I knew straight away it was wrong for me,
but ****** ... was all that i could see.
I knew pretty soon, it would make me sick,
but me thinkin was slow and addiction was quick.

I didnt think then it would ruin my life,
didn't want to be its slave, nor be its wife.
Didn't know then the years would fly by,
for every low there is a high.

Didn't think then my addiction would spread
smoke crack all night, spend the day in bed.

(c) ms rigs 04/10/2014

ok, so this is the upswell
of wheeling free without wheels--
you taste the unknown on the wind
and endless vigor vibrates in your bones.

sidewalks, dumpsters, fields for beds,
star-gaze drowsy thinkings, underfed

but overzealous of an openness we'd never seen, we'd never see again! the planet turning magical in unexpected
ways of wanderjest--
consummate rest of freedom undenied, joyful celebrants of every day!

the strangers sudden friends stop
to gather in the journey up 'til then--
tales of kindness or of danger
sharing in some facet part

integral, shining, random and forgot--
we each diverge in thanks
or so it's been with me
despite mass fear of ****** sprees
we help each other's spirit's free

some begin and end with sore feet soothed,
the destination moved;
others with a steath-pipe harshly clean:
ember throat-smack numbs the breath
and giddy paranoia settles in
as 'the white house' sailing by perverse
-ly urban planning plotted bums who smile missing ob
-ligatory chili dogs in crowded bl
-are full to frighten morning parking lot we pitched
our tent and woke to soaking feet and sleeping bags submerged in runoff corner-lake

another time we simply waited at a truck stop,
piles of the rigs just running ready there
and one for us, he said he'd bring us north,
and more, he told us of his brothels,
his debt-collecting days, the cokehead legs he shot
for honesty, he said, and sang us poems (he wrote)
of foreign women loved, some with pictures,
pickled eggs and cooler-hotdogs stale,
my first menthol cigarette: inhale and fall
into an understanding outlaws have
of skipping all the weigh-stations, of
friendship gleaned by chance, ephemerality
in strength of truth to last:
he took our picture on the exit ramp,
gave us hugs and left us waiting there,
more than just an ex-**** trucker,
hired gun for pushing coke, but a human
sentimental in a context undefined
like justice in the sense of kindness to rewind

the rain... a joyful merciless accord
of being in the storm of open-ended
waywards torn in being home and on the road
life untenable in farther reaches worn of ages never understood

but standing in a trailer whipped with highway gusts of water-gratitude
though slipping in the bouncing hay and horse manure fertileness
we joke eternal swinging backpacks soaked and knocking spin on balance play

meeting lovers simply known as such
for nights or only one, talking into dawn
at random campus dormroom sheltering
when sober, high, tempted into impulse act
afraid or pleasant easy unknown facts
just passing by she offered for the night
his first intoxicant beyond the ***
surrounded puffing passing groaning
in the rooms above below i'm listening
smirking at the undeserving joy i swallow in her eager kiss
to throb the floating line of destiny in endless acts of freedom's light

though a ride can be a head-ache too...
piled beer cans on the floor,
clanking with each swerving,
the driver even stopping for a ****,
thankful? to be riding, not walking,
but observing when we're there, the ground, this time, i bend to kiss

Sam was the most generous:
he brought me to his home, his father took me sailing, swimming with the family
serving food on lakehouse dock and later
reading with the kids, dinner bonding
then such sleeping    deep    peace
and in the morning, after breakfast
on my way with lunchbag tastes of kindness never lost

there are many more
tucked away in word-gifts, also
blueberries to pick along the roadside, more
than i'd ever seen or thought to see
cows to sleep by, horses randy for an audience to claim the pasture for

the offer is a type of gift you question to refuse,
not to lose your wits
some are quiet, kind,
most are liberal in ways they couldn't ever elsewhere be:
snapshot saints in momentary boons of spontaneity and love.
some cross lines.
so, grateful i'm ok, but never worried otherwise. i run the 'risk' it's called,
and run it still: i ask the random for assistance,
in upturned eyes discern the weather
as in ancient times the host and guest stood cultural across
in making kin of unnamed walking in,
gifting company for company along the way
trusting always in the limned choices traveled, with a existential grin

hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay

That interim between dreams and consciousness, that momentary lapse of reality
When slave children don't howl and the wild animals lay tamed in sun traps, weary

Your scattered thoughts betray reality
and you
question everything - now waking
Smiling chief, chirping loud
Your body gathered and prepared
under torchlight in dusty tents
Ingesting iboga and that old familiar numbness overpowers
You've been here for a life now, looking back on your life now
hatasha hullah - dey
vey, okay, huttah, ulay

