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John Leuven Apr 2014
I s’ppose rattlesnakes can’t be
ninjas. Yes — they got
the striking and the stinging
part right, but they
are not really masters
of subtlety; they make
too much noise and take
a considerable amount
of time to make a **** and
they can never hold katanas and
hurl throwing stars. I guess
rattlesnakes are doomed to
crawl and rattle on, announcing
Hey, I carry venom, as
the rats would thank their ears and
the hawks circle above.
Midnight
criminal metabolism of guilt forest
Rattlesnakes whistles castanets

Remove me from this hall of mirrors
This filthy glass

Are you her
Do you look like that
How could you be when
no one ever could
~~~

Poet of the call-girl storm

She left a note on the bedroom door.
“If I’m out, bring me to.”
~~~

I dropped by to see you
late last night
But you were out
like a light
Your head was on the floor
& rats played pool w/your eyes

Death is a good disguise
for late at night

Wrapping all games in its calm garden

But what happens
when the guests return
& all unmask
& you are asked
to leave
for want of a smile

I’ll still take you then
But I’m your friend
John Stevens Jul 2010
When Mom died in June of 1991 Dad was rather lost,
like the rest of us. I started writing little letters in
big print so he could read them. He would not talk on
the phone so this was the only way to make contact.
I found out later that he carried them around in his
bib overall pocket and pulled them out from time to time.
Occasionally they would get washed and when Sharon
let me know I would run off another copy and mail it.
It became a means for me to remember the past and help
Dad at the same time. My kids loved to hear stories of
when I was a kid so I would recycle the stories between
the kids and Dad. Now as I read them it is a reminder of
things that have become a little fuzzy over the years,
also a reminder that I need to fill in the gaps of the stories
and leave them for my kids before it is too late. So here it is,
such as it is, if you are interested.

=======================================

    Letter­s to Dad

    Nov. 14, 1991

    Dear Dad,
    Your grandkiddies, as you call them,
    send you a big hug from Idaho. Sara is
    five and in Kindergarten this year and
    doing very well. Kristen is in the forth
    grade and made the Honor Roll list the
    first quarter of the year. We are very
    proud of both of our girls.

    Do you remember when toward late
    afternoon you and I would get in the car
    and “Drive around the block” as you
    always said? We would go up to Cliff’s
    and go east for a mile then down past
    Cleo Mae house and on back home. I
    remember you would stop at the junk
    piles and I would find neat stuff, like
    wheels from old toys, that I could make
    into my toys. I think of those times often.
    It was very enjoyable.

    I will be writing to you in the BIG PRINT
    so you can read it easier.

    It is snowing lightly here today. Supposed
    to be nasty weather for a while.

    Bye for now.

    John

    ——————————————————–

    Dec. 3, 1991

    Dear Dad,

    Just a note to say we love you. I miss very
    much talking to Mom on the phone and
    having you play Red Wing on your harmonica.

    I remember quite often when I was very
    young, 4 or 5, and we would go out to the
    field to change the water or something.
    The sand burrs would be so thick and you
    would pick me up on your back. I would
    put my feet into your back pockets and
    away we would go.

    These are the things childhood memories
    are supposed to be made of. Kristen and
    Sara love to hear the stories about when I
    was a kid and what you and I did
    together. I try with them to build the
    memories that they can tell their kids.
    Thanks Dad for a good childhood.

    Bye for now.
    Kristen and Sara send you a kiss and a
    hug.

    Your son, John

    —————————————————–

    Jan. 12, 1992

    Dear Dad,

    We went to Oregon for Christmas and
    had very good traveling weather. Do you
    remember when you and Mom went with
    us once to Oregon at Christmas and
    there were apples still hanging on the
    tree by the Williams house? We made
    apple pie from the apples that you
    picked. Turned out to be pretty good pie.
    There weren’t any apple on the tree this
    year. I thought of you picking the apples
    and bringing them into the kitchen in
    your hat if I remember right.

    We have had some pretty good times
    together. I was thinking the other day
    about a picture that I took of you about
    12 years ago. It captured you as I will
    always remember you. If I can locate it in
    all the stuff, I would like to get it blown
    up and submit it to the art section at the
    Twin Falls County Fair this year.

    I hope this finds you feeling well. I love
    you Dad. Kristen and Sara send you a
    kiss and a hug.

    Oh yes, I would like for you and Tracy to
    sit down sometime and talk about when
    you were a kid and record it on tape. I
    would like to put your remembrances
    down on paper.

    Bye for now.

    Your son, John

    ———————————————————

    Feb. 11, 1992

    Dear Dad,

    Happy Valentine’s Day!!

    Spring is on the way and soon you will be
    85. Just a spring chicken, right? I hope I
    can get around as well as you do by the
    time I am 85.

    Thanks for the letter. I will keep it for a
    very long time. It is the first letter I have
    received from my Father in 48 years.

    Talked to Ed the other day. He said he
    talked to you on the phone and that you
    were wearing your hearing aids and
    glasses. Great! Mom would be proud of
    you.

    Talked to a guy last week who is
    president of the John Deer tractor group
    here. He invited me to bring my “M”
    John Deer to the County Fair and
    participate in the tractor pull contest.
    Might just do that.

    Well the page is filling up using these big
    letters but if it makes it easier to read it is
    worth it.

    Bye for now Dad, I love you. Pennye,
    Kristen and Sara send their love too.

    Your son, John
    —————————————————-
    April 13, 1992

    Dad

    Though the years have past and you are now
    85, you are still the same as when I was a
    child. The memories of going with you to the
    field, when you were “riding the ditch”,
    surveying in a lateral, loading up the turkeys
    in the old Ford truck and taking them to the
    “Hoppers” - is just as if it were yesterday. I
    think of you playing Red Wing on the harp. I
    remember when during the looong cold
    winters we would play checkers. You would
    always beat me. I learned to play a good game.

    Not much has changed except we are both
    much older now. The values you did not speak
    but lived out in front of me has helped make
    me what I am today. I pray that I will be a
    good example before my children to help them
    on their way through life.

    On your 85th birthday, I want to wish you a
    Happy Birthday and thank you for being my
    Father.

    Love
    John

    April 13, 1992

    ————————————————–

    June 10, 1992

    Dear Dad,

    I hope this finds you well. The Stevens
    family in Twin Falls Idaho is having a
    busy summer. Kristen just finished the
    fourth grade and was on the Honor Roll
    for the entire year. Sara will now be a
    big First Grader next year.

    The other day we went out to eat and
    Kristen had chicken and noodles. She
    said, “This tastes just like Grandma
    Nellie’s noodles.” I hope they can keep
    these memories fresh and remember all
    the good times we had back in Nebraska.
    It is difficult to accept that things have
    changed and will never be the same again.
    We miss the weekly phone calls to Nebraska.

    It is clouding up and we might get rain
    this week. It is very dry around here.
    Some of the canals will be cut off in July.

    Bye for now.

    Your Son John

    Love you Dad. I think of you often.

