"sagebrush" poems
.
I’m just a lonely traveler
on this earth
Sometimes it feels as if I'm
waiting for the sky to fall
with each passing breathe
of wind
Standing alone,
a windswept tree
leans downwind;
conspicuously wrought,
naked and bowed
by the grinding
silent forces
at nature's whim
Rootless tumbleweeds
roll by randomly:
broken off,
spinning clockwise,
never looking back,
timeworn and tired
of resisting the prevailing
high desert wind
and its unheld temper
Rattling the tinder
dry sagebrush
like songless wind-chimes;
voiceless fugitives
wreathing a bellowing silence
Jesse Stillwater
Aug 26, 2018
Aug 26, 2018 at 7:04 PM UTC
Our last connection with the mythic.
My mother remembers the day as a girl
she jumped across a little spruce
that now overtops the sandstone house
where still she lives; her face delights
at the thought of her years translated
into wood so tall, into so mighty
a peer of the birds and the wind.
Too, the old farmer still stout of step
treads through the orchard he has outlasted
but for some hollow-trunked much-lopped
apples and Bartlett pears. The dogwood
planted to mark my birth flowers each April,
a soundless explosion. We tell its story
time after time: the drizzling day,
the fragile sapling that had to be staked.
At the back of our acre here, my wife and I,
freshly moved in, freshly together,
transplanted two hemlocks that guarded our door
gloomily, green gnomes a meter high.
One died, gray as sagebrush next spring.
The other lives on and some day will dominate
this view no longer mine, its great
lazy feathery hemlock limbs down-drooping,
its tent-shaped caverns resinous and deep.
Then may I return, an old man, a trespasser,
and remember and marvel to see
our small deed, that hurried day,
so amplified, like a story through layers of air
told over and over, spreading.
9.5k
Downfall she claims
Dripping in disease
Her dress ripped
Trees dying
Holes cover the seams
Tattered
Sewage covered
Disgraced
Ugly
Taking her vitality
The mass living upon her soil
Population at a high
Charging her for corruption
Her hair cut
In shambles
Uneven proportioned
Greed is the man in lead
Unfairly held to shame
Her belly rumbles
Earthquakes
Crack her skin
Aching
Oozing her blood
Tsunamis wiping out existence
She violently
Throws tantrums
A twister destroying houses
Seeking attention
Under validated
Unnoticed for exotic jungle humanity
Innocence
Her music lifts
The mountain breeze
Sagebrush rustles
Birds whisper
Squirrels leaping
Her captivating body sings
Weak man made her break
Small art gone
Ice caps melting into the abyss
Taking scraps
Leftover bits
Her soul
Missing
Stipping her clothing
******* her gold
Her shirt selfishly torn
Naked she became
Her animals hungry
Oceans sickened
Our anguish
Is revenge
Knocked out
She's becoming manipulated belief
She's in debt to the population
Mother will reclaim
Her dynasty
We the people will be left
In emptiness
May 11, 2016
May 11, 2016 at 8:29 PM UTC
your boot was turned the wrong way
on the post out by the highway
- sharp toe pointing to the south
away from where you've been
you're no stranger to the rangers
living dangerously on the edge
- sidewinders in the sagebrush
whispering to the wind
the anasazi built this home
stacking stone one by one
- far above the canyon
of petroglyphs and wrens
i knew i'd find you by the fire
talking to the ghosts of smoke and drum
- in the ruins above the dunes
reminiscing with your friends
- reminiscing, reminiscing
on the blue mesa.
r ~ 11/6/14
Nov 6, 2014
Nov 6, 2014 at 8:09 AM UTC
The moon calls to me tonight—
I cannot resist her charms.
I slip beyond the confines of my room
To let the evening soak into my soul.
A full moon spills her silver light,
Darkness braided with her glow.
Rocky earth crunches beneath my feet,
Each step alive with sound and scent.
The high desert hums its song:
Stars glimmer, coyotes cry.
A noisy stillness fills the air,
As daylight’s brightness fills the sky.
My heaven is green grass,
And scent of sagebrush and hay.