Witch doctor, tribal medicine, fanning smoke from a wild fire
flashing imagery akin to memories of when life was decadent
you remember the taste of stray rain drops on your upper lip on muggy British summer days
and waking on a beach, bloodied as the sand at your feet is the next recollection, how powerful
the act of reflection, as you recall the mirrors of the sea and your torn body weakened and inept
The gathered village chant in unison and splinter groups fall off beat only to rejoin intermittently

Remember the Burmese boy far from home on the Gabon shoreline
and he informs you of your own death,
and asks you why do you breathe still?

hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay
Oh laa, ley ley lahh ley lah
ley hatasha hullah - dey

On some beaten path lost in Angola you carried two packs, food for the world
but you fell starving and spluttered on the rock that looked like your home
Rebels run wild in jeeps black as night, your supplies strewn on rubble grounds
- hatasha hullah - dey
Taken in a flurry, twittering birds in far off trees betray your trust and fly away
in the opposite direction, and the juggernaut jeep catches air over uneven tracks
You were scared and crying under blindfolded eyes and captors jeered, captivated
- parablah nuh parrah
An orchestrated mass of military garbed children with rifles gather you abruptly
when the car stopped with a rumble
And tied to rusted rigs you're gagged and stripped, bloodied your face now
as they beat you and laugh
- vey, okay, huttah, ulay
Congolese giant man, sword in hand and grimacing through bared teeth
Making bold gestures and speaking some inscrutable language
You cannot answer and fear is now in control, you shiver in the ghastly draft
On failure to answer you must be beaten, your back is lashed, repeatedly
- narralah, narrah, nutay
You remain silent but cry in disparity, after shrieks of horror finally escape your barren lips
Through stinging eyes you assess the surroundings after hours of torture when they retire
to their leather beds of shame and innocence faltered, try and remember how to live
- Oh laa, ley ley lahh ley lah
Months must have passed, survive off insects and morning dew on the muddy floor
This African wasteland, time forgotten, child soldiers and lack of humanity is trivial
Always scheming, recollect the armament and through door-way shack trapped light
you see a clear path, and it is good
- ley hatasha hullah - dey
The pinnacle nightfall anticipated arrives, and your skinny wrists released now easily
(their faltering lack of knowledge and abundant braggadocio betray them)
AK laying in moonlight illumination, a sign of God perhaps, but experience proves otherwise
(How cruel the dreams you had of such a gift)
When they spot you leaving, the night lights up, wild crackle of gunfire, heart beats, tribal drums
(To massacre children, such proficiency, the dreams were mindful)
No lapse in concentration, you may ruminate on objective morality in due time
(Crawling through blood and bodies of children, so pure, cadavers tell lies)
The clearing ahead in giant trees, you run and don't look back, praying for no pursuit
(Another genocide committed by a white man, justified perhaps this once)
Weeks pass and you falter only to slurp rain water from Congolese sipping cups the leaves
(Blacking out somewhere in the Republic, or on a border or who cares, as you died long ago)
- vey, okay, huttah, ulay
  ley hatasha hullah - dey

To awake from hallucinogen dreams, and cruel memories linger, it's painful you agree
Witch doctor still sings, lonesome now as the tribe apply ointments and silently pray
The fire still dances to some incredible song and your scars redacted, physical and other
How incredible the mind feeling fuzzy and that insane dream is just that - a dream
You black out again, a common occurrence but upon waking you're free, no tribe exists
With a sheepskin rucksack full of cassava, plantains and sugarcane and cocoa beans
Months pass and you make it to the North, when you leave Africa your body is new
and your mind is stable, no lingering cognizance or frightful thoughts of a forgotten ordeal

You arrive in Turkey, to partake in ***** with nimble girls
and I see you floundering on silken sheets,
My memories were fresh as the nymph on your lap
I write to you a note, and you turn alabaster, moon faced being
I was there always and saw every moment
Your ideals on morality are hazy at best, and to your behest I detest all that you stand for
Is your afterlife so pure, now that bodies litter the forest floor
and do you believe that I am not (a) God
and is this mere poetry, or an indictment of your folly and a warning to all whom engage
but do you not also see that every reaction was an action taken to your original action
and when all is said and done, do you no realise that from the day you were born
you were born a God and that God was born dead
and this is just that interim between expiration and consciousness, that momentary lapse of reality
when slave children don't howl and the wild animals lay tamed in sun traps, weary

hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay
hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay
hatasha hullah - dey
parablah nuh parrah
vey, okay, huttah, ulay
narralah, narrah, nutay
Oh laa, ley ley lahh ley lah
ley hatasha hullah - dey

His suit is taggered. Bullet holes and tears but finely pressed and clean. Still recognizable as a cop's beat uniform. He unsnaps his gun holster clip. No one uses the old guns anymore. Electronic laser weapons are the fad in the end times. I got a Desert Eagle .45 that has something these fancy tech-lovers don't. Two point three seconds...

