;
those men of sonorous skeleton who sing
with a mouth full of sun and flint.

Here I want to see them. Before the stone.
Before this body with broken reins.
I want to know from them the way out
for this captain stripped down by death.

I want them to show me a lament like a river
which will have sweet mists and deep shores,
to take the body of Ignacio where it looses itself
without hearing the double planting of the bulls.

Loses itself in the round bull ring of the moon
which feigns in its youth a sad quiet bull,
loses itself in the night without song of fishes
and in the white thicket of frozen smoke.

I don't want to cover his face with hankerchiefs
that he may get used to the death he carries.
Go, Ignacio, feel not the hot bellowing
Sleep, fly, rest: even the sea dies!

IV:

The bull does not know you, nor the fig tree,
nor the horses, nor the ants in your own house.
The child and the afternoon do not know you
because you have died forever.

The shoulder of the stone does not know you
nor the black silk, where you are shuttered.
Your silent memory does not know you
because you have died forever.

The autumn will come with small whiet snails,
misty grapes and clustered hills,
but no one will look into your eyes
becuaase you have died forever.

Because you have died froever,
like al lthe dead of the earth,
like all the dead who are forgotten
in a heap of lifeless dogs.

Nobody knows you. No, but I sing of you.
For posterity I sing of your profile and grace.
Of the signal maturity of your understanding.
Of your appetite for death and the taste of its mouth:
of the sadness of your once valiant gaiety.

It will be a long time, if ever, before there is born
an Andalusian so true, so rich in adventure.
I sing of his elegance with words that groan,
and I remember a sad breeze through the olive trees.

I

He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
The snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.

But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.

Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.

But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.

II

You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.

III

Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.

Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice.

With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress.

In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

I am so sick of this smog,
(And the plane has only just landed).
Gray and gold, it smothers the city;
I already miss cotton-ball clouds
In a sky that is blue, just blue,
Floating.across flat green fields filled
With yellow-topped corn and spindly windmills.
The flatness is immense here,
But clotted with a wreck of suburbia,
Boxy ranches and sudden apartment buildings.
Instead of a harvest, the backyards are filled
With cement and fetal-curved swimming pools.
Every bit of it looks about to crack
Under all this weight.

The palm trees that used to look exotic
And spark my mind with other people’s sold memories
Of India, Siam, and Hollywood,
Are now tacky, too tall,
Hovering over the highway wall.
They look like a locust infestation.
Even the white windmills
Seemed more benign, their blades
Whipping around and around
As if they were ready for a fight.

Ten months is too long for LA,
But it would probably be too long for heaven, as well.
So when I settle for good,
It will be in a house
With a winter view of the river,
A highway drive from the city.
This valley, though sometimes empty, is filled
With both silence and cement,
Sunshine and snow and thunderstorms,
And the only house that matters,
With a winter view of the river.

The top-secret nature of Allison Williams‘ wedding made it all the more special.

“One of the most special things about the wedding was that it was actually very personal and very private,” the “Girls” star gushed at the premiere of Forevermark’s new film, “It’s a Long Journey to Become the One” on Wednesday night.

Williams, who wed College Humor co-founder Ricky Van Veen in September, kept guests in the dark regarding the actual locale of the star-studded affair, even setting up a decoy site to lure the paparazzi away from the actual ceremony at the Brush Creek Ranch in Saratoga, Wyoming.

“It was something that mattered to me in a sense of just wanting it to feel really intimate, and to feel like an experience that we shared as a family and with our closest friends,” said Williams, 27. “I feel really happy about the fact that it was exactly that.”

After father Brian Williams walked Allison down the aisle, Tom Hanks officiated as the couple said their “I do’s” in front of pals including Lena Dunham, Katy Perry andSeth Meyers.

“It’s an emotional day and people were free to feel whatever emotions they were feeling,” the newly married actress said.

Williams shared a few snaps of her wedding on Instagram, including a stunning shot of her custom-made Oscar de la Renta gown.

“Peter [Copping, de la Renta’s creative director] grew up being around horses and ranches and immediately understood the aesthetic I was going to be in,” Williams explained of the design process. “It came together kind of organically.”