I belong in this moonlit nirvana,
Where constellations burn like fire.
Aug 12, 2025
Aug 12, 2025 at 1:52 PM UTC
Southwestern Dis-United States of Memory
Piñon smoke and sagebrush, voice of New Mexico night driving into an Arizona dawn rising over dreaming pueblos, low-ridden plazas, kivas and ruined cities’ rubble traced and highlighted by sunlight, Anglo angling into Aztec toward Zuni over arid zones… A to Z to El Dorado; a voice covers the high hills with a dusting of snow—every word hangs in the notes of the song: music to fall apart to, breakdown to, hurling the soul into the bottomless well of psychotic nostalgia: música de cavanga, falling into the depths. Melody pushing to the threshold of a bar and leaving you there with cash in your pocket and no ride home. The warmth inside beckons—you step across as the song fills, swells, intoxicates, then excavates the wall of the dam until it collapses. The fatal mistake: you read too much into the lyrics of shallow love songs. The deathwish beast of despair arises, the flooded plains dazzle your eyes, the Indian girl smiles on the rim of the grand canyon, the tattooed cholo pulls a knife in the trailer park, the dark waters under the bridge murmur and surge with regret; el río de Las Animas, Durango CO, Aztec calligraphy on the wall: Las Cruces, NM; Clifton, Morenci, Globe, AZ: stepped pyramids of copper tailings, gang-warred walls in fallen barrios covered in Chicano hieroglyphics, the ruined huts of shepherds and cowboys, pit-house dwellings’ flaked arrowheads and pottery fragments scattered forever in the coyote laugh of desert dusk. Crepuscular colors on the names of mountain ranges: Santa Catalina, Sangre de Cristo, Sandia, each one a separate sunset delirium—then you ride through the night to the city of palm trees and the orange-lined boulevards of Heaven.
The singer herself grew old but her YouTubes live forever.
Feb 23, 2017
Feb 23, 2017 at 9:37 PM UTC
The firelight was fading
The shadows grew in size
In the distance if you listened
You could hear the faintest cries
Of coyotes and of timber wolf
Signalling the end of day
Howling at the growing moon
Keeping night spirits at bay
The last piece of the sagebrush
Was burning to it's core
The flames that danced as quicksilver
Now, they danced no more
The fire, once was blazing
It's flames a dangerous height
Was now a nest of coal chunks
to warm us through the night
Four days out and three to go
We'd be in two days ahead
The scheduled trip with this years herd
And we'd be back in our own bed
A smaller group of beef this time
But, that's the way it goes
At least we'd leave the mountains
Before the early snows
Coffee from the morning meal
Was still sitting in the ***
Two minutes in the embers
And it was steaming hot
The first round of watch was up
And the coffee was re done
The second watch, for wolves and things
Needed coffee and a gun
Two went down the first night out
We heard the wolves, but missed them all
They'd been following us for three days now
And at night you'd hear them call
They signalled that the day was done
And that the herd was staying still
The darkness was their element
It was time for them to ****
The fire was near finished
The flames were all but smoke
but that cup of cowboy coffee
put life into this old grey cowpoke
If the wolves kept at a distance
And just kept howling at the moon
We'd lose no more beef tonight
And be home two days from noon
The fire spit and crackled
The night was damp and cold
The stars were silent beacons
To the wolves so quick and bold
We heard them in the distance
Howling loud as if to say
Will you make it through till morning?
Wait until we come to play.....