You see, it takes a Lectro two point three seconds to charge-up and that happens to be more time than it takes a 'cowboy-movie-loving' quick draw to end you...

"Hi boys! You've got a Buzz here I see? Well...time to move along and let me buy the next round 'eh?" -I say

"Look, there's a drink shack right about a block up from here. Let me get you." -said with a wink

The three look rough as they all do out here in the runs. That's the wasteland roadways in the inner cities. Least that's what they are known as these days. If you're guessing the futures part of that wasteland you got it right. The last war was the Great War. The one that ended all government. Now we have two realities; the corporations large enough to maintain some order and the publicly disordered nightmare.

You'd a thought systemic breakdown would have released the minds of the many from their company masters but it was quite the opposite. Those left and afraid flocked to join the barons making them even more powerful. I work for one of these new titans; Altria Group.

The three look at each other with queer smirks and grins as if their figurin' on what move to make or perhaps figured it already? The middle one draws his Lectro-gun...bad idea.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Three down. I walk over them to make sure,

BOOM!

...one last slug in the ringleader's face clears this route. These ******* have been hitting our trucks for weeks from this alleyway. My shots draw out more vermin...Chicago is a mecha for filth. Our heavy operators in the dozer-rigs clear the blockages but it's up to me to stop the vagabonds and hijackers. Only losers don't have a job.

"Well boys you had the chance to take this one to the bar and drink it off...instead you got a buzz still ringing in your ears!" -I tell their dead bodies while reloading my clips

That 'buzz' would be me, Buzziah. I'm The last cop in Chicago. Maybe the last one in America, who knows?

BOOM!
BOOM!

Down go two more ****...I hate sneakies. I lean down to make sure my body cam gets a shot of their faces. I get paid by the ****. My bosses at the cigarette company still want to see their faces for some reason. I never ask, I don't care, I'm just a camel cop...

"Sounds like a ***** joke..." -I say out loud

I know it's confusing. Reynold's used to make camel cigarettes. I'll light one up while my brain explains it for you. When it appeared that the U.S. government had lost control...the major multinational players took action on their own. Some of them, like my employer, they literally killed their competition. Thirteen years later they're the only game in town for smokes, jobs, housing, protection and food...and I am the only cop left. I stop a ****** running by,

"Hey you stop!" -I tell him

He freezes and stares at me shaking. I'm a bit of a celebrity in downtown.

"Do you like the uniform or what?" -I ask him

"Uh-uh-uh man, man just let me go I ain't after your loads?"

I chuckle deeply inside. It is a ***** joke after all.

BOOM!

I turn on my Beats-Sat uplink...

"All clear on routes a-go, all routes a-go..."

Switch the channel to the network Apple link...******* rap. I love it. I catch a tune on the heavy guitar riff and backbeat intro...

<Double forty-fives, double forty-fives>

<YO> -chorus

<Jumped out the War like G I JOE!>

<Landed gig/wid Nort Gruman.>

<Patrollin' my beat as-a-GUN MAN>

<Double forty-fives, double forty-fives>

<BLOW> -gunshot sounds

This feels so right. I hop on my motorcycle and tear-off.

Time for my buzz...

I am the Lord's Strength.

Buzziah Willis...remember it.

I run the streets of downtown Chicago.

I am the law here.

"Wanna smoke?"  He says to the air.

All the pain a man could muster in his lifetime:
Compressed to a minute.
Then, send it scattershot through the airwaves.
A morose melody. A lovely female voice inflects....
"May I override your rationality and reason?"
Imprints a depression on the mind;
a rope around the deckhand's neck.
Does her voice now command your neocortex?
Yes, but deeper still: it denigrates.
Instills an insistence toward apathy:
existential treason.
musical notes denote a debt to be paid.
They accept just the one currency.
Trade melancholic fervor for nihility...
A payment must be made.
Posit the ship is a sojourn in deep water.
Feeling A sorrow you can't adjourn.
How quickly you will learn:
Jumping overboard
CAN be an act of kindness.
A slave to that recalcitrant sorrow.
Jetsam yourself to lighten the load on your psyche:
It's ideal over facing another tommorow.

Seafaring folk
assume a siren's song is beautiful.