    —————————————————-

    June 22, 1992

    Dear Dad,

    Hope you had a good “HAPPY PAPPY”
    day. This note is to wish you a late
    “HAPPY PAPPY” day.

    I was thinking the other day about the
    times you would take me roller skating
    out at the fair ground on Sunday
    afternoons. I really enjoyed those times. I
    remember how you could give a little hop
    and skate backwards. For me staying on
    my feet was a challenge.

    Sara will be 6 years old June 29. Seems
    like yesterday when she was born. Time
    has a way of passing very quickly.

    Love you lots Dad. The family sends their
    love too.

    Bye for now.
    John

    —————————————————

    Aug. 11, 1992

    Dear Dad,

    Just a note to let you know that your
    Idaho family love you. It was good to talk
    to you for a minute or two the other day.
    I miss the harmonica playing you would
    do over the phone.

    We are all well even though the place
    was covered with smoke from all the
    forest fires last week. It got a little hard
    on the lungs at times but the smoke has
    moved on now. Probably went over
    Nebraska.

    Talked to brother Ed the other day. He
    had just returned from from Nebraska.
    Ed said you looked good for 85.

    Bye for now.

    John

    —————————————————–

    Sept. 10, 1992

    Dear Dad,

    I am sending a copy of what Mom sent
    me a few years ago of what she
    remembered about growing up. I wish I
    had more. How about sitting down with
    Tracy and Sharon and telling them some
    of the things you remember about
    growing up? They can record it and I will
    put it on paper. I would really like that.

    We are ok here in Idaho. Summer had
    disappeared and it is school time again.
    Kristen is in the 5th grade and Sara is in
    the 1st grade. The family went to the
    County Fair today for the second time.
    One day is enough for me.

    I think of you often and love you Dad.
    Thinking of the good times we had
    together while I was growing up always
    makes me happy. You and Mom raised
    four pretty good kids.
    God Bless you Dad. We love you from
    Idaho.

    Bye for now.

    John

    —————————————————–

    Oct. 11, 1992

    Dear Dad,

    We are fine out in Idaho. We are having
    beautiful fall weather. It has not frozen
    enough to get our tomato plants yet.

    Kristen and Sara are doing very well in
    school. They brought home their mid
    term report cards and are getting A’s
    and a B or two.

    Remember when we would go out in the
    corn field and pick the corn by hand? I
    would drive the tractor and you and Ed
    and Wayne picked the corn and threw it
    in the trailer. You guys kept warm from
    the work and I was freezing on the
    tractor. Before that we used the horses
    named Brownie and - was it Blackie?
    The one that kept getting out up north by
    the ditch was Brownie. He figured out
    how to open the gate.

    I remember the times that you were
    hauling cane or sorghum from the field
    east of Mercers and I would ride behind
    the wagon on my sled.

    I had a very good childhood really.
    Thanks for being my Dad.

    God Bless you Dad. We love you from
    Idaho.

    Bye for now.

    John

    ——————————————————-

    Nov. 10, 1992

    Dear Dad,

    It is snowy here and cold. I have a hole in
    the back of the house I must get sealed up
    to keep the cold out. We are redoing this
    part for the kitchen.

    Kristen and Sara made the Honor Roll
    this quarter in school. Kristen’s teacher
    said he wished he had a whole room full
    of Kristens to teach.

    Sorry the phone connection was so bad
    when I called the other day. It was good
    to here you say “hello hello….” any way.
    Glad you are feeling better.

    Your account in the credit union is about
    $34,000 now.

    I was just thinking back when we were
    cultivating corn with that “crazy wheel
    cultivator”. The one that you drove the
    tractor and I rode on the cultivator and
    used the foot pedals to steer it down the
    rows. I remember sometimes it cleaned
    out some of the corn row. Cultivator
    blight, right? It was kind of hard to keep
    straight. Those were the days.

    I keep remembering little bits of things
    while growing up. Sometime I will put
    them all together for my kids to read
    about the “good ole days”.

    God Bless you Dad. We love you from
    Idaho.

    Bye for now.

    John

    ————————————————
    Dec. 17, 1992

    Dear Dad,

    The snow has fallen and the kids stayed
    home from school today. The wind is now
    blowing so it will begin drifting the road
    shut. Besides that the whole family is sick
    with a cold.

    We are putting together a Christmas gift
    to you but it won’t be ready for
    Christmas. It is something that you can
    watch over and over if you want. So
    Merry Christmas for now.

    Last night was the kids’ school Christmas
    program. Kristen started playing the
    flute this fall and played with a group for
    the first time this week. She did very well
    and I got it on video.

    Time to get this in the mail. Love you
    Dad.
    Bye for now.

    Kristen and Sara send you a kiss and a
    hug.
    Your son, John

    ——————————————————

    Jan. 11, 1993

    Dear Dad,

    We have a lot of snow on the ground
    now. I was telling the family about the
    winter of 49 where the snow covered the
    door and you had to scoop the snow into
    the house to dig a tunnel out then haul
    the snow out through the tunnel. That
    was a 15 foot drift wasn’t it? It sure
    looked big to this 6 year old. Then the
    plane flew over the house for a few days
    until we could get out and signal an OK.
    Those were the days! What I do not
    remember is how you took care of the
    cows and stuff during this time. I
    remember being sick and Wayne took the
    horse and rode into Broadwater to get
    oranges and something else. The big
    white dog we had went along and was hit
    by a car. Wayne had to use a fence post
    to finish him off. I remember feeling very
    sad about the old dog.
    We haven’t had this much snow in 8
    years.

    I trust you are feeling well. Our prayers
    are with you all.
    Bye for now. Love you Dad
    The family send a BIG Hi!!!!

    Your son, John

    —————————————————-

    Feb. 9, 1993

    Dear Dad,

    When the kids go to bed they say “Tell us
    a story about when you were a kid on the
    farm”. So I tell them things that I write
    to you and a LOT that I don’t write to
    you. The other day going to school we
    were talking about one of the first snow
    falls we had this year. I spun the van
    around in circles in the parking lot and
    they thought that was GREAT fun. Then
    I told them about the time that their
    Grandpa cut some circles in the Kelly
    School yard and hit a pole with the back
    fender. Do you remember that? I
    remember Mom bringing it up every now
    and then. Then there was the time you
    got a little close to the guard posts along
    the highway just west of Broadwater and
    ripped the spare tire and bracket off the
    old Jeep. Of course none of US ever did
    anything like that. HA.

    It is good to remember back and tell the
    kids about the things we did “in the old
    days”. They find it hard to believe there
    was no TV and I walked through rattle
    snake country to go to the neighbors to
    play. It WAS a good time for me and I
    had a GOOD Dad to help me grow up.
    Thanks again Dad. You and Mom did a
    very good job on us four kids. Sometimes
    we don’t show it often enough but I for
    one thank you and LOVE you.

    Soon you will have another birthday.
    Before you know it you will be 90. I
    should be so lucky.

    I trust you are feeling well. Our prayers
    are with you all. Bye for now. Love you
    Dad
    The family send a BIG Hi!!!!