May 7, 2015
May 7, 2015 at 12:11 AM UTC
sometimes on rainy days we stayed in
chugged cheap red wine out of a bag
that stained our teeth
& i made you listen to
old jazz saxophone records or
you forced me to dance with you
to really awful dubstep tracks
you used to like to poke my skinny ribs
laugh & say i danced like an alien as you
pulled me with your small hands
to read my palm by the window where
the sky water trickled down the glass
spilling over from the gutter
& when it comes to your natural perfume
that damp fragrance of sagebrush cloaked in dew
i'm still a recovering addict
& sometimes i relapse
baby i'm asking to relapse
i haven't seen you since the garden on my 21st
with the thick sound of crickets squealing in the trees
& big dogs barking way off in
someone's backyard across the river
that starry september night you read my cards sitting
on the dusty trunk of my car while your best friend
rolled slick blunts in the backseat but i was drunk
& ***** we got distracted i bent you over
weaponizing the leverage of my body to
put your face near the pretty sunflower bed
with a tall can of bud still in your hand
& the muscles of your thighs glowing by moonlight
outside that almost abandoned house we found
with my birthday party blooming by a bonfire not far away
now i'm wondering
since i've got another birthday coming up
& a little more meat on my bones
if you'd be willing to try it again
because i'm working hard to change my future
by itching at the old scars left on my shoulders
until they open & bleed again
only i won't drink so much this time around
& you can try to not smoke ****
i'll let you steal & wreck my car again &
i'll stop chewing my fingernails or
you can still practice your happy ending massage
techniques on me when i'm stretched out & tired
i'll re-twist your sloppy dreads
with careful fingers
like tiny insects crawling over your scalp
because i never wanted to touch them before
& you can maybe try to not
flip-flop **** my best friend
as much or at all
Aug 21, 2015
Aug 21, 2015 at 4:42 PM UTC
Emily will take her cedar box
of hidden poems
throwing them on a Sou’ Westerly breeze
in a New England Spring —
They will be snatched and fly
daring, dainty flutter byes
across the stretching continent
the Great Plains and New Frontiers —
The Sun — rising in ribbons
Mountains dripping scarlet sunsets
vast Miles of Evening Sparks —
as the Hemispheres come home
to early Night —
they’ll be read by lonely cowboys
drinking whisky, in the sagebrush
Indian braves campfire smoking
Sung in Saloons by husky-voiced dames
can-can dressed and a whole lotta grit
and gumption.
Emily, lightened of her load
unknotted the Skein of Misery —
Universe unstitched —
in this moment of escape
Landscape will listen —
Shadows will hold their breath
until the words are spoken.
Emily’s skipping down the stairs
of that morbid, cold wintered house
with its bare Slants of Light —
rushing out the door
throwing herself on the Open day —
Telling True, but slanted.
Sep 1, 2015
Sep 1, 2015 at 6:46 PM UTC
The Grand Canyon is like the brain
with deep, unexplored fissures and tributaries,
the main route well known by now.
I am walking, walking inside my mind,
a grand canyon, a planet of canyons, a system
of planets. The exploration may become dangerous
I might lose my job, forgetting to go or losing
sight of its importance. But the job is gathering
pinyon nuts and agave fruits, it is the main
river, deepest cavity, how I find the unexplored
canyons and tributaries of my neighbors
and my enemies. But is it a religion,
a reason for living. It is a marriage, for better
or worse, with all the other living. The concept
of life's brevity, temporary compared
with the time taken to carve the canyon, does
not interest me. Each moment has a weather,
is a mirror of all other moments. The naming
of things goes on. Cliff rose and wavyleaf oak,
new mexican locust and sagebrush among ponderosa
and pinyon pine, juniper. Once I know
who they are inhabiting the canyon, the raven's
flight is meaningful. The raven's rock cave,
search for seed and carrion, my home and job.
Aug 9, 2015
Aug 9, 2015 at 2:27 PM UTC
the beauty of the badland
is in its vastness
sky & the desert
two seas meeting
in a heat wavered horizon
the one beneath stretched and textured with green
the short shadows of sagebrush
yellowing tones of death speckled here and there
relaxed
returned to the sun
the water hangs
far above in blue
Aug 13, 2014
Aug 13, 2014 at 10:57 PM UTC
Goodnight sweet juniper,
Let the moon kiss you slowly across the sky.
Return to your dreams and find my soul from lifetimes long past.
You can find me standing beneath the pinyon in the sand,
I’ll wait for you there.
Where nothing and no one else exist,
And time expands with every breath.
Tread softly as you walk among the manzanita,
Its red bark echoing of blood and life.
