"rattlers" poems
Sometimes I wake up to
spatial tension
and awkward sting,
where there are fractions of
unwanted proteins and
dripping enzymes.
Sometimes I wake up to
obsidian corpuscles
of unknown origin
and encounters with
sentiment-shakers,
dream-eaters,
and rafter-rattlers.
Sometimes it is as simple as
dripping beige,
intangible amber,
and cold, cold, blue.
Sometimes I wake up
to nothing, too.
Apr 23, 2014
Apr 23, 2014 at 10:46 PM UTC
Some love to watch the sea bushes appearing at dawn,
To see night fall from the goose wings, and to hear
The conversations the night sea has with the dawn.
If we can't find Heaven, there are always bluejays.
Now you know why I spent my twenties crying.
Cries are required from those who wake disturbed at dawn.
Adam was called in to name the Red-Winged
Blackbirds, the Diamond Rattlers, and the Ring-Tailed
Raccoons washing God in the streams at dawn.
Centuries later, the Mesopotamian gods,
All curls and ears, showed up; behind them the Generals
With their blue-coated sons who will die at dawn.
Those grasshopper-eating hermits were so good
To stay all day in the cave; but it is also sweet
To see the fenceposts gradually appear at dawn.
People in love with the setting stars are right
To adore the baby who smells of the stable, but we know
That even the setting stars will disappear at dawn.
9.5k
Monet, Manet, Morisot, and the tortured Vincent
a long century or more ago,
filled their palates with color,
their canvases with impressions of life, love and loss.
And we, the great masters of civilization,
have treasured these like newborn babes.
I wandered through the polished halls
of antiquities to see them—
some hidden even from the harsh light of day
to protect their precious prinking from decay.
I strained my eyes to see their soulful strokes
and wondered why artists carried such painful yokes
McMurtry’s ranch has no paintings
but sculptures from a vanished sea.
A quarter billion years it’s been,
and yet they’re here for all to see
Rocks carved by patient scratching time
and stock tanks covered with putrid slime.
No lilies float on pools of blue
and no guard carefully watches you
Their sentries are the desert rattlers
and the sun scorched prairie lands,
but these ancient masterpieces
are safe from filching hands.
When I kneel on hard rock soil,
I forget my daily useless toil
and dig in clean eternal dirt
with no canvases to belie the hurt
of gentle men who felt the call
to let their heart be seen by all
Monet, Manet, and Morisot
are now laid to rest, with their burdens set aside,
but their colors are a reminder
that beauty and suffering abide
McMurtry’s rocks no longer feel,
but who could say they are less real
than colors fading from the light
and lonely artists’ painful plight.
Aug 18, 2012
Aug 18, 2012 at 4:17 PM UTC
We dance in the wetlands:
Hopping tree to tree in galoshes,
In snake boots.
We can hear the rattlers and
Crying crocodiles over the
Buzz buzz buzzing of our chainsaws,
But the bossman says stay down.
So we wait and watch, and when
A snake snaps to bite, we touch it
Just so: on the back of the head
With our buzzing tools. Then
We go right back to dancing
Tree to tree and rock to rock.
Step in the water and scaly babies
Will cry out for mother,
But bossman will say to stay
And shoot the mama if she snaps to bite.
We drive them from their homes,
Scaly devils, with our buzz buzzing saws
And our snake boots. We clear the land.
Where they shall go, we shall follow,
Always there is more to clear
More to cut and haul away
But we must be prepared for
Attack, always awake,
Always ready to shoot and touch
The back of their heads, just so,
With our insistent buzzing saws.
Sep 5, 2010
Sep 5, 2010 at 3:21 PM UTC
The weight of the world
as it waits for the red, red earth to move
a collective breath held
as a personal fear is shared
For a news cycle, we care
and choke a little at the tiny coffin
before clowns and sabre-rattlers
blind us from the graves behind
Feb 8, 2022
Feb 8, 2022 at 2:25 AM UTC
It’s taken you’re fed up
With politicized debate
And the fools who do brinkmanship’s
Scared world of hate.
And the ghouls who eat babies
As pawns in their game
In their scrawny white penis’s
Sad quest for fame.
Where the sick sabre rattlers
Cavort with their ploys
Of destroying old satellites
To show off their toys.
To drape flags of challenge
With threat weave inbound
Across mantles of aspirants
Desirous to be crowned.
Intimidating tactics
From they with the gun
Against all the challengers
Emerging at run.
From China to terrorist
The gauntlet’s thrown,
You cross our line
There's no mercy shown.