    Your son, John

    —————————————————–

    Mar. 9, 1993

    Dear Dad,
    Time has a way of disappearing so
    rapidly. I was going to write you a note
    two weeks ago and now here we are.

    It looks like spring is just about to arrive.
    I am ready for it. I’ll bet you are ready to
    get out side and do something. Do you
    miss not farming? I think often about the
    farm and the things we used to do. The
    kids always ask for stories about being on
    the farm. I tell them about raising a
    garden, rattlesnakes, floods, the BIG
    ONE in 49, anything that comes to mind.

    The family went to Sun Valley about 70
    miles north of here Sat. with Kristen’s
    Girl Scout troop for a day of ice skating.
    Pennye used the VCR and played back
    their falls and no falls. It reminded me of
    the times you would get your old clamp-
    on skates on a cut a figure on the ice. I
    never was very good at it. You could hop
    up and turn around. I couldn’t stay of
    my back side and head. I still have a big
    dent in the back of my head from the last
    time I tried. Nearly killed me. So much
    for that.

    Next month you will have another
    birthday. 86 years! Before you know it
    you will be 90.

    I paid your insurance for another year
    I trust you are feeling well. Our prayers
    are w
Tex Dermott Jul 2015
In Rattlesnake City
The moonlight had never shined
Poison reigned supreme
A small lamb offered his life
Bitten in his heart
Leaving a ****** red scar
The rattlesnakes mocked his tomb
A lion appeared
With a crown upon his head
His subjects shouted
As the rattlesnakes were consumed
The mooonlight then beamed
On this noble conqueror
The red scar on his heart glowed
This is a Naga Uta, a non-rhyming poem. Syllable count is 5-7-5, with the last two lines 7-7. Also there is no line limit.
Daniel Kenneth Aug 2014
Nostalgia is poison seeped in my veins
I remember that last sad smile as you turned away from me
Though it has been years some thing never fade
Like the pleasure the first time our eyes were blessed to meet
Through fire and brimstone, demons and hell
That immense joy always linger, threatening to ****
What little sanity I had, and though until now I've survived
This nostalgia is killing me, making we wish for
One last time
Jeff Stier Jun 2016
They cling to the earth
like lichens
in deep meditation

Lophophora williamsii.
Fallen warriors sprinkled
throughout the blackbrush and mesquite
there in the valley of the Rio Grande.

They whisper to you
as you roam that arid slab of ground
and spin like Van Gogh
in the night sky
while you sleep.

They call you this way
and that
lead you in directions
you did not intend.

In the dry washes
beware
rattlesnakes wait in every thin patch
of shade

and at night
lightning switches the lights on
and off
and on again.

Once the spirit
of this unassuming succulent
enters into you
accepts you
uplifts you
the sky opens
and reveals the pulsing heart of
God's creation
speaking softly in tongues
heard only at the beginning.

It is glory then.
JC Lucas Mar 2017
I imagine you
in the slot canyons of valhalla
among rattlesnakes and bighorns
at twilight

I imagine you
running through knee-deep snowdrifts
with icecicles forming on your beard
under a full moon

I imagine you
living after dying,
and it's so hard
to imagine anything else

But you can't move anymore
and if there is a valhalla
no one ever deserved a place in it
like you did-
but that's a fiction

it's my imagination

it's my cowardice
and my inability to accept that anyone
as alive as you could be dead.

You're a nothing now
and the truth is I imagine you alive
because it is so much better
to be a something than a nothing-

which I think you knew all along.
For JB. Run on.
Nat Lipstadt Mar 2015
oft on bus seated next,
every one of your senses
adjusting, modulating,
to her unpredictable
solar flaring

you don't ever risk
that first missing
           misstep,
your entirety is
sun bursted
        (un)/consumed
in unhappy joy of her
consuming presence

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you laugh
years later
re the topic of
your first shaky
foot in the mouth
a classic misstep
first bow shot,
opening one liner

and each storied retelling  
is nature!s
snow and rain
refilling
the love of your
groundwater table
welling up

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

you love her scent
the silly hats she wears,
her short skirts arouse,
that last open button
a misstep invitation,
angry it incenses,
her every solitary everything is
incense,
pervading a daily
co-riding
passenger's
oxygen? starved soul

~~~~~~~~~

her umbrella is a wet
selfie stick
accidentally opening and dousing
an un random next door
seatmate

just another unlucky misstep for
someone sitting next store,
oil on the fire of
happily ever after

two selfies are last seen as
one
un selfishly
toweling each other off and
on
with wet kisses

~~~~~~~~~~~

you eavesdrop on her
earbud music,
weep internally you do with
crazed jealously

The Temptations
are so unfairly
singing to her
"Ain't to Proud to Beg"
and neither are you

you heart is misstepping
to every beat,
your fingers
thrumming,
you idiot, not quietly enough
humming
in the next seat

the first,
will not be
the last

smile exchanged

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

poem writing on the tablet,
amidst the groaning awful
no moving
city traffic

overheated bus
combustible with
winter snow dampness,
wet dog sweat smelling people clothes

all you want to do is get home
shower off
the daily dirt

the poetry writing pastime
is the place
where you put yourself
to better to pass over
your sour surroundings

her finger rattlesnakes,
misstepping over,
noisily invading,
the invisible boundary
constructed to hold up the
eye-averting
Keep Out sign
to momentary,
too neighborly
strangers

her red painted
pointer finger
smudge prints on your tablet,
accompanied with
bespoke words
"try this"

that smudge suggestion
won't come off

insisting on crediting
a shared authorship,
you ask for her
email and cell,
so you can share
her
forever

co jointed tangled
bus and bed sheet first efforts
on writing, all about
what you play~argue
what should your entitled poem
be titled

you think

endless short love story bus poems

but she prefers,
with red fingers persuading

the first misstep is the best

both see the merit
in each other
I love this poem. I do.

Lyrics to "Ain't to Proud to Beg"

I know you wanna leave me,
but I refuse to let you go
If I have to beg and plead for your sympathy,
I don't mind coz' you mean that much to me

Ain't too proud to beg, sweet darlin
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Ain't to proud to plead, baby, baby
Please don't leave me, girl, don't you go

Now I heard a cryin' man,
is half a man with no sense of pride
But if I have to cry to keep you,
I don't mind weepin' if it'll keep you by my side

Ain't to proud to beg, sweet darlin
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Ain't to proud to plead, baby, baby
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go

If I have to sleep on your doorstep
all night and day just to keep you from walkin' away
let your friends laugh, even this I can stand
cause I want to keep you any way I can

Ain't too proud to beg, sweet darlin'
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Ain't to proud to plead, baby, baby
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go

Now I've gotta love so deep in the pit of my heart
And each day it grows more and more
I'm not ashamed to come and plead to you baby
If pleadin' keeps you from walkin' out that door