I felt The Earth shake when she sung.
There goes the air from my lungs.
What more to give? Here.
Borrow my body and tongue.
Sitting in the auditorium
of my own soliloquy.
This state of mind is anti-reverie.
Your falsetto sonnet showed memories.
My family.My mishaps.
An altercation out of ennui-with my father.
Before he left,that last thing he said to me...

But.

Why WAS he levied into conflict
over Antioch?
On a whim prescribed, of course;
The pope demanded A crusade on sin.
Father died inside the walls of Jerusalem.
Bled out fighting alongside other mortal men:
Father, is your heaven more beautiful,
than your grand daughter's grin?

Captain has seven sailors hold me still.
I am suppressed inside the fo'c'sle.
He counts down from sixty:
"Let us see if time sets him straight."
A siren's enthrall doesn't agitate long.
Yet,
Even after the weight of it lifting,
it leaves you forlong.
Sometimes-I still feel-
underwater...is that where I truly belong?

Seafaring folk
assume a siren's song is beautiful.
                          I know better.

A violent storm materializes from otherwise
sunny, fair weather.
I guess the myths of the Tempest here are true:
It attacks ships sailing near the fabled
isle Revenir.
Until then,for my own safety,
I had been enroute to the brig.
"All hands on deck
(including me and my captors)
Secure those loose rigs.
Batten down the hatch.
Cap'n is going to steer us-
Right through this Tempest's heart!!"
Steady now.
Or his hubris will tear the ship apart.

I felt indifferent as waves
pummel us relentlessly.
Contrite as our vessel
won its war with the sea.

                   I jump overboard.

Instant remorse.
Father, can your God please alter my course?
A mistake.
This can't be my legacy.
I'm sinking.
Because of what a siren sung.
I can't breathe. Feel water filling in my lungs.
Siren,take what you won
then leave me undone.
I'm sinking.
Is this how I meet my end?
Shimmer from the sunlight fades
as I descend.
Sinking.
And I'll never be found...
My fear, my flailing. My failure to float.
the ocean swallows it all,
ingurgitates my hope.
Is this how you felt?
Facing your ill-fated destiny?
Father.
You always tried-and failed -to quell my misery.
That last thing you said...
Preaching your god's salvation as remedy.

                        I'm sinking.

All along its been my sorrow
that's drowning me.

-

I find my refuge in poetry.
For in twisted stanzas,
that passionate-scribbling,
I can read of blue skies,
write amber waves,
dream rusty signs squeaking,
flapping in hot summer breezes,
oil rigs pumping & wavy-trees,
behind broken screened doors,
I hear phone’s ringing,
laughing children screaming.

I can eat biscuits & gravy,
savor catfish & string beans,
see the rolling plains,
feel the clapping thunder,
listen to yellow parakeets
as the morning sunlight
peeks through stained-glass,
the pitter patter of gentle rain.

Sitting on porch swings,
watching ripples on streams,
inhaling rivers of cigarette smoke,
I visualize hay rolls & barbed-wire fences
under flocked geese in flight.

Soothing wind chimes in c-minor,
jingling, meandering
through lace curtains,
I lay on lily white tiles
crying, clutching my tissue,
trying to make it through
another starless night.

Rocking with Eric’s slow hand,
wearing Tony Lama’s & driving Buicks,
this random selection of cells
I cannot keep inside me.
There are millions of things hidden
in my stronghold of words,
yet to be written.

I chased down the bustling road
when I caught a glimpse of her walking down.
Today I stand, impatient;
my finger thumping a pithy tune,
as she climbs down the stairway,
one step at a time.

Time capsules are concealed
in objects that we rarely see,
and only notice when silence visits
and sits in the middle of the room,
unpleasently.

Today was on such day,
when my foot accidentally brushed
a tea cup that had bravely withstood,
the anomalies of my childhood,
and leaning back on its broken handle
took delight,
on my sudden emotional plight.

After years of unrelenting boundaries
the yearning to jump over,
turns into the ultimate goal.
Definace, with a vengence,
and fury so grave,
mars conscience by its senstaions,
makes it depraved.

Forgone was the leap
that bound my heart with rules
of love, loyatly and frienship,
for it now only understood,
the twinge of ache it gained
whenever it recognized,
a then familar face.

In a world fantastical,
there is order and right.
And mistakes are begotten
to only be forgotten
and set some memories aside.

I held my hand out,
on the last stair, she looked up,
and in brown eyes, just like mine,
I saw days that now defined,
our relationship,
as mother and daughter.