And we little guys sit
In our quiet, timid way,
Whilst the gigantic ego's
Jostling holds sway.
Whilst the arrogant right
Profess to have God,
And the rest of us cower
In fear, like a dog.
And the sun comes up
With a glorious show
And the nuclear dust
In the air is aglow,
And the rich and the famous
Are dead in their beds
And the ***** and the cockroaches
Nibble their heads.
It’s all such a waste
In a terrible way
When the General’s pushed buttons
And had such a day....
Marshalg
Victoria Park Tunnel
10 February 2011
Feb 9, 2011
Feb 9, 2011 at 7:19 PM UTC
As far as wars go
It's a bit of a bore,
But we are at war.
Trade war tariffs:
Monetary missiles,
Cyber attackers:
Heat-seeking hackers.
Yes, hot wars are so passé.
Cold wars,
So-called Star Wars:
All in the past.
Silent battlers
Not sabre rattlers.
Keyboard warriors
No F15s nor Harriers.
Masters of Sanctions
Not Masters of War.
Expelling diplomats
And tit-for-tats.
It's a new World War,
But it's a bore,
So pay attention,
Don't get complacent,
The war drones on.
Dec 5, 2018
Dec 5, 2018 at 6:43 PM UTC
I was just five years old,
and Montana springs can be very cold.
It was time to go hunting for some
poor creature, men with rifles bold.
Off we trekked to the Bitterroot Valley.
A line of cars and pickups a mile long.
Hunting camp set up by the men first.
Then the women with bustle strong.
Daddy led me by the hand to a place
where the water was knee deep
to a giraffe...but I had rubber boots with
a yellow ducky, that never made a peep.
Suddenly adults were flying and crying,
running here and there in fearsome flight.
I did not understand what gave these folks
such a sudden and terribly awful fright.
Seems I stepped in a rattlesnake nest,
I thought they were cute little worms.
I wanted to get one for daddy’s fishing,
so I started to reach toward the squirms.
Now, baby rattlers can bite seriously,
but I had red boots with a yellow ducky,
and their furious little bites were not
able to bite, through boots...Lucky.
But those fingers reached out - well,
they were snatched by an aunt who wailed,
and no one told me why they were so tense,
to each other the story was detailed.
Innocent as lamb was I about those
reptiles that looked so cute and harmless.
I never knew my auntie had saved me
from being bitten and being armless.
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Aug 14, 2015
Aug 14, 2015 at 10:58 AM UTC
I carry it well
this weight of mine.
My boots dig in,
and I trudge forward,
as I travel through these endless plains of time.
Golden Roses, up to their necks in red
From the rays of, Mid-Day Sun.
as he sits,
laughing overhead.
They fall victim to my weight.
I yield,
to passing serpents, rattlers on their ends,
alone on a dusty trail.
I stop at a rock,
balanced upon another,
a perfect equilibrium.
Achieved in a state
of quintessential delirium.
I remove the pack from my back.
Ease these callused shoulders,
a dangerous embrace,
from this mid-day sun.
The heat becomes a temporary weight to carry on.
Carabineers gripping tight;
to things I’d rather leave behind.
Let them rest on the neighbor’s lawn,
forgotten cells, lying on the rocks of a riverbed.
Let them rot in the broken complex,
****** away in an indigo vortex.
Let them slip between the floorboards,
of a weathered porch.
Rage blind eyes make way for a deafening silence.
The time has come,
empty that pack
and carry on into the setting sun.
Oct 3, 2012
Oct 3, 2012 at 2:41 AM UTC
To lay my head upon the tawny cover of softwood pines once more
as I pry the manifest question of youthful travail and insecurity ,
to garner the earthen tier beside natures vested , rippling waters ..
Churning runnels lending delicate directions , whirlpool portrayals that countersink their matriarchal beginnings , only to gradually disappear ....
To wander the carpeted trail with arbitrary resolve , free of pious
intimidations .. Fixated with superb creativity .. With the eyes of an eagle .. Determined . Pithiest .. Invincible ..
As heat obscures the blacktop ahead , the shade of home is but a dot in the humid distance , tar laced Georgia roads in the month of August are quite dangerous to young , bare feet ...
Sorghum fields , hog wire boundaries , darkening skies ..The unbounded Sun dragging each step , briar patches line the road shoulder , painful reminders of lonely boots foolishly left unkept ...