Ain't too proud to beg, you know it sweet darlin'
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Ain't to proud to plead, baby, baby
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Baby, baby, baby, baby (sweet darling)
cg Mar 2014
1) For every great skyscraper, there are petty fingers that built them.
I wonder if we were made the same way.
They were strong enough to raise a hammer, but not enough to raise a family.
I wonder if we were made the same way.
She is cold, and he is drinking, and this is our backbone.
She is alone and he is driving home too fast because sometimes you don't have to be in the wrong place to be looking for the wrong thing.
She is afraid and he is warm, this is the beginning spark of a forrest fire filled with broken glass shattering in broken homes with broken people inside on a broken piece of land in a city that has too much rain for someone to build an emergency room in. Everyone with a burden holds their confessions in their left palm and their beggings in their right and no one ends up having enough arms to hold each other.
2) One day the whole world will be in your hands too, and you'll see that sometimes darkness can blind you worse than the red glare the sun paints your vision when you stare at it with your eyes closed.
You will be brave, you will stand up straight, you will stop being royal when people stop painting Jesus with a purple robe.
Even the concrete asks the sun to make it a garden so try cracking your knuckles a little louder and maybe you will wake up as a mountain.
3) Autumn. When you wrote secrets on notebook paper and taped them underneath benches in the city park, you gave too many pieces of yourself to things that weren't made for holding that much weight.
But you said it kept you honest and there were never any reasons for me to ask you to stop giving away the parts of you I wanted to myself. It kept me humble.
4) I am alone
5) You are October in a green dress with a black mask around your eyes and you have stolen the breathe of that day. And I hope when you are 80 years old you feel a breeze sliding on the back of your neck reminding yourself of all the times it should have snapped in half during the moments of what should have been your hanging, how it takes you back to living life like you're always in the desert and stealing innocent people's money and smoking cigarettes beside rattlesnakes.
I hope you find a beach in the Caribbean that asks to be died on, I hope you learn to forgive people harder than you can cry on their shoulder. I hope you watch a sunrise that you spend the rest of your life thinking about. I feel like for that to happen you need your feet in the ocean or underneath a rocking chair, but I would settle for your bedroom.
6) But with you it was never settling.
Jordan Gee Nov 2021
Heaven is an Eye fixed atop a triangle
embossed along panes of stained glass
in a burst of color and
embedded on a transom above
an arrangement of young Amish girls -
one of them flipping me the bird.
white bonnets shining inside the dark street
and red reflections of the night.

God is in a mirror
reflected across one thousand other mirrors
held by a single hand and adjusted thereby
so that the light would be refracted through
a bent corridor in time
bending and extending through
far away dimensions that
i don't even know about.

Beauty lies in the 6 skinny trees
i water on the fifth day
drinking coffee when i see
one thousand rose petals drying
like the shores of the salton sea
and the six trees like a
hexagram of six dragons
like Heaven over Heaven in the sky.

one time I saw this image in my mind
when i closed my eyes
a vision of fire shaped like a phoenix
burned across the red horizon of my mind.
beyond the black behind the lids of my eyes
there is a red horizon over inner city deserts,
bird beaks buried in the sand.

I must honor the body’s lived experience
yet not give it any credence over Spirit.
its like i was being taken over and consumed
by a Greater Being.
it pressed all my memories up against hard glass.
different angles through extra spectrums -
it was raining hard prisms
It was like laser beams everywhere.
like heaven over heaven in the sky.

I was ripping off layers like a nest
of ten rattlesnakes tangled up in braided rope.
now there are magnets that float around inside my head.
there are times i don’t know if I’m doing the thinking - or the listening -
or whose doing the talking but
there are magnets floating in my cerebral spinal fluid
and they are electric and they are on fire.
and if i only had binoculars then I could see the singularity,
the gift of eternal life at the eschaton.

Heaven is the wind that lifts me up by the insides.
i  relax so deeply into the present sometimes
i forget to breathe -
were it not for the magnets inside my spine
pulling me toward the singularity and
the eschaton and the Bright Lights.

there are such amazing playlists on spotify
artists and genres i’ve never even heard of.
thank God someone figured out what
these emotions sound like.
benedictions in southern pennsylvania
on the JBL charge 4
and i think i’m starting to accept
that life in the earth plane is
a baptism by electric fire.

Glory be to God in the highest for
sending me His messenger
winging words made of silver helix
strands of vibrating concept complexes
so the mercury can bring the sulfur to the salt.

I throw my head back and laugh like a junkyard dog.
i’ve been searching for the philosopher’s stone for years!
i just called the chase by other names
and searched for it where i thought it was to be found,
where they told me it would be:
court street and MLK blvd, Newark, NJ,
trap house, Grant St, Hazelton, PA,
the American Club, red light district, Agana, Guam.
somewhere in the Pacific or a fist full of wax bags
from my partner ****’ down pembroke outside bethlehem, PA
and a ten pack of clean B and Ds, small gauge,
waiting for me on his kitchen table.
Heaven over Heaven in the sky.

I checked my phone over three hundred times today.
mostly this is a wretched habit of unconscious hand but
quite often the Everywhere Spirit gives me personalized
messages of rapid ascension via all the “woke” social media handles.
there is a fire inside my heart and it burns me from the inside.
sometimes it opens so wide you can fit the whole world in there
and not lose any elbow room.
and the magnets carry me to the tallest pedestal in the
sky where everyone can hear and
i tell them everything is going to be ok.
i’ve seen the bad path and i’ve walked it
and God placed magnets in my blood and
i made it back alive and all the church bells are ringing.

the Holy Ghosts of our ancestors rejoice for the
cutting of the silver chords so they can
all fly away home to heaven.
and through the grave yards that lost their church bells with the churches
i walk with bells in my hands and i ring them so
that all the ghosts can go home.

we had a heart opener one night.
we all sat around the floor and opened our hearts for each other.
they opened so wide that it rained electric fire to
where everyone could see it and that makes
for a good memory.
but nothing is as it seems,
nor is it otherwise
and my heart can suddenly slam closed like
the cellar door of leatherface’s texas prairie
subterranean basement lair.
and i’ve been there before
but the fire in my heart shines upon the faces
of the all devil’s dark armada
and they don’t scare me anymore,
such is the brilliance of the flame,
and such is the pull of the magnets god placed inside my blood.

its been more than ten winters since court street, newark.
but to this day i think sometimes about
that frozen cat lying by the curb.
stiff from all the jersey winter night prowlin
freezing up it’s blood.
my heart was closed that day,
hiding all my fire.
but if I saw that cat today, why…
i would open my heart so wide that
winter would be no more and
all the frozen hearts of our fathers and our mothers
would burst wide with such love that
the Earth would tremble and all the
neutron stars would shoot across the
red horizons of our mind
and the light of heaven would be
reflected in the mirrors of our eyes.
and this light would be so bright that
all the archangels and the devas would
be out of a job.

God is in the pinprick of light
fastened to the back of the
long tunnels of my eyes.
God is in the space after the release
of my preoccupation with the opinions others hold of me
God is in the street light shining on an
amish girl flipping me the bird.