Though Williams let the designers work their magic, she did have a special request.

“I wanted sleeves because I’m always cold.”

read more:www.marieaustralia.com/plus-size-formal-dresses

www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses

Tension builds on the western front
The Slopes moan in horrific altitude
Sorry to break the news.
Tension slaps the western
Face, the soil is moldy
The planets forming in ghastly trace.
Everyone knows it though noone sais it.
We're doomed, keeping a shotgun on the side keeping the suns
Memory in my mind, I've got a bunker, trust me, its better then bombs and gloom. I have come to the diddly widdly conclusion, I wont be trapped on the governments map, I won't be
In confusion. They'll bring us delusion, pin others against mothers, the west has seen this coming a long time comin. Lock and load boys, let the second amendment be kept to its name, light the matches, light the torches, darkfall will plague our land, were already plagued. Many things to be staged, farmhands are losing their lands, ranches are being stolen, golden tongues from hypocritical bums, will make some dumbed in conclusion. This old flesh will stay loosened, knock knock who's there? Gramps! Get out#theres noone here.

Our odd tale is set in the Old Wild West
Where stories like this are imparted the best
It tells of the feud of two bitter old men
Who argued quite often and fought now and then.

The fact of the matter is that each had a ranch
And running between was a large river branch
Each claimed the river to be just his alone
They argued the point right down to the bone.

Family members were brought into the fight
Over the years shots were fired left and right
Amazingly no one on either side died
Goodness knows some of the best shooters tried.

Then one day against the family wishes of both
A man and woman from each side did betroth
As they loved despite anger that they had both known
Into each other's loving arms they had each flown.

They married in secret and needed a home
A small ranch was for sale where cattle could roam
So the new couple bought it and opened their ranch
It was just at the head of the large river branch.

And then dammed up the river and halted its flow
The ranches below had nowhere else to go
But they said to his parents and also to hers
"Unwatered cattle - or fighting! What's worse?"

At long last after dozens of years in a fight
Someone had seen sense and had some insight
And had forced the old rivals to both compromise
Grandchildren, not fighting each other - the prize!



©Joe Wilson - Bashing heads...2014



A fun story about the value of compromise, and the value of water.

"THINGS I dream Of"* - A poem by his wooly
mammoth mr. WOODY.


[Not much is left to the imagination
     to leave the Plantation in the sultry sun...]

"So what does Woody dream?" Of
Most things, Good...
To have lived that we should have not
known the sweet --Heavens
                                  now forbidden fruit

The knot you swallowed
Adams apples
lodges / in your throat
                "seeds
of trees lush -- green with Ideas"
who so to speak is
         a Head of a Family tree
         summer breezey tree-tops
bright songs light bittle birds
California girls and wild
the boardwalk, the "coast's
voluptuosity" travel the herd...
      
"sheezus!
if this is hell....****...boing!"

"I thawt I taw a *****
cat"
bettys kitty ******* bunny
Aye*
Mammy, Selfies will last longer
than the ****** you accidentally
bumped into

"Because poppy wanted something new"
HEAD is where you dump
**** and **** n ****.

Lavatory of Mad Bladders
     Tags sharpies spray-paint walls say
the craziest - don't ever dial the number
that escorts the bad drawn dongs
and ***'ges . scribbled in eye lashes
looking sideways toward you
for a kiss...?

He thought he knew,
I'm secure with my manly mystique
not damaged having none of him around
I sleep easy
                without
a father-dad-uncle-brother stress
pressure to proove myself
with stacks or whips...

so yeah, you know who's what's up

great Gran D is maw-maw's boy
gone off-grid they visit Vegas
Ranches  and ride the stallions
Gran-D gramps : the bunnies...
     (They sleep in quite well
      those heat waves summer fun...
catching rays and Zs.)