Fire ant mounds hide in tall grass , Cow Killers forage alone in Summer swelter , brown scorpions , cottonmouths and the list goes on virtually
forever during Dog Days , legends of wounds refusing to heal , double headed rattlers and rabid foxes , Longhorn bulls turning wild , growing bloodthirsty , hunting down unwary farm hands .. Men turned lunatic
from tainted moonshine , waiting at the wood line for clumsy boys and girls , well water made septic from lack of rain .. Bobcats running in packs for any food easily obtained , including boys that refused to listen
to mother , leaving their cowboy boots when warned not to do so ... This will be the last time I'm caught barefooted , all alone , left to my own wit and minds reserve , Mom and Dad can be sure of it !
Feb 20, 2016
Feb 20, 2016 at 9:44 PM UTC
you were not my prey
on this long hot day
though it seemed you
sensed you were
skittering in front of me
on the trail forever
or at least 1000 seconds--forever
in lizard time
perhaps you knew who I was, a reptile killer
since the dawn of man
or since my perverse pubescence, when I'd hunt
whiptails and rattlers
and take prickly pride in how many of you
my .22 Ruger would slaughter
I have that time hidden in gray folds
beneath an old skull
I don't carry the weapons of war,
anymore
but I can't deceive you, not in the naked
light of the sun
you were right to run; though I have concealed
my blood lust, you know it is still there
May 13, 2017
May 13, 2017 at 6:12 PM UTC
Vipers vipe another's life
by the flavor of their bites.
Constrictors construct another's death
by stacking slim breath upon breath until no more is left.
Adders addle able bodies into meal,
and Rattlers crackle should you come too near,
but not in here.
Boomslangs sling their back jaws into prey, to chew the venom in.
Black mambas leap even at thawed white mice.
This is where a permanent tranquilized matinee meets a life sentence,
all year long and every year hence.
Fang glands churn and produce venom to no productive use.
Serpent jaws pitch surge and yaw to locate the same frozen rabbit as yesterweek and the procession of all the weeks which preceded.
Though kneeless, to me they seem to be kneeling,
praying for prey to cross their path.
I make my way past the Coral Snake, Anaconda, Python and Asp, all lax, medicated or meditating on this wilderness where their hisses are merely reminiscent gasps.
Through the anesthetized malaise, we observe the faces of a most ancestral and mammalian fear, and they can gaze back at us, but rarely do, reduced as they are to being expensive jewels, on display behind the fingerprint smudged windows in the Snake House.
Oct 29, 2014
Oct 29, 2014 at 5:38 PM UTC
Half moon high
In a deepening sky
The clouds like spider cotton,
Like blue ivory husks betwixt
Umber grey misty fog,
The diablerie of dusk
Dark sky and stars
The streets flooded,
a river of headlights, flashlights,
Sidewalks’ pedestrian traffic,
An Armada of munchkins, crowds
Strolling by Chinatown’s
Crisp neon plazas,
A necropolis bright with
Cartoon sharp signage
Accessorizing restaurants with
Jade And gold, foot spas
And red doors…
Horrors of hangings
Roast ducks and pigs decapitated…
Yet the evening is dressed finely still
All eyes lurking
Shadows floating by
Not to be forgotten tonight
Dias de las Muertos
En espanol…
While down the road
Neighborhood way
Skitters Lilliputian creatures
In shells of Saver’s costumes
As squeals of laughter festoons
Boulevard life with
Tiny tintinnabulations
Like baby rattlers
Against the dark
(Maracas for chupacabras)
Timorous parent folk
Encouragement as company,
They Scurry past
Down dim spatial street
In demand of what is given freely
From each and every door
Treat and sweets
Caries galore
All their tricks cached in grins
Of baby teeth
turn candy corn…
Mischievously the meek milk
All Hallows' Eve For
Hallowed be the glee
Even tho' beneath
The web of grey cloudy sky
Life is precious
To deny
The thirsty as it rains
Misery’s loss deep dismal graves,
We should live in celebration
Childlike everyday
Sing and dance
In the October rain
In this wonder
Like rattlers against the dark
Far from wastes of
Hollow wind and pain,
Chilling cries, bleeding eyes,
Undead the unseen
From this cirque city of sins
Offsprings on the strip
Fearless on the boulevard
Treating & tricking
With ole candied lies…
All done up in bright disguise
Happy Halloween.
