"southwestern" poems
Watching the Panda resting,
Scorching in the southwestern sun,
China is a colourful place,
He eats the bamboo that grows with grace.
He's old now and has moved from the lowlands,
Farmers drove him from his safety,
He is endangered,
Docile and beautiful.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 6:12 AM 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
TO SHED MY TEARS
I'm sitting on the curb in late July between Al's
Barbershop and Harry's Hardware watching ants
making their way to the gutter where they disappear.
Busby, Nebraska is not a big town--in fact, it's not
even a small town--in fact, it's not even a town. It's
three blocks long, but Ethel's Cafe is open for break-
fast and lunch. And most importantly, it's on the
way to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation located
in the remote southwestern corner of South Dakota
where I'm headed on foot. I've been to Pine Ridge a
number of times. Something calls me there from time
to time. Not sure what it is--kind of like a spiritual
whisper. Only got 23 more miles to get there. I walk
wherever I go--reminds me of Wordsworth's THE
WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US. I say I'm going
to Pine Ridge, but actually I'm headed to Wounded
Knee Cemetery