Herbalist
Maybe Woody dreams
are all Natural      
                          * (to question existence
                            and wanting more)

of Seed... of Sea? --of Trees I mean
meditate a sedative
bow down to Xanex!* rroooaaarr!
And in Any hood, it is your Word kept
Honors Mens Respects

Standing Tall like "Things" of Woody Dreams

Prisms
And Sleep's winter warmths
Hot Chocolates Marsh mellow Pillows
              [Well Rested]
Is the dream of this heart
the Poet sank
my Battleship--Me.

*"I will always care for Thee,
  but I can only carry Me."

If in Sleep...?
                       Sweet       Peacefully.

Let's say we just keep aiming straight
and lay more rubber on the backroad radius
of tarry black top Texas like two interstate
eight ***** rolling for free range
Take me to where the quail coo through
the straw with your wolf paw on my knee
Past the wooden western dispatch
poles and water tower stands
Past the tin roofed ranches through longhorn land
I wanna follow the fence row route to nowhere
up ahead and sleep under the stars
throw sticks into a vagabond fire till we're tired
of another country crock detour and wayside diner
Don't say no, let's just go

Written by Sara Fielder © July 2015

Across Hyrule he shall roam,
After Navi finds him and gives him his cue,
He shall visit Ranches, Castles, Villages, even a Tomb,
While wandering new garb he'll find - Wearin Green, Red, and even Blue.

This man - too old, too pure - rages at almost every turn,
Throwing controllers and yelling loud,
Cursing as he watches his stream crash and burn,
Not caring yet always aware if he's doing so in front of a crowd.

A streamer true,
A rager pure,
Old Man Skip is a runner for you,
Plays it once, plays it twice, but he'll play it for sure.

His highs and lows are far yet few,
Good days, bad days every day in-between,
He still greets everyone with smile weather old or new,
Stick around a while tell what you've seen.

Wave a hello, say a good-bye,
But always know:
Heroes are forever remembered - but Legends?
Legends Never Die

The cold snow up to my aching knees
I look down to where we once stood
Memories just washing away in the rivers
It's tonight, I'll walk among the silent trees
Bleeding and quiet against the cold wood
Forgiveness in the countless tries and failures

Autumn has once again fallen behind us
The cold winters I face so lonesome
Lands bereft of verdure vivid, content life
I've bled and lost what was love and lust
Cold, dead roots rise from the gray stone
All I loved was lost in battles and strife

The crows fly from their snowy branches
Listen to them fly, singing in caw
It's like they speak and yell down to me
Mock my distance to the town's ranches
Shout at the wolves ******, gaping maw
Nature's beast, please let me be free

But I sit by this stream of water running
Letting nature run around my body
Becoming ethereal and observant
I can feel the long silences coming
The silence grants me glorious disembody
Laying down by the river, among the plants

I remember the warm summer days
Where I sat with you right here
We listened to the calm of the wood
Watched the sunset in a gaze
We whispered words for the year
This is right where we once stood

Everything moves in such silence
Bleeding yet so warm, relaxing
Nature gives me total solitude
Escape from the world's violence
All the city's men warring, attacking
Away from the women so rude

Deepest breaths come in such altitude
The crushing and stretching of my heart
Trying to calm from red, crying eyes
Keeping from an erupting attitude
The woods are playing the best part
I'm trying to forget all of life's lying

It would take days to find my corpse
Out in this forest of complex lonesome
I bleed from my wrists and my legs
Far away from the city and it's ports
Lay here and forget life so loathsome
Die where we once stood and I begged

This spot right here, it's where we once stood...

My wings dissolved into nothingness,

As I watched you slaughter forever after,

On a makeshift altar of unfounded faults
and salted mantras.

My mind is a haunted house of broken
fairy-tales and twisted portraits,

Of blissful futures that’ll never be.

Sometimes, only pain can gift you wisdom.

Where fences on hilltop ranches are low,

Even the wisest horse believes jumping over is freedom.