Its roots stretching deeper than you know,
And its leaves brushing you softly,
Whispering your secrets, ushering your fate.
Take your solace in the sagebrush,
Its sharp scent hitchhiking on the northern breeze,
as the dirt green stubble extends farther than the hills,
and farther than the red cliffs and thirsty desert.
Smile as you sleep, and let the moon kiss you slowly across the sky.
Goodnight sweet juniper.
Jan 21, 2015
Jan 21, 2015 at 11:34 PM UTC
my bed is just a velvet patch of comfort in this world
every night I curl into the earth
lay into the soft flesh of her lips and
lay unstirred until rising
like a breath
but what kind of lover is confined to a kiss?
should not I run a hand down the alleys of her throat?
press my ear to the heaving sidewalk
and hear arrhythmia in her heart?
go out behind the lot
of Greenleaf Woman’s Health--
the cheap abortion clinic
sink a tongue into the sewer
bathe in the spray of recycled water
and be purer by surrender
of barrier between veins
lay with this world in every ***** place
sleep with one side to a chain-link
the other to her tunnel
corrugated aluminum
and street run-off canals
and the run-out chaparral
where wind and sagebrush sweep
dry air across my tongue
to grow snail-trails on my teeth
to call this world a lover
I must know more than her face
and claw into the bitter brine
of every permeable place
so when they roll me over
I might reek of all her tastes
fermenting with her beauty
wrapped in sweat of her disgrace
Dec 13, 2011
Dec 13, 2011 at 6:29 AM UTC
***** clouds smudge
across heavy skies
laden with tawny soot
sagebrush steppe glows
under jaundiced light
blazing wildfire summer
Jul 12, 2021
Jul 12, 2021 at 10:12 AM UTC
I'm the invisible man
I'm the ugly duckling
I'm that kid who dresses up like Aquaman
When the rest of my friends dress like the
Justice League
No, it really feels like this
It feels like I got hit by a car
On a back road of some lesser known town
And the driver kept on driving
My body's lying in some
Sagebrush beyond the guardrail,
Twitching
My breathing is becoming shallow,
Broken,
And it's fading quicker than I'd like
I've got crimson blood pouring out my nose
And my head throbs
Like the beating of hearts that would never beat for me
My bones are wrapped around one
Another as if their comfort would bring
Any to my splintered soul
Headlights, taillights
They're all just lights that will never set my pathetic frame aglow
So, I lie in sorrow that I never stood up in the crowd
My tongue tastes the bloodied mess
Of dislodged teeth that fumble in my mouth
I realize that I never had a voice
I couldn't tell God to leave me alone
Because in the end of it all,
I never wanted to be left to myself
Jan 28, 2014
Jan 28, 2014 at 10:59 AM UTC
*The windswept crackle of Jehovahs machinery
Honey sweet greenery with trolling titmouse
sentries , white contrails drawn onto blue canopy and
brown leaf melodies
Woodpecker percussionist tap the song of dusk
Songs of the rusty red clover valley
and golden sagebrush
Psalms of cardinal chatter and brown thrasher cackle
Bronze raptors circling sun -streaked hillsides flushed
in crepe myrtle , yellowbell and azalea
Where the purveyors of creation live , thrive and belong*...
May 16, 2017
May 16, 2017 at 7:02 PM UTC
*Fall sunshine
Silver spider yarns in flight
Pirouetting Maple exaltations ,
fledgling Bluebirds , not a cloud
in sight , Mister Mockingbird call
the roll of Fall with all your might
The butterfly dancers , the honeybee
determined , the Woodpecker drum
major , the violinist , cellos , the piccolos ,
the sagebrush pianist*
Oct 6, 2016
Oct 6, 2016 at 1:10 PM UTC
We run through forests and thickets
whizzing past swamps and field and glen,
this is how wild raw natural love is supposed to be
there is so much that has changed in my life since then.
She holds my hand, my heart beating fast, bleary eyes,
it's the wind, the air-floating feathers-who knows what
that gave me this overwhelming feeling of love,
this is what it's truly supposed to be when I fell from above.