Oct 24, 2019
Oct 24, 2019 at 10:29 PM UTC
Half moon high
In a deep navy sky
The clouds like spider cotton
Blue ivory husks
Umber grey claws / webs
The deepening dusk
In the navy sky
The streets a flood a river of orbs
Armada of effulgence / suns
Headlights
Streaming pass
Crisp neon plaza shores
Cartoon sharp signage
Accessorizing concrete
Floors
The evening is dressed fine eyes smyzing
Shadows floating to be forgotten
While down the road
Neighborhood way
Skitters Liliput creatures
In shells of costumes
As squeals of laughter festoons
Live tintinnabulation
Like rattlers against the dark
As they Scurry cross dim / spatial street
In demand of what is given
From each and every door
Treat and sweets
All their tricks cached in grins
Of teeth.
All Hallows' Eve
Hallowed be the glee
Even tho' beneathe
The web of grey
Life is precious / breathing
Fear forgotten with dismay
We should live in celebration
Childlike everyday
Our wonder
As rattlers against the dark
behind the masks of face
In our eyes there is
The spark
That lights all life
From wastes of
Hollow wind
Chilling cries bleeding
Undead the unseen
From this cirque city
All done up in bright disguise
Happy Halloween
Death as one with life...
Sep 25, 2016
Sep 25, 2016 at 4:06 PM UTC
(A Public Service anouncment)
Ahem...
We, the creatures of the night,
are the rattlers of chains;
The seekers of magic;
the bearers of the flame.
Howling shadows
beckon and shimmer
with laughter in refrain;
and the screeching darkness
holds terror and wonder
waiting to be claimed;
In back alley juke joints,
shitholes, and diners,
down sidestreets and highways,
we search for the thing
that sparks and ignites us,
that dances and delights us,
that reminds us that living
is more than just work
interrupted by sleep;
there's excitement,
adventure,
pleasure,
and pain.
The sun burns too bright
to see the light which we contain;
yet, in the dark,
but a spark
is as bright as any flame.
Jul 17, 2019
Jul 17, 2019 at 5:02 PM UTC
My skin is fragile. My veins are brittle.
I might melt in the boiling summer heat.
Each day I grow weaker. I'm almost corpse.
Let's move to the desert where death looms
in shower stalls with scorpions and coiled
rattlers in rare shade just waiting for us.
Jun 21, 2021
Jun 21, 2021 at 9:21 PM UTC
He’d found himself restlessly housebound
(All men being the creators of their own comfort,
As well as the progenitors of their confinement)
And as the snow was on the lighter side,
Though tending toward the wet as well,
The type which renders the sidewalks in the town below
A bit, as the local parlance would have it, on the slippy side,
But his boots had sturdy uppers and decent tread,
And a walk this time of year less threatening than most,
What with the bobcats napping at midday
And the timber rattlers under the frost line for the winter,
The only threat to his well-being the potential discovery
Of some heretofore unseen red-ribboned stakes
Announcing the intention of some new **** fool
Who, in service of some desire to get closer to Mother Nature,
Was seeking to build in some spot
Where she offered him little more
Than a future of cracked foundations
And wind-sheared roofing misadventures.
Fortunately, his stroll was uninterrupted
By such man-made foolishness, his reverie undisturbed
Until such time as he happened upon a whitetail doe
Seemingly caught between flip and fly,
Her ilk all somewhat more comfortable
With their human counterparts
As they lived more cheek-to-jowl,
(But black-powder season had just ended a couple of days back,
So a certain skittish wariness was to be expected.)
He’d raised his hands in a gesture of what he supposed
Was non-threatening, knowing such a thing to be utter foolishness
Even as he raised his arms skyward,
But the beast backed away slowly, haltingly,
Before turning and cantering off,
And he figured that made it as good a time as any
To head back down toward the house,
Not to mention the snow had picked up in intensity,
A grainy, sleety issue which had filled in his footprints,
Leaving them barely perceptible in the waning daylight.
Jan 7, 2021
Jan 7, 2021 at 10:23 AM UTC
I could hear the lone coyote howl
The desert winds whistle their sweet somber song
The sunlight provides a comforting warmth
The skies are a beautiful blue
and expand as far as the eye can see
Rattlers ramble on with their solitary lives
and many homesick men miss their wives
they long to be held by their angles once more
yet loneliness makes the heart grow fonder
and the memories become evermore stronger
The nights are quiet as can be
Stars shimmer and shine in perfect harmony
and will be displayed out like a painted masterpiece
I sit bathing in the moonlight content and happy
There is beauty in this barren landscape
The Mojave can always be a fickle mistress
life and death are juggling hand in hand in her never-ending circus
but a part of her spirt slowly creeps into your soul
and you will always be left wanting to return
Jul 20, 2017
Jul 20, 2017 at 11:56 PM UTC