Nature Speaks


Remember me when you see the trees, as the mountains touch the sky.
Remember me when you played in the flowers by the brook. Is it too late?
I wonder.
If enough humans cared, maybe I could be saved.
As it is, I (Nature) am dying on planet Earth.
Some say it’s just a matter of time before the rainforests and the animals are gone,
to make way for roads, cattle ranches and strip mining.
The atmosphere is choked with fumes and green-house gases.
The rising oceans are choked with plastics and pollutants.
Remember me when you are lonely in your polluted city.
You humans are fouling your nest with poisons and ignorance.
Wait!  You must make your best effort to save me, to live sustainably,
because when I have died, humans will not live long after, since all creatures need clean air, water and land to live.
When I am gone, you will ask, “Could I have done more?”
Chief Seattle said, “We would die of loneliness of spirit,” if we lost our animal friends.
For I can Imagine how much you will miss the flowers in the fresh green woods with the refreshing morning dew and the little birds chirping overhead.
Go now and do all you can to save me, for all of you can make the difference,
between life and death.
Jim Goulet

1.
In the minds of global leaders
$20 million is all it takes
To restore a world
Assaulted by negligence,
Grown by kneecapping the world,
All the while, spending
$1.71 trillion to ensure the worst offenders
Pay for their dreams of global dominance,
$20 million is all it takes
To undo two hundred years
Of the colonialist mentality
To aright wayward ******* of harlot empires
Who could only learn from neoliberals
In the bordello of the Western Hemisphere—
$20 million is all that it takes
To restore a world, a space far too big
For the imperial mind to encapsulate,
For they are too worried about
What is beyond space, what is in heaven
In glorious economic *******—
There is no peace, no trumpeting
Communal values under whose auspice
The world over will achieve
The neoliberal dream:
The arena, the coliseum,
Where the sword, the tariff, the trade war
Are the proper lingua franca
Of the entrepreneurial class,
Suppressing popular uprisings
Is the front-line infantry
Of the entrepreneurial class—
2.
We are the Global West
Subsumed under the rancher,
The cowboy capitalist,
On the wilds of his destiny.
He’s tried his best,
To drag the whole herd with him,
Handed enough bootstraps
To hang itself with
As it ***** up water and rest,
At such a premium in the hard desert of
The industrialist’s heart, putting a stop
To what the herd wants—
It needs to make it beyond the pass
Into the uncertain future of
Coyotes and hazards aplenty;
The only certainty is, though,
Inequities between the rancher
And his livelihood,—
But, ah! That’s what makes
The Wild, Wild, Global West
So tempting to those whose numbers have been
Decimated by it in the early years,
Its growing pains; it’s simple, really:
War makes money, suffering is
The only commodity that defies the laws
Of supply and demand,
Its value rises as we tap more wells,
More wellsprings, as it bubbles to the surface
Of every sweating, stress-sickened face
Whether migrating or on the assembly line.
Our ranches must become bigger,
More accommodating to the cattle,
And, if possible, to make ranchhands
Of our rival ranchers at any cost,
If even the only subordinate is the earth itself.

Mountains upon Mountains
Highways onto countryside roads
I have been traveling days in miles
Picture taking during while
Cowboys riding their horses
Up close and personal with Farmers in their crops
It closed me to make a little stop
Ranches upon Ranches
The Towns people in their welcome wave
Looking for shade
Sleep at sundown and rise at the Morning Sun
It’s a new day to wake up being among
Always a new beginning with every tomorrow
Mountains high
Hills with a highway rise
Around the bend being always a surprise
At times, there was a detour
But I felt a discovery like being on a tour
I saw flashing Greyhound Bus lights
The Greyhound Dog stretched out in plain sight
Distance from East to West
I covered territory and I can confess
I felt the test of inspiration and disappointment
Yet in between there was a compliment
The countryside showed me who citizens were
It was a journey’s end
I will always remember while I can
I will travel and greet again
But my travel has now come to an end

in December? Naked and
bare. No colors at all. Stripped of
everything. No one making their home
on your branches. No one climbing
your trunk. Cutting you into logs
to warm their ranches?

Do you want to be the trees
in June? Green! Green! Green! With
babies chirping away. Providing shade
on a lazy day?

Do you want to be the trees
in October in bright, bold colors? A
work of art, raining orange, red,
and gold. Creating a delicate quilt
that unfolds?

in the air.
A cloud of smoke
sitting as a bloke
in a wingback chair.