We talk of  far shores and setting sail,
with our two feet firmly rooted in the bay.
The anchors aren't pulled, the rigs aren't checked,
we are rarely ready, if ever,
at our fancy's behest.

In the seconds that she took to step down;
seconds in which I re-lived a lifetime,
I ran down the same road,
the bustling street with the same goal.
I held my mother's hand
and let go.

Beyond dilation scuttle eyed pin hole magnetic stigmata
I swear if you rub red the right way it scores points with the Almighty
Crystalized She used to run around with ***** fingers
She was made in a bathtub
Towhead floating face up  

Like a deep breath doll laugh goodnight
I'm balanced hypodermic in the chamber
Reading from the black stenciled numbers 100cc
Here is the end's beginning
A brand new case of rigs
She's dancing on the counter
Dancing in my head
She's won't let me sleep
And my dreams become electric
25% oxygen not counting waste
Or the tingle on the back of my throat
25 seconds until we reach the half life Wear the dunce hat.
Bruised arms  
and a 90% isopropyl bath
Two weeks non sleep

I am a physician.Last fall, I had a very interesting
conversation with a patient who is a trucker. I asked her if she knew
anything about deep underground military bases, and then I played ignorant
to see what she would say.

Without further prompting, she informed me she is an independent contractor
trucker, driving 18-wheeler rigs cross-country. She said the bases are real
and are located all over the country, "especially under the mountains out
West". She said one of her main contracts over the last few years has been
with DHS.

She said there are underground roads running all over the United States,
connecting the underground facilities.

She said she has personally delivered many truckloads of supplies to the
underground facilities. For each DHS shipment/delivery, there was a stack
of non-disclosure forms about (by her description) six inches thick she had
to sign.

DHS would attach a tracking device to her truck for each of these shipments
and monitor her truck's every move. She would be told where to go to accept
delivery for each shipment. In each case, she would be escorted by guards
"with machine guns" away from her truck, so she could not see what was
being loaded into her rig. The truck would then be locked by a large lock
with a ring 'as big around as your finger", which had to be torch-cut off
at the time of delivery.

When she would make deliveries, often within underground facilities, she
would again be escorted away from the truck by armed guards, the lock would
be cut off, and the goods would be unloaded.

She said the only shipped goods she ever saw in these DHS shipments were
stackable black plastic things that looked like coffins.

She told be the gov't is getting ready for a collapse, which she told be
she expected might happen as early as late 2014.

She also told me she thinks the gov't has just about everything is needs
stored underground, because the number of DHS shipments has been
declining.

I asked her if she would be willing to have lunch with me and tell me more.
She replied, "yes", but afterwards when I contacted her, she had changed
her mind and would not talk further about it with me.

Another pt of mine, whom I saw within about a week of this lady, is a local
trucker, but he told me that he has lots of friends who are truckers, and
through them, he said he had learned that there are "thousands of miles of
underground roads" running across the country, connecting underground gov't
facilities.

He had just recently, in fact, heard among his trucker friends of a
shipment of frozen meat being shipped to one such underground facility,
totaling four million pounds of meat.

Old Neptune marks his boundaries today, leaves sargasso
and thin, bamboo-like reeds on the shore of Dauphin Island. He blows briskly, to urge his white steeds to the seashore.
The water is dark with disturbance, veined with foam like tatted lace. The scent of Neptune swallows the fast-moving air crossing
the island from Gulf to Bay sides. Oil rigs
haunt the horizon like boredom, breaking
the vista, reminding all who see them of human limit. Old Neptune accepts no limit, no boundary. We, who want fixity
as security, we watch as Neptune abuses boundaries, expands us
whether we want him to or not. There is no fixity; yet there is security. There is consolation in flow, in flowing with Great Neptune, rolling in his
tidal urgencies.


c. 2014/2017 Roberta Compton Rainwater

I'm in the gutter, skinny and pale
God bless me with a poetry sale
got lots of words but got no food
somethin to eat would improve my mood
words could be my bread and butter
i can type them all , without a st stutter
someone send a cheque to me
and put my poetry on tv
21st century pam eyres
I really hope that someone cares
let the poetry spill from my lips
as I'm dreamin oven chips

(c) p skez and ms rigs 07/10/2014

Convenience store where I stopped to buy poison gum *****,
Here I am baptized in the light of the new genesis.

For new life sprang up on the oil rigs
In the industrial world,
We live in a future no one dared to comprehend.

We blew up the old world with new ideas,
We couldn't resist the urge to push the button any longer,

I sit under my bed
Duck and cover Cold War safety,

Safe from communist war criminals,
So when is the bomb going to drop?

No, I don't believe the Earth is going to be reborn as a paradise...
A land of altruistic Eden.