By Jordan Gee
those who to Earth from Heaven came.
I was three , no bigger than a west Texas tumbleweed . . . just three .

My mother hung the wash out on the line
and wiped the sweat off her brow with her hand .
Half an hour later the clothes were frozen .
Blue Norther . . . you can see them coming
a hundred miles away .
Wichita Falls , Texas . . . on the Wichita river .

Moses sat on a mountaintop gazing at the promised land but it was out of his hands now .
Leaning on his staff , the one that ate the Pharoh's two serpents . . . sssssssilently a single tear falls to the ground .

No fence could hold me . . . I was over or under in seconds .
A terror at three , a potential runaway .
The police knew me by first name  . . . just three .
The plains of North Texas , jackrabbits , coyotes , rattlesnakes and all . . . were home .

Forty years of desert wilderness ,
till the last man , woman , and child of Egyptian connection had died ,
. . . . . . was such a sacrifice made . . . . . .
Moses was the last to fall .
On a mountaintop of no consequences .

      "Run Rabbit Run"
I used to swim across the channel to rattlesnake island when I lived
in Florida . We all knew the sharks loved
the funneling action of the channel to the bay . And we were always aware that there were sharks near by . We saw them every day . Yet the allure of the island just a scant one hundred yards away was to much for a 10 year old to pass up . So I would swim across holding a rod and reel high so it would not soak in sea water . I admit there was apprehension evident in my strokes and kicks but I made it across . On the other side there were no rattlesnakes anywhere .
Just gorgeous unclaimed white beaches and aqua clear water . Needle fish scooted across the surface and schools of mullet jumping were all I could see . I did little or no fishing , just running and jumping into the surf . What an afternoon it was . But the sun slid down and we knew we had to leave soon as the big sharks move in at dusk to feed into the night . So we stepped into the swirling waters of the channel and then plunged in and swam . Sharks have all black eyes . Cold  black eyes and an expressionless grin that is all business sporting a mouth full of jagged dagger teeth . They are cautious up to a point but no one knows where that point is . Once that point is reached . . . well you don't want to see that point while your in the water . So about half way across the channel we see a dark shadow swim by in front of us between us and the beach . We know it's a shark , a big one . Perhaps more than fifteen feet long . We can't stay where we are at , but we fear to move on . So taking a deep breath we swim on slow and steady . Finely the beach is at hand , our feet touch sand and we run up on the beach and collapse . Then with heaving chests of fear we look back only to see the shark swim by . Needless to say that was my last visit to rattlesnake island .
I've been all across Texas , and in return Texas has been all across me

Jim Bowie took a stand at the Alamo
When he had been ordered to retreat
He was perhaps protecting his hoard of gold found in some lost central Texas mine next to Mexicans and the twisting mesquite

Austin has a city limits
Full of out of state conceit

And it's a two day crossing
While it's snowing on one side
The other is summer heat
They grow sugar cane in the south
Up north winter wheat

My sister was born forsaken
In Wichita Falls complete
Black widow spiders , scorpions
The backyard full of rattlesnakes
That we used to beat

She was the only rose
that had the Yellow hair
And when she left Texas
She never went back there
sunprincess Feb 2017
--------x-----------x--------------x-----------x---------

Where­ rattlesnakes are sliding across a prairie forgotten,
And the western wind twirls up a twirling dustbowl  

Whispers upon the wind, ancient voices of our ancestors
  Across the land of the wild buffalo, and ancient crowe

When time unwinds and more than silence can be heard,
Just hold on silently for a moment, and listen closely

Sometimes a young child's cry, sometimes a jubilant laugh
Many voices of our ancestors, A sweet song of long ago


--------x-----------x--------------x-----------x---------
Austin Heath Jan 2017
Dangerous times nearing midnight. Every day opens with fresh blood or ink drying down our throats, "...and I Must Scream.", Harlan Ellison [1967]

Honeycombs of humanity sink into themselves and form a thick syrup they claim will cure our ailments, but still tastes like Third *****™ nationalism.  They burn our shelters and chant, "Home."

Resistance looks strange. People aren't choking on gag orders, they're going around the wall, but hundreds are behind bars for protest, or still getting killed on the streets, or getting hosed down in the cold for advocating clean water. They're putting bounties on antifascists.

We beat that ***** Richard Spencer, but we're yet to strike the one in the White House.

Rattlesnakes under our heels, we've grown into something fiercer.
Something deadlier.
Meaghan G Sep 2012
There once lived a family of rats, caught up in wires and tubes and they probably thought they had it good until

the car started.

That car’s air conditioning smelled like death stench for weeks, until we

got it looked at.

Who knew we killed a family, who knew they ate their way under the hood,

who knew we killed a family and they reminded us of it for weeks.

——

My mother and father killed my dog, barely big enough to not be called a puppy anymore,

they ran over her,

as she slumbered in the tall weeds and grasses of a field.

——

We had a chicken named Thumper, his body grew big but his head never did,

and he teetered and tottered on ballerina pointed feet, and

the other roosters wanted to

eat him alive.

When we sacrificied him,

my parents plucked his back,

and they saw that his skin was a green-purple secret,

hidden by a humpback and so

many feathers.

——

Our third horse got caught in the river.

Big Mama got caught in Little River.

I guess it’s not surprising when big things die when they get caught in little things.

——

The coyotes got the rest of the chickens.

——

The rattlesnakes almost got the rest of the horses.

——

Most people don’t know that farm-fresh eggs are covered in blood.

——

We had two of the largest, ugliest geese.

They flew away.

——

The cat died under the hot tub,

we couldn’t find her for days.

——

The forest is always a graveyard,

is always hallowed ground,

is where we buried the animals.

Then they built a subdivision.
Jordan Gee May 2022
God made me into a marionette
He pulled me from the dust
He scooped me out of coals.
He breathed life into my belly
and now they call me animated earth.
He carved my bones from alabaster stones
long buried under piles of pine needles and leaves
He sang songs of Light and Life
and put them in my ears
and taught me all the words
and cut me silver keys.
now i stand up tall
like the Lighthouse of Alexandria
or the Colossus of Rhodes
i take showers under jungle waterfalls
full of orchid petals
and with angel fish climbing up the rock walls.
my head and all my limbs are hanging by
golden silken strings and threads
and where I walk the moss and lichens grow.
He fashioned my eyes from glass
blown over the hot geysers
and sulfur springs
of thermopylae
and the salt basin dunes.
He plucked my pupils from the pregnant blackness
of the Void.
He struck them over steel and flint
and the sparks made it bright enough to see.
my heart is a time-piece
keeping minutes with its beats
like a great shadow cast behind a sphere.
the elements once kept me apart from me my identity,
I was a hungry ghost
walking around town like a hypodermic voodoo doll.
everytime I turned around
I tripped over another basket full of rattlesnakes
hissing from both ends.
I gave up and crossed my heart
and gave it over to the chemical egregore
hoping I would die while somehow staying alive
and learning how to fly away home-
so i could leave all the piles of ashes and teeth alone
and maybe plant a rose garden.

but God made of me a marionette
strung me up from strings of silken gold.
He breathes for me,
and dances me to the music of the spheres
and now the whole planet is a
Hanging Garden of the Fallen Babylon
and now I keep snakes
as exotic pets
and as company
when i’m lonely
and for afternoon tea.
I am suspended
kaija eighty May 2010
high altitudes and attitudes


my wooden altar is not a large one, yet it floats
above this mountain town in planks of rotting wood.

soft peaks rise behind the tunnel of garbage that builds
in drifts along my temple railings

at this altitude i assumed i would inhale the air of gods, elevated
so much more than physically above the grit and rattlesnakes


but the smell of hot trash is on the wind
as i exude his poison in red splashes of desert fauna and



a smile sways at my mouth, bloodless,
as i descend back into scarab
SøułSurvivør Mar 2014
The lone hungry coyote
Sends up a wraith's refrain
Sun melts in a crucible
Of purgatory pain.