Hear me
in a breeze.
Waving branches
large as ranches
whipping through the trees.

Touch me
in the rain.
Bubbling drops
of brewing hops
dripping through the pain.

Taste me
in the snow.
Powdered sugar
in a pressure cooker
puff as pastry dough.

Smell me
in the sun.
A rose garden
if you pardon
refreshes everyone.

So, wha' if I got dark pigments,
And my melanin be poppin'?
Hey, 'taint yo' business if my ancestors swung from branches,
Remember, they got bruised and violated, tending yo' **** ranches.

Living life as a lord,
where death barons are restored.
Oxen, cattle, sheep, logs, ranches
Chickens, hogs in slogs, as my dog dances.

It's not the lord that I am scared...
It's lack of love, lack of health repaired.

Amongst a hedgerow a vulpine den
lies parallel to the road and ranches
in a burrow where the residents lay
between man's best friend and vermin.

Imperial hunters track serpentine paw prints
that lead underground; a temporary home.
A permanent grave; a house for humans
must be built here, even if it means

eviction by execution
foreclosure by fire.

Smoke billows before American Foxhounds
drool dripping from canines; saliva trails lead
to their master's boots; the tactical militant kind.

A hollow existence is paved over
cementing a subterranean legacy.
Now the smoke billowing before the foxhounds
exits through the fireplace rising from the grave.

A wind rises in the tree's branches
Breeze blows and whispers in trenches
Lonely nights are spent without speeches
Unbroken clouds burst in patches
Long sudden walks through elephant grass pierce with ranches
After feeling secluded conscious waits for latches

Sweeping away the stars afar
Putting aside moon and sun apar
Brushing  away the branches
Moving in the ranches
Wiping the green grass
Erasing the moss
I create a space for my love

Chapter 13: An Uncertain Trail  
Cutty was once again headed down a trail with an uncertain end.  He didn’t feel good about the riders ahead or what their true intentions were.  Jimmy had said: “They are probably cowboys from the Bar Circle T Ranch,” but he had only been guessing.

He charged up the rapidly darkening trail…  

The only thing he was sure of was that he was forever duty-bound to a code that had taken him captive so very long ago.  It never mattered the circumstance or the odds of success.  When her voice called—and his honor was once again at risk—everything else became subservient to his sense of duty.

It had first called his name in Central Park over twenty years ago.  He had been hunting pirates behind a pond, on the east side of the park, when the message was first handed down.  It was delivered in the scream of a young girl coming out of a small cave on the far side of the pond.

As the bats flew out of the cave, all of the other boys ran.  Cutty never wavered, as he covered his head and charged.  Inside, was a defenseless seven-year-old girl who had wandered away from her nanny.  Cutty covered her with his jacket and led her back outside. As the other boy’s heckled and jeered, he never stopped or even looked their way.  That young girl’s name was Miss Shepperd, but Cutty had heard the nanny call her Destiny—Destiny Shepperd.

Cutty was now riding his five-year-old horse at a full gallop and the white sweat from the horse’s withers had covered his trousers.  His knowledge of tracking was enough to tell him that the shoe prints were becoming more pronounced the further west he rode.  He was gaining on them.

Five miles later, there was less distance between the front and rear hoof prints of the riders ahead.  They had slowed down.  They were now either cantering or walking their horses. Cutty decided to get off and walk his horse until he was sure.  He knew his horse could use the rest, and he needed the quiet to be able to hear what might be up ahead.  

He walked for twenty minutes, as the tracks in front of him became fresher and fresher.  There was no doubt in his mind that the riders ahead of him were walking their horses too.  

It was now late into the evening, and he thought he heard voices coming out of the trees ahead.  As he edged closer, he could smell wood smoke and hear the sounds of a fire.  Cutty knew the other mounts would smell his horse in the night air before he got much closer.  He decided to tie his horse to a tree thirty feet off the trail.  He had learned from the Gurkhas in Nepal how to move soundlessly through the brush.  He held his sword close against his body, as he advanced through the dark.