The lost garden is doomed to burn up in the sun,
As is the mausoleum for my memory.

Best guesses say we aren't exactly advanced,
But what if there's exceptions in our numbers?

What if we sat awake in our tombs for all of eternity
And your soul keeps locked
Waiting for the oblivion of the unburnt citizens separated from the material world,

How great were our ambitions if they didn't stretch to something after this course of existence...

Then what right do we owe the Catholic church that was not there at the beginning of our symphony.

I'll show you a great story of illuminated migrations and books about the lights of the pillars of creation,

When they tell me that Walt Whitman's work here is not done,

And so walked into the bathroom to lock the door,

Wash his face before yelling on both coasts of the American Empire.

Our Prime Minister has flawless memory and offers us codeine syrups of all flavors to vote for the Environment.

You'll have me yelling about the importance of taxation,
You can't have me acting like this if I've already bought us tickets to the art gallery...

And can you even now believe that toddler's first reaction was to destroy that giant biblical oil on canvas.

Maybe it was the violence,

And the same God who gave us our nuclear training wheels.

The same God who kills men of euphoria under meteors

And the same God whose name was in the air on Inauguration Day.

When I drove down the rode with you and your new ideas about where to go...

You had words I didn't know,
But we had Prince on the radio,
And that's something I know well.

I have a Wilco CD in my backpack,
I have every reason to just set my alarm
And pass out in the passenger's seat.

The sporadic notions of morality
Encompassing the ridge, he rigs the rig
A ******, an addict, searching the attic
Looking for teeth in boxes
Cooking crack in a crock ***
(Imagine such images, dancing on walls of brick houses crumbling)
The home with boarded up windows, and children watching television sets with the sound on full
This is free form living, an avant-garde way of life
Concrete music from the paving slab, door-stop bedrooms
and the dead dogs rotting in shallow graves in the grey grassy garden
Suspended in animation, needles in the arm
Why is Mummy crying on the kitchen counter top,
and why are you in my room?
This is a house for dealing, a house not fit for stealing
This house is a home to the ones who live and a grave for those that don't
Your house smells of rose petal, sweet summer serenades and  home baked cakes
My house is dilapidated and smeared in ****, my house is lonely, my house is a rut
Infantile impotence, playing on a rainbow welcome mat
Crystal hanging in the window, splaying colour
Tap the vain, vein young valiant boy, pull the tie from Daddy's arm
Between you and me, the back door slides easily open in the spring
and perhaps freedom in the trees you seek
and maybe you can forget
Just for a moment.

Imagine this centered: And lunch with Kirk and Uncle Bubby

Even the birds are staying home today
Those flocks and flights whose accustomed spirals
Make animate the skies are grounded by frost
And leave the waters of the marsh in peace

Young men uniformed in Nomex 1 and beards
Spiral into Hollier’s Cajun Kitchen
From the barges and the maintenance shops,
Cracking units, pipelines and hotshot rigs

They are smart, tough, and strong; they fuel the world
And pose for pictures with the concrete pig 2


1 Nomex is a flame-resistant material developed by DuPont and is worn by workers in many industries, especially petro-chemicals.  The man or woman in Nomex keeps our cars, our lights, and our lives functioning.

2 There are in fact two concrete pigs outside Hollier’s (pronounced “O-Yays,” says Uncle Bubby).

I live a breath's away from the oldest river in the world.
While I don't take much of nature in it is awe inspiring,
to be sure.
I live within the crook of the oldest mountains in our history.
Not the tallest,
nor the proudest,
but for now these ranges are growing senile within their misery.

The riverrun through it and exposes rock perhaps a billion years old.
Our oral histories, passed on legends,
scary stories and mountaineer folklore accounts for
such a small passage of time.
We built a bridge once.
It was at one time the longest single-span arch in the world.
Now it's the fourth.
Top five, and that's something for which I am proud.
The oldest river, in the world.
The oldest mountains, in the world.
The highest fatal overdose rate, in the States.

There is a beauty to be had here. Somewhat backwards, but
growing up our water was clear.
It's now choked from coal slurry.
The brain drain of young adults leaving, in much hurry,
hurts us as the ones that remain become grey and blurry.
We are living in a permanent winter and we have high roads,
that wind and curve. Dangerous when icy. veins filled with
heavy loads and nodding verve.
I live a breath's away from the oldest river in the entire world.
I can't touch Roman ruins with my hands, or
sift through the Dead Sea and float on salt above sand.
I can't touch the hill where Jesus may have died,
I don't know what it feels like to hold history as pride.
But our trees even when green have a dusty coal darkened sheen.
Summer is overgrowth from the Springtime rains.
The highest fatal overdose rate in the entire United States.