The badlands. No man's land.
The sun bleeds crimson, rust.
Rattlesnakes and scorpions
Scuttle in the dust.

While the sky is falling
Making russet snow
The hills and rock are singing
The agony they know.

Unforgiving desert
Makes the bobcat scream
The moon face is crying
It's tears moan and gleam.

In a dream you take me
O'r the Martian scape
Your hand locked round my mind
Preventing my escape

Turquoise/silver stars
Fall onto my path
Just like Armageddon
Or its aftermath.

Black opals flame the hills
The brutal badland's tors
To hush my ragged breathing

Now... forevermore.


Soul Survivor
C. Jarvis (c) 2014
March 16
This is a rewrite of another poem.
But it is so different that I am just
Going to indicate it as a new one.
M E Sills Nov 2011
Demand the climate obeys orders.
seek vengeance on the scientists if it declines.
turn over the redwoods to the firing squad
     for taking a stand.
shake a fist at the sky till it blushes.
request the clams to clam up till you're done talking.
hide the fish in the sea
     because everyone needs one.

Expect the mule to make up its mind.
tempt the desert with some water.
torture the water with some desert.
attack the salt flats for being too dry.
file a complaint against the rattlesnakes
     for causing such a ruckus.
question the cactus till they give up their values.

Force the leaves to show their true colors.
slaughter the weeds 'cause they don't belong here.
silence the wind till it agrees to stop singing.
moon the moon for serving moonshine.
sentence squirrels to a life without acorns.
terrorize the trees to do your ***** work.

Infringe on the kumquat's rights.
bury the berries, uproot the roots,
     ravage the cabbage, spoil the soil.
arrange the oranges to reflect the sun.
lecture the watermelons on how
     you scalped more natives than anyone.
declare war on the avocados to prove your point.

Nag the children to bear the weight on their shoulders.
rifle through the planets to find what you want.
crack open a book and read a poem
     that defines this all as the

End.
Chuck Mar 2013
"Howdy, mam! My name's Rusty. You can trust me."
"How do? I'm Sally. This haint my ole corral."
"With due respect, you're fresh, this place is *****."
"You slick cowboys know what to say to a gal."
"Our eyes locked like a couple of rattlesnakes."
"Mister, yer makin' a terrible mistake.
I do feel somethin' fer ya, but I'm caught here."
"Well, I'll just have ta uncetch ya, Sal ma dear."
Check out Somethin's Purge to learn the Rispetto. Thanks!
Casey Dandy Aug 2012
Remember when I saw the good in life?
Remember when I saw through the haze?
Remember when I hated sitting idly for days?
Those times are over. Done.
All I want to do is float, coast
Painless, without feeling
Numb is fine
Numb is safe
Numbness is mine
To have and to hold
Always reliable and guaranteed
Never let me down, no need

I can’t explain it.
A dream deferred:
Forced to observe,
Live vicariously through people
For the rest of my life.
Watch, facilitate, no thanks.
What can you do in life
If you can’t do all that you’ve dreamed?
Sit and swallow it?
Try to believe?
I’m just coasting through,
Trying to find my way,
But my way is filled with potholes,
***** traps, and rattlesnakes.
Doesn’t my head realize-
It’s my heart that’s at stake?
written in 2010
I was born in the desert, over 30 years ago
rattlesnakes were thick as thieves there
ghosts of the ancient ones still roam
and i'd lay out on the porch at night
my hands stuffed in my pockets
listen to coyotes howl
I was 5 years old then
the days pass so quick
the years seem to escape us all somehow

I was raised in the rocky mountains
cold autumn wind and winters snow
my dad would play us kids the banjo
by the light of the fires glow
we all grow and theres so many things i miss
memories treasured till the end
live and learn
find the truth and watch it burn
maybe the answer is just blowing in the wind

and it seems to me that its time to leave
feels like saying goodbye to a dear old friend
the time has come what happened to forever young
oh i hope one day our paths will cross again.

life it doesnt always aim to shoot you straight
and that one lesson i have learned
the education of a wandering man
is the education i have earned
(c) 2012 CJG
Mike Essig Apr 2015
for Jim Harrison

The very definition of Exuberance,
life squeezed of life's juices drop by drop.
each lovely female bottom lovingly observed and graded.
every delectable morsel chewed to digestive ecstasy;
wine and bourbon straining like blossoms in springtime;
trout, bear, javelina and ravens known personally;
rivers encountered both above and within;
genuine tears evoked by dogs past;
appetites that won't be denied;
sentences that strike like rattlesnakes;
that lone, probing eye
that even Galileo would have envied.
A Man in the old sense, disappearing,
content with love, nature and war;
what writer could hope
to be anything more?
   - mce
Jim Harrison is one of the best Poet/Novelists writing in the US today. Try his poems first. Most know him from *Legends of the Fall*. a mediocre movie, but a masterful novella.
Robert Ronnow Aug 2015
another day in the woods. on Strawberry ridge
looking out over undulating green hills to
the next great wall ridge of mountains. the last
morning clouds left from last night's storm
hanging in the valley mistily. the sun eventually
burns them away.

the respect between old Paul Karlsen and I continues
to exist. even though he's a Mormon and I'm a fallen
New Yorker. the work is comparatively easy, lifting
hundred pound bags, so you can just imagine what
we do other days. in fact, it's fun, especially for
young Bates. we get all white (and our lungs dusty).

on the way to and from the work site I read
in Silent Spring, the chapter against herbicides, gathering
inspiration for the upcoming controversy. in the end
perhaps I'll be fired for refusing to lay down Tordon
beads. realizing this, as I drive with Bates,
I see the dark green conifers and begin to miss them.