The trail started to enter a deep ravine.  At the bottom, he could see five horses all tied together.  Fifty yards past the horses was a raging fire.  These men were not worried about being seen.  Cutty listened for voices as he moved past the horses.  The sounds that he heard in the night air were emboldened with inebriation.

These Men Were All Drinking

“Good,” Cutty said to himself.  “A drunken adversary is only half the threat that he is when sober.  This adjusts the odds a little more in my favor.”  Still, Cutty wasn’t going to take anything for granted.  Five drunken cowboys, if that’s what they were, could still be a lot for him to handle.

He checked the cylinder of his Colt .45 to make sure it was fully loaded.  He didn’t want to repeat the mistake he had made when rescuing Adrian on that hill in Portugal.  After chasing the Basque Assassin, Bakar, through the hills above Lisbon, he had forgotten to reload after shooting at him and several of his men.

He was sorry now that he hadn’t asked Jimmy for his Colt, Model M1902.  It would have given him eight rounds in case the six in his Colt .45 were not enough.  The Colonel had always told him that, … “In direct confrontations, there is very little chance to reload.  Most fights are over by then.”

The M1902 was a semi-automatic pistol developed by John Browning for Colt in 1902.   It was an improvement on an earlier design.  The military version had a square and lengthened grip frame allowing it to carry an additional round in the magazine.  It fired eight rounds of .38 ACP from its six-inch barrel.

With his Colt .45’s capacity of only six rounds, Cutty would have to be deadly accurate with each shot.

DEADLY ACCURATE IS WHAT HE HAD BEEN BEFORE!
  
As he came out of the woods and passed by the horses, he tried to move quietly so as not to startle them and give himself away.  
The lead stallion whinnied as Cutty brushed by him in the dark.  The noise was loud enough to arouse two of the men and they came to investigate.  Cutty moved further off into the shadows until the men were satisfied that the horse had only been reacting to a small animal in the brush.  The two wobbly figures mumbled to each other as they walked back to the fire…

“We’ll teach that filthy redskin a lesson about wandering this far off of the reservation,” the bigger of the two said.  “His body will only strengthen our story about the missing cattle.  When we get done with this running iron he’ll wish we had killed him when we killed his horse.”

All five men were now seated again around the fire and passing two bottles of whisky back and forth.  There was no sign of Not-Many-Prisoners anywhere.  Cutty said a prayer that he was still alive.  Based on what the one cowboy had just said, he was pretty sure that he was.

But Where ?

A running-iron was a free-handed branding tool that allowed the cowboy to create a design of his choice on the animal with its hot glowing tip.  Unlike the forged designs of most branding irons, the running-iron allowed the brander to change, or go over, an existing design making it a favorite tool of rustlers throughout the west.
Cutty circled around the ravine to get closer to the fire.  The five men had continued to drink, and their words got louder as their attention span’s diminished.  As the sparks danced in mock adoration …

Cutty Started To Plan


Chapter 14: Right Toward The Fire

He looked down at the gleaming brass on his blouse.  As an afterthought before leaving home, he had stuffed it into his satchel.  He wasn’t sure why, but he thought that maybe—just maybe—it would be useful in some way.  The buttons were now alive in the distant glow from the firelight.  They would appear as multiple sets of eyes coming out of the dark.

Cutty looked intently at the five men as they continued to pass the two bottles around.  Their faces were greasy and unwashed, and they sat with a demeanor that gave away their intentions.  They were among the lowest of men ...
  
These Men Hadn’t Seen A Washtub In Over A Year

Cutty remembered back again to his cowboy friends in Abilene and Dodge City—they looked nothing like this.  They had been righteous and straight, and their posture and speech only reinforced their true makeup.  They were nothing if not respectful of those around them and totally dedicated to their craft.  Cutty appreciated that. Their loyalty to the ranches they worked for equated to his unwavering commitment to a life of duty and honor.

Those Men All ‘”Rode For The Brand”

He had developed a kinship and brotherhood with those cow hands back in Kansas, and he had made himself a promise to one day go back and visit them again.  He knew as he made that promise to himself, going back was something he had never been able to do before.  He hoped  this time it would be different.