Where once we built bridges to close in the gap of travel.
We unzip black bags with rigs and object with obvious cavil.
Our industry is old, the world is moving on from coal.
For better, to be sure, but in the meantime we grow cold.
Not from lack of heat, we can boil our spoons just fine.
But we need a replacement from shaft or the mountaintop mine.
Let us worry about beauty again,
let us treat addiction with correction instead of levying it as sin.
Remove the pantomiming politician speak
of addicts or the sick as being weak.

Let's find ourselves again, West Virginia. You're the only home I've known.
Childhood summertimes sat beneath canopies of caterpillar home,
the happy baby butterflies eating leaves so more sun could shone.
Walking sticks used to play with me in my yard,
and at nighttime I'd still be outside mouth agape at the stars.
Evening meant lightning bugs and I'd capture a few in the cup of my hands.
There was a whimsy to how nature responded to us,
how bees would bumble and land,
on the dandelions whose seeds I'd spread as I blew on their white
polyp heads.
Maybe it's nostalgia and my memories are tinted rosy.
The smell of wood stoves burning in winter,
the crispness of autumn breezes felt cozy.
There was a trust held in communities, or maybe I was naïve.
Some of my friends made a choice and moved.
Others among us took a more permanent leave.
My brother, too. He himself got in a lot of trouble.
Over the cotton swab boiled to a bubble.
He died when I was young so maybe everybody is right.
It's all sentimentality and a lot of lonely nights.
But does the past being ****** up make the worsening now fine?

I live a breath's away from the oldest river and mountain range.
I live with the highest fatal overdose rate in the United States.

i always fall for boys with broken trucks


who track sod into the living room
and smell like cattle and cologne
with knotches in their hips from
tying dollars 'round their waists
strung from welding rigs and pipelines
bad backs, torn hands and ripped
ligaments scarred over and healed
with whiskey--

those men that cause a raucous
but attend the song of every whippoorwill
who take peace with them down in the
holler and carry sunlight on their backs
they've got bones so cold you'd think they'd
crack but they've been bucked by bulls and
motorcycle seats, and are quieted by the sounds
of a woman breathing--

softly, slowly, in and out
softly, slowly, in and out.


how do you not fall for the broken?


softly, slowly, in and out.

Ask me what I want to do, go fish
if I had a genie, it’s what I would wish
in the lake, river, creek or pond
eagerly cast next to a fern frond

Wiggle my bait and work it some more
hoping a fish cannot ignore
flipping up under docks
or the edges of piles of rocks

Working the tree stumps
waiting on a big thump
on my lure, adrenaline pumps
waiting for the end of my rod to jump

Bass, on Carolina, Alabama, or Texas rigs
crappie and pan fish I’ll catch on a jig
white bass and hybrids, on slabs and spoons
I have even caught them casting at  loons

Sam Rayburn, Cedar Creek or Lake Fork
I’m getting excited just like a dork
Tawakoni, Amistad, or Nacogdoches
if I ran out of bait, man I would use roaches

Livingston, Stryker, or the Trinidad  Lake
catching some fish, fry them up on a plate
bait cast, and spin cast, pushbuttons oh wow
I also can fly-fish, I taught myself how

Gar, carp and buffalo, anything that bites
looking for something to make my line tight
Matagorda, or Galveston, or Port A
I have no problems fishing  the bay

Intercoastal waterway or out in the surf
no problems cooking surf and turf
Black drum, Red fish or Speckled trout
as long as they’re biting I’ll never pout

Whiting, and Croakers and even Hardheads
catching are fun, getting the slime off you dread
gaff tops are pretty, but just as slimy nasty
I’ve never had any, I hear their pretty tasty

Flounders are flat and so are sting rays
but if that’s what’s biting I’ll fish everyday
jacks, and mackerel and bonnet head sharks
so many fish in the ocean, that’s just a start.

How about invasives, silver carp and snakeheads
cast for the snakehead, jumping carp in a net
I’ve fished lots of bass, native and Florida strain
but there is one thought that sticks in my brain

Is I’d like to go catch some peacock bass
top water action would really kick ***.
catch and release or serve it up in a dish
as you can see I really love to fish

We stain our shirts with oil
spills
as we ash our cigarettes
into the mouths of blue whales
and pretend that we don’t choke
when we say,

The world is our oyster.

We should pry her, unwillingly
open
and utilize her
most intimate resources
to better our-slick-selves.

There’s always somebody, willing
and ready
to cross the line.