                                         Rocks and rattlesnakes, bluebells
and mountain daisies, grasses and cactuses, mahogany
bush, lodgepole pine and quaking aspen, lush forest
and dry sun-tortured mountainside, wind and seed
carried by wind, ants, streams, hummingbird
and hawk, deer, badger, ground squirrel, wolverine.
www.ronnowpoetry.com
Martin Narrod Oct 2016
You know me better than I, better than I know myself; you know me like I want to, like I was my own world's father. A famous goddess, parishioners won't say her name, I wrote letters to her personally, but was never brave enough to greet face to face. There's a type of prose, only intimate partners dare to go, where adjectives take verbs in rounds, and lovers sing each other songs. I've you and you have me, I'm captured by you so lovely, there's nothing I wouldn't do, good or bad, I'd ****** for you- a great vegan harvest, all of everything for my love the goddess.

In a world worshiped by false idols,
Where musicians and actors are modern day deities and neon signs flourese divine promises in magazines and the televangelist newscasters inject the masses with fear and false promises.
Opiated zombies take to the streets and go about their lives sleeping with eyes wide open at screens that have more meaning than their banal lives. But I woke-up long ago looking at the photo of your limitless azure eyes through a photograph. Long before I met you, I knew that one day our paths would cross and we would drive through the desert, deserted towns listening to Townes van Zandt and other musicians that most have only heard of through top 40 covers of their soulful songs.

The cacophony of coyotes, pumas, rattlesnakes and rabbits darting to and fro, in front of our headlights as quartz crystals reflect the full moon light, and Joshua Trees dance beneath the stars while we talk about Morrison, Harrison, Hendrix and the impact they have had on our lives. While most are drunk or dreaming, we are living the ultimate dream. I cannot wake-up to a world without you there-

Beside me and a space pig curled up asleep on the backseat as we trek across the Milky Way.

I smell the fires, their noisome stench fills my nose with the harsh turpentine and piceous smoke, but in the night we cannot see the trees. This fire could be right off our balcony. It could just be a neighbor's barbecue. How can people enjoy eating burnt and coal-battered meat? Your Uncle's neighbor apparently enjoys street meat. He killed a tick-covered deer, while he rode his scooter over the pass at night, and lied, he said he hunted it with his bare hands. Why must men and women and people lie, as if their stories capture more attention if they don't share what actually happened.

Dear you, I love you so. More and more with each passing day, I just hope one day we'll both leave this place, and share our final breaths in the same Earthen place. I promise you I'll share my final resting place so long as it's in a grave. I worry you'll want someone to spread your ashes, on a ski run in Aspen. Can we pretend small creatures live inside our walls, and rule a kingdom somewhere on our second floor, where Fraggles scramble to complete construction, on a network of tunnels.

I told you I would re-propose to you every day, I love you more than words can say. It's unquantifiable, just look beneath my eyelids. There's a man who used to share the hash he smoked, in a cove, somewhere in Venice, where the locals met us.

I'd drink and quaff your humanness, the pulchritude I cannot resist. The splendor you exude in all the passions you choose to do.

Hey you, if you find me here. Let me know if I'm still alive. I've made a wish to live, and be the father of your kids. We sing and laugh and sway, we eat apples and honey and pray, to an invisible god that could disperse all our flaws. And this moon, the one that has shone itself on empty roads, ignites the stars and stares at us shattering this cold. You were made in the image of life, I've been incommunicado but connected your dots. I wish I could color you by numbers, and count the hours we've slumbered.

There's cold-weather dripping from my nose. Where howling wolves and coyotes go. Where elk canter and mule deer pass, and a small boy moose named Bullwinkle waits for his mother to come back. Here is where the spotted marten eats from a rotting corpse, maybe it's a small naked shrew, it's map lines strewn across this town, where tourists think they know us, but they don't know my goddess.

Hey love, I'll never leave you alone. I'll never go to bed before you arrive home. I try and try not to yell, or even raise my voice above the evenings sounds. Do you hear the moose stepping on the frost-laden grass? It must have been starving for it to come this far. I'm learning now I know more about nothing, which I prefer to knowing something.

My hands won't put on the show, I told you I thought I knew. I prefer to be going down, so long as you'll always be around. I could count ten seconds until I realize my sentence. Poor birds fall out of the trees, there wings must have been freezing. I wait for you and I wait for your words. Your heart is made from all the things, I've only recently realized I've seen. Together, forever more. I take my hat off and hold open the door, I kiss your neck and eyelids and enjoy our shared silence. Keep me and never go away, you're worth more than the sky may lead, or the oceans breathe. I won't step, I won't speak, or breathe. Dear goddess, you're the only one I need. I need no one but you. I only need to know that you need me too. And one hour our shadows will meld together, while we wait outside freezing as we wait for summer.

But each season holds its own magic,
A seasonal  zeitgeist where we create our own traditions that supersede the Hallmark holidays that our oligarchies have created to lead people astray from the cohesive love and communal celebrations that our predecessors revered.
Yet each moment is a cause for celebration for you are a part of my life. I cannot wait to call you my wife.

From the moment I awake and feel your warm morning breath on my chest,
I breathe in the perfume of you and kiss you gently on the forehead as you hug me closer and face nuzzle me more deeply.
Each day, more perfect than the last.
I fight sleep because life with you is more splendorous than the culmination of all of my dreams. A symphony and an endless sonnet, fairy tales cannot come close to telling the story of our love.

You show my fingers where to go on the electric guitar strings of the mahogany fretboard of the guitar you gave me for my birthday.
My hands are slowly learning how to the play the notes and lyrics that I conjure in my mind. I cannot wait to play the songs that you inspire my soul to play. We shall sing together - a melodic harmony of a quixotic ambrosia that accompanies the vibrations of my guitar strings filtered through guitar pedals and amplified in warm undertones by the Fender tube amp.
Your bass line keeps pace with the heartbeat of the song as our voices go on
Singing the songs of our adventures
As leather wearing vegans and expedition smokers.

We smoke Marlboro Red Labels to pay homage to our Americana heritage,
As we drive the Prince of Darkness to foreign lands in search of crystalline moments to write, paint, create and sing about the dream we live everyday.
The dream I live with you my dear
,is the one I never want to awake from.
Written between myself and my love Sarah Gray.
Jonny Angel Apr 2014
We rocked, we rolled,
strolled through the revelers,
rocket scientists
wearing ripped jeans
& pointed rattlesnakes,
some had rose tats.

Cocksure, we rode
the ferris wheel
above the skyline
of never never land
& right down the street,
there was enough armament
to level all the strip malls
in the Springs.

Funny, they told us
we were the violent ones,
the dangerous kind,
tightly wound psychos
who sung anthems,
those sweet child 'o mine
pop tunes.

So hell yea,
we were tough,
the no-prisoner-types,
trained-to-**** fighters
wearing pearled buttons,
sipping Boone's Farm,
we continued
to spin circles,
spitting into the
cold Colorado wind.
Mike Essig Oct 2015
Have you ever
stopped and considered
where all those
typewriters went?

I am just eccentric
enough to do so.

I imagine them in
a heap lofty as K-2
somewhere in
the Nevada desert
mothballed by the CIA
against the time
when words become
scarce and expensive.

In the meantime,
when the stars
align just right
they chatter out

massifs of sentences
that are only
published in silence

and read by rattlesnakes
and passing coyotes.

It is a such sad thing
to outlast your audience.