“All right, who’s going first?” Cutty heard from the cowboy seated at the far end of the fire. “Who wants to put the first mark on that filthy redskin?”  “I’ll do it, Jack,” said a man seated ten feet to his left.  “I’m going to burn a dark groove right between his two beady eyes.”  
“OK, Pete; you and Bill go get that stinking Piegan.”

At this point, Cutty had not seen Not-Many-Prisoners, but he knew he had to be close.  The two men walked toward where the horses were tied and within five minutes were back.  Each man had Not-Many-Prisoners by an arm, and the Piegan Elder was slumped forward and struggling to walk.

Cutty Had Walked Right Past Him

“I don’t think he liked being tied to that horse, Jack.  He about pitched a fit when we cut the ropes and took him down.  Bill gave him a good jolt to the head with his Peacemaker to get him to behave.  I don’t think he’ll give us any more trouble.” “Good, you and Bill tie him to those two small cottonwoods over by the water.  Then we can let the real fun begin.”

Some Of These Outlaws Were Carrying Colt .45’s

Cutty couldn’t believe that he had walked right by Not-Many-Prisoners when he had entered the ravine.  “How could I have missed him so close in the dark?”

Not-Many-Prisoners had been tied cross-saddle to the biggest of the five horses.  It had been the fourth one back as Cutty passed by in the dark.  After tying him to the saddle, the outlaws had covered him with a canvas tarp making him impossible to see.  It also made it almost impossible for him to breathe.

Not-Many-Prisoners was lucky to be alive.  Had Cutty been able to see and untie him, it would now be two against five and they would still have had the element of surprise working for them.“I wonder if Not-Many-Prisoners knows I’m here?  He may have heard me as I walked by, especially when that lead horse whinnied, and has kept quiet to protect me.  Or, he may have been in such rough shape, that he missed me entirely.”

Cutty wasn’t sure of Not-Many-Prisoner’s mindset but he was sure of one thing ...he didn’t have much time.   As the vile, and now drunk, outlaws tied Not-Many-Prisoners to the cottonwoods, Cutty hurried back to the horses.

He quickly and quietly untied them from each other—he needed to make a statement.  The cowboys were still drunk, and a drunken man’s imagination often gets the better of him.  He was hesitant to do it, but he felt he had no other choice…

He Unholstered His Colt


Chapter 15:  A Different Brand Of Justice

The horses had been bound together with a technique that Cutty had never seen before.  They had all been tied to a forty-inch branch that allowed them to move freely and graze without getting tangled.  It lowered down as they fed and then rose when their heads straightened back up.

Cutty vowed to remember this for the future.  It provided for both security and a limited amount of mobility.  It had been invented by the Cheyenne and was used extensively throughout the southern plains. The Colonel had been right when he said: “The Native Americans are noted for their prowess in stealth and tactics.” Cutty untied the horses from the branch, and—with three of the reins in his right hand and two in his left—started to walk them slowly toward the fire.

He knew his next move would be costly, but he needed to create as big a diversion as he could.  It would only leave five shots in his Colt, but the effect would be worth the bullet, at least that’s what he hoped.
.
He Reminded Himself About Hoping Again

The Colonel had warned Cutty repeatedly about hoping.  “Wishing for a certain outcome is not worth the mental effort you will put forth.  Keep your attention focused on the task at hand.  That will afford you the best chance of success.”

Cutty slapped the lead stallion on its **** as he fired his Colt up into the night sky.  At the report of the gunshot, all five horses took off toward the fire like they were being chased by the underworld god, Hades.  Entering the mouth of the ravine, there was not enough room for them to go around and avoid the fire.

They Charged Straight Through

The horses charged across the fire as the five cowboys looked on in drunken horror.  There was smoke and flying embers everywhere.  Two of the cowboys at the far end stood up and tried to run but were trampled by the horses before getting very far.  The lead cowboy, Jack, managed to get to his gun before leveling it in Cutty’s direction and firing.