Teach a man to fish
and he’ll learn to **** dolphins.

We aren’t the painters or the paintings,
we’re the products;
oil, rigs, and watercolors
used
to get
the job
done.

Now this was way back in seventy-five,
when seat belts weren't worn, to keep you alive.
On a winding, ocean highway, we drove,
the weather, clear and sunny at the cove.

As we came to the spot that goes round,
my husband, then boyfriend, did slow down.
He reached for his seat belt, he never used,
then said, "Maybe you should put yours on too".

We drove round that bend, then it happened.
It was like a big hand was the weapon.
We were hit with such force we both did wobble,
in our seats, then we saw our new trouble.

We were sliding quickly across the lanes,
heading for a guardrail that would save us pain.
But we missed that saviour rail by quite a ways.
Down the grassy hillside we slid sideways.

At that moment, went by, two speeding big rigs,
trying to pass side by side round that bend.
One had been in our lane, coming head on,
the other, his bumper, along the guardrail, slid on.

Coming to a stop between a tree trunk and large boulder.
Our car had started to want to roll over.
Being held there, with two wheels in the air,
Railroad tracks, fifty feet were below us there.

We sat and took stock of our fortunate good luck.
We could have been mowed down by either truck.
As for hubby to have just then, used a seat belt,
something guided him, he was sure that he felt.

We both managed to crawl from the tilted car,
there were two dents in the door, we were jarred.
As we began our long climb up that hill,
we noticed the air go perfectly still.

The car moaned wanting to finish it's roll,
as a train flew by on the tracks just below.
At the top of the hill , we could only stare,
and relive, what had just happened there.

Our lives that day had been saved more than once.
Of evidence of what had transpired, there was.
The tree, where the rear of the car was seated,
was recently uprooted, falling just where needed.

The dents in the door were hand sized
and spread apart from each other, just right.
As though a divine source from above,
had given our car, a much needed shove.


Note:  This is a true recounting of what took place
while hubby and I were driving
along the Oregon Coast Highway 101
in August of 1975

There was the refinery in the ice desert of Wyoming
Past the mountains, at 3 in the morning
Lit up in the night like it was in love
And so was I

There were the oil rigs lined up in rows
Out on the smooth stone of ocean
And we pointed out to them like they
Were our light houses
Like we were boats
Like we needed something to guide us home

And in between here and there
Were semi trucks
With steel quilted sides
And lights like strange underwater fish
Attracting this to that
Attracting me to you

And there were all those times
When you were my flame
In the deep cold
When you were my foundation
Under the immensity of water
When you were my drive
Through all of these other things

And we still point at each other, over a distance
Like you or I is a light
Like you or I is still in love

She's high octane
a gas burner,
red hot
a head turner.

She's scandalously fabulous in
the style of a good old
fashioned
Northern lass.

And she's strong when wrong
and stronger when right and
right now she's strong
it'll be our night tonight.

There are no terrorists here,

Says the classic bold type,
On the FullScap paper,

In the folder on the dusty desk,
Of the Satellite police station in Isiolo.

The drilling rigs will make no difference to,
The cows or the goats or the lives of the people,
Who do not live here.

The construction does not impinge on farms,
And will be manned by machines not capable of dying,
So there is no need to worry,

The oil will be distributed fairly,
According to the percentages,
Agreed to in the constitution.

The matter of people living
In Isiolo does not come into this.

There are no people here.

A cool cloudburst from up high will cleanse this *****
metropolis ..Overfilling the gutters and storm sewers , the viaducts
and retaining ponds , filthy black tar streets , sidewalks crying for
upkeep ..
Rid this unkempt town of dreaded pollen and factory dust ,
stagnant pools of non-potable creek water , scrub the tarmac
at the city airport ..
Wash the 'Big rigs' , the trailers , the railheads , buses and the commuter locations . Shine her tall skyscrapers , her radio towers and her subway stations ..
Polish the walkways , the store fronts and the precious , park greenery ..
Refill the birdbaths , the fishing ponds and the vibrant lakeland scenery ..

The door is sealed, but voices ring out
And purple hearts still point the way.

There's a pipe in the corner that we're too afraid to pick up,
And microscopic devils reside in these sheets.

The screaming upstairs is getting louder,
And this won't be the first time I've tried to hurt her.

***** rigs with missing caps make up our mind,
The floor is the safest route here.

But this is home, and love resides here.

It shows itself among smelly blankets cuddled together in the
    midnight sun.
Or in the way permission is asked before saliva trades with water.
It smiles from behind broken skin and bruised eyes,
then saunters away to go spare change a meal.