We stop in a clearing, she runs her hands through my long
dark hair, she knows who I truly am, just simply setting me free,
in a field filled with fantastic stunning delights, stars sparkling into
the hazy twilight, there she kisses me slowly, soft and sweet.
There are streams and lakes, fern and pine, oak trees, amidst
Poppy, sagebrush and apple trees. You hold my hand and at once
I am in a dizzy spell. *"We can not go on forever like this,"
I say in my mind. Then I wake up to emptiness.*
Nov 5, 2016
Nov 5, 2016 at 4:42 AM UTC
I'm going to drive home and it will be cloudy.
Brown then white then
brown again and that
tunnel I hold my breath in and
I wonder if you held yours too.
I hope it snows on my way and
I hope those granules accumulate and
enshroud me until I'm clean in a
winter baptism.
Salt and salt then
juniper trees then sagebrush
and the lonely gas station I find because I exited too early
in the small town that knows it's being used and
people never stay.
Mountains that curve and bend into hills
and I fall back in time into
earth tones and hard hats and
fear and fear and fear.
I feel out of place in my red dress
and my chest tightens.
Compressing, compressing, compressing until I
can't breathe and I feel so
small
and the hills so
small
grow smaller and smaller and
they box me in and
I can't breathe oh God
I know you're not there but please let me
breathe.
Winding roads wound tighter and
tighter that make me feel like I'm driving in circles.
It's my worst fear that I've grown too big
for this place and I want it to
stop I need it to
end and I cry out when I see it,
I grow small again as it comes closer and
when it comes to me,
when I come to it
it gives me my chest back and
gently places my lungs inside.
I am clean and
it knows I'm clean
and I can be here once again.
I drive and it's cloudy and I am home.
Nov 19, 2015
Nov 19, 2015 at 1:50 PM UTC
sagebrush and juniper
with the occasional tiny yellow blossom
sprout without fear
in the drought stricken desert
touting new growth despite
the Sun’s best efforts
and the total lack of precipitation –
granules of wind-blown granite mountains
give way underfoot
leaving misshapen footprints
near faded remnants
of an old rattlesnake shed
strewn delicately over
last year’s deer tracks
preserved in a landscape
that exists outside of mankind’s time –
Did Louis Lamoure ride though here?
Was this a secret cowboy stomping ground?
Off in the distance comes a noise though the underbrush
slow and methodical
meandering
one lone cow steps into the sunlight
as we lock eyes
the buzzing of insects fades
I lose track of the surrounding foliage
and consider,
“What a cud he must chew!”
Jul 17, 2015
Jul 17, 2015 at 2:06 PM UTC
Peter is joining us for lunch in the cafeteria. I met him on a crowded Saturday morning at a coffee shop. He’s from the flammable, paper-dry, sagebrush hills of Malibu and grew up overlooking the hazy blue pacific ocean. He says Mel Gibson’s drunken **** rant, when a cop pulled him over for a DUI, put them on the map.
Poor Peter is fashion challenged. He’s 25, too tall, and too thin. Reading glasses hang around his neck. His too loose-fitting clothes are all variations of brown, like tawny, penny and wenge. He’s wearing a battered tweed coat, brown corduroy slacks and tortilla colored mock turtleneck. He’s adorably shabby-fancy. If he fell in the dormant, straw-yellow grass, we probably couldn’t find him.
Peter has a serious aura of experience about him. His cheek bones are sharp, his hair is an explosion of uncombed black, his skin is pale - bleached - by over exposure to library lighting.
He lives in a different world - the prosaic, laissez-faire universe of research - where students are left to their own devices and expected to self-manage.
Right now, he’s being vetted by one of my roommates, Leong. His student lanyard marks him but she wants specifics if he’s going to hang around. “What’s your major?” she asks, her eyes squinting like the Chinese lie detectors they are. “I’m a doctoral student in applied physics,” he says.
I pat his knee, “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” I say, reassuringly.
Mar 1, 2022
Mar 1, 2022 at 7:24 AM UTC