Cutty redrew his Colt while dropping to one knee.  He sighted his big .45 and fired before Jack could get off a second round.  The bullet went straight through Jack’s right shoulder causing him to drop the big Peacemaker as he fell back away from the now-scattered fire.  
Cutty picked up Jack’s gun and ran toward where Not-Many Prisoners was tied.   As he cut his restraints, he handed him Jack’s gun saying: “There are five shots left in the cylinder.  Here’s six more rounds in case you run out.”

They both turned to face the startled cowboys who were now crawling through the dirt trying to make sense of it all.  With a KIAI that none of these rustlers had ever heard before, Cutty advanced.  One by one, he grabbed the men and threw them face down onto the dark ground.  He then yelled to Not-Many-Prisoners: “Tie them up with their hands behind their backs.  I’ll tie the one that I shot after I check on his wound.”

The KIAI Had Been For Not-Many-Prisoners Benefit

Cutty checked on Jack’s shoulder.  It was bleeding profusely, but it was a clean wound and the bullet missed any bone or cartilage as it passed through.  Cutty grabbed the bandana from around Jack’s neck, ***** as it was, and wrapped his shoulder.  “This will help to stop the bleeding,” Cutty said.  “Keep pressure on it with your other hand.  It’s better than you deserve, but you might just live if you keep it from bleeding out before you get to a doctor.”

Jack had been staring at Cutty’s blouse as he doctored his wound.  “So, you some kinda government agent?” Jack asked, as Cutty started to walk away. “I’m a Major in the United States Army here to investigate charges that rustling has been taking place on government land.  I can see now that the rumors have been true.  In addition, you were getting ready to commit capital ******.  I am ordering you, and your men, to stay here until my detachment comes back to pick you up.

If you’re not here when they arrive, they will hunt you down like the wild dogs that you are.  I need to get this Indian Scout back to headquarters. We know who you work for and what you’ve been doing.”

“You Are All Under Military Arrest”

Cutty tied Jack’s right hand to the top of his other arm. He knew he had just stretched the truth, but he wasn’t above doing that if a man’s life hung in the balance.  He looked across the scattered but still burning embers.

Not-Many-Prisoners had a look on his face that Cutty had not seen from any of the Piegan Elders before.  El Cristo had been the first to look at him that way when he had mortally wounded his son, Elligretto, in Seville.  His expression transcended the present moment as it acknowledged Cutty’s immortal warrior spirit.

Not-Many-Prisoners ran into the darkness in the direction that the horses had just gone. In less than ten minutes he was back with all five of them in tow.  “How was he able to find them in the dark and to have done it so quickly?” Cutty wondered.
  
Horses, when frightened or startled, will often run for miles without stopping.  He was sure when he fired that shot from his big Colt, those five had been both.  The Colonel’s assessment about Native Americans—a breed of men Cutty had only met once before in Abilene—rang true again tonight.

At West Point, Jimmy had been masked in eastern tradition hiding the best parts of himself.

Cutty Jumped On The First Horse As He Yelled

Time
I would like to see
your grandfather years
rant your past mistakes
told to me as a father
not me as mere heir

knowledge
My sons may heal
from our long years
of ruins and rains
strength of oysters
of long yesteryears

Future
speeches and dishes
at ranches and brunches
with past stories as
pass time stories
your son
to my son
these stories for their sons

[I feel dead: tired, drunk...  and hot, hot as a bony sister-in-law] *** with beautiful women has been the dreamy dream of bull ***** since Nixon was bull-dyking. ALL corporations worth their salt encourage intermediate (luke-warm) bull-dyking among the rank & file, the filing of rankers and the ranking of filers. My badness matches my baldness. Our tax “refunds” comfort us. A 30-trillion-dollar public debt troubles not the public. Women: 30 years in the hagging. In 2 years I'll have an extremely, high-paying job (masquerading as a career). Yes, I'll be upper-crust crusty. My plans include dizzying financial success in an economic environment that provides enormous financial via credit-default swaps, penny stocks, mutual funds and the good 'ol Payroll Savings Plan whereby the federal government deducts money from my paycheck and saves it for me till later when I'll need it for buying cattles ranches & diamond mines.