   ~mce
Tucumcari

Route 66 was lonely
Except for the two of us
We stopped and took some photos
If we ever make a CD
One of those photos will be on the cover of it
A bumpy road in the middle of nowhere
turned the red car brown
It was veterans day
And the romantic desert sunset
was interrupted by the wild turkey
We talked to it
It responded
We laughed
Back at the cow camp
we put longhorn burgers on the grill
Except for the sparks from the fire
it was completely silent
I've never felt such peace before
I've never seen such a black sky before
Despite the warning signs of diamondback rattlesnakes
I slept like a baby
And when I woke up
I caught the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen
And once again
It was interrupted by
the Wild Turkey

Gobble, gobble
BarelyABard Jan 2014
A boy was walking alone in the woods weeping softly when he sat down on the stump of a long dead tree between a vast field and a lonely lake. The boy sat and wept for a good while before his sounds attracted the attention of an old shaggy dog that happened to be chasing rabbits in the field. The dog trotted up to the boy and asked, “Why do cry in such a way child? What bothers you so?”

The child wiped away his tears and blew his nose before answering. “My father hates me! He yells at me for everything, even when I try to help him! He must wish that I was gone, so I just ran away.”

The dog sat down next to him and asked, “What happened to spur your decision to run away today? What did he yell at you for?”

The boy seemed to remember the incident freshly and became angry once more before puffing his chest and ranting, “It is very cold this winter and our house must stay heated constantly, so my father is always cutting wood. I do not like being so small and I want to become big and strong so I asked my father if I could go to the log pile and split some wood for the fire. My father told me no and to stay away from the wood pile. But I do not like that he is constantly telling me what I cannot do! I wanted to help, so when he wasn’t looking, I went to the pile and I started to split a log. My father came out and screamed at me to get back inside right away. I ran back and received a lashing and he yelled at me once more and told me that I must listen to what he says. I began to cry and I yelled at him before I ran away and kept running. I do not mean to return.”

The boy finished talking and began to cry once more. The dog quietly stared at him and let him regain his composure before speaking.

“Child, you must understand that even though your father may yell at you and may punish you, this does not mean he loves you any less.”

The boy interrupted and shouted, “He does not love me, and he wishes I was gone! If he loved me, he would not treat me so!”

The dog immediately jumped on the boy and licked his face.

“Child there are things you do not yet understand and even though your father may tell you certain things that you disagree with, there is always a reason behind his words. He asked you not to split the wood and you disobeyed. For this reason he punished you. This does not mean he wants you to leave, this means he wants you to follow his words. When you are older, you will understand.”

The child grumbled and said, “I would not yell at someone like that. I would let them do whatever they want.”

The dog smiled and licked the boys face once more. “One day you will understand. Go back home child. You are beginning to get cold and darkness is coming soon. Your father loves you and if you do not return soon, he will be up all night searching for you.”

The dog turned around and headed back to the field. He stopped for a moment and turned around once more and looked at the red faced child once more.

“Remember this; there is always reason and truth when there is love and kindness within the heart.”

With those last words, the dog barked once and vanished into the field.

The boy sat on the stump for only a little while more, still brewing on his bitterness and the words of the dog playing behind his anger, before he stood up and slowly trudged home.

The boy eventually made it home when the sun was beginning to hang low in the sky. He still had anger in his heart and meant to confront his father once more and demand better treatment. The boy looked over at the wood pile and immediately froze in his tracks. His father was standing over the pile with the bodies of three dead rattlesnakes hanging over his axe. The father looked up his son. The eyes of the child filled with tears before running to his father and embracing him while the old shaggy dog playfully chased rabbits in the field.
Cullen Donohue Sep 2015
Most species of rattlesnakes control
just how much venom
they release into their prey.

The hemotoxin destroys tissue,
clots blood and sometimes
causes a severe paralysis.

A necrosis:
a caused premature death
in its victims.

Now, as far as monsters go.

The rattlesnake is one that scares me
less than the ones I've seen of late.

The rattlesnake offers its victims a chance to run.
Before the venom is released.
Before the deadly bite.

Before the pain
and the paralysis.
There is a rattle.
Tss - tss - tss

A warning for the victim
tss - tss - tss
to run.

The monsters I've seen of late,
they have a rattle, too.
But it serves a different purpose.

tss - tss - tss

It serves to reel, meant
to draw their victim in.

tss - tss - tss

A drum beat.
A dance, a club.
Bodies meet.

tss - tss - tss

A forked tongue, and a flash.  

The venom consumed:
uncontrolled.

And still
tss - tss - tss

The rattle goes on.

The victim sees no danger.
Rather comfort in a monster's smile.

The deadly bite,
it happens next.

And the necrosis,
the premature death,
begins to take hold.

A darkness consumes the conscious.

A paralysis takes to the body and mind.

The victim no longer has control.
No longer herself.

Fear, now is only of the monster --
no longer that of
snakes and clowns.

And nightmares make what memory exists replay.

tss - tss - tss

The darkness consumes again and finally.
And the rattle continues.
Sunny Paige Mar 2013
the blazing sky above became the whole world
We settled into dusty intertwining patterns on the floor.
Afterwards, you asked of me Why Is It So Dark Here?
I had no answer, instead
I placed my thumb in it's little bed: the place on your neck between your collar bones where
Your pulse jumps up to kiss me again and again.

thoroughly, we rested; until we were wrested
Awake by some strange light, La Luz
Holding us in her palms.
I'm Blinded, you said, Help Me Love
But I was blinded long ago by you, and I could be of no help whatsoever
And during your unseeingness, a stranger thing came about, stranger than the light
We reached around until we found each other like fate, like twisty diamond rattlesnakes
And rolled up in the dust, the ***** solid ground
We found salvation in our blindness
When we could see again, our love, our need became solidified.
So then light is not an answer to darkness, but the question that precedes it.
Emma Peterson Aug 2019
I hesitate
To admit that I tend to put things off until they absolutely must be dealt with

I was born here.
I’ve moved between neighborhoods but
These mountains have watched me grow up.

It’s always been the same
But somehow different
Things get older and people get bigger
Sometimes better sometimes a little scratched up
But they never get worse

There can always be found new in the old
Born again without ever dying
So we have to allow the old to grow
Let it be free from expectation and reputation
And say goodbye

If the heart is a muscle
How can it never tire and never rest?
I worry that when it’s pounding in my chest
It’ll eventually reach a breaking point
Where it can’t take anymore
“never again”'s and things left unfinished.
The price you pay for loving is losing
And because I can lose I know my heart is full and I have been given so much

From the sidewalks to the sunsets to the imaginary rattlesnakes
To fire pits and family dinners and my favorite burger place
To the family I’m not related to but always offer me a home
And the high school that may be falling apart but is held up by the people inside

But it can’t last forever, so
Even when the flowers die
And the vases sit empty
And act as gravestones to the things once celebrated
I will come lay a fresh bouquet
Say Hello to Goodbyes
And love and remember
The ones who made me.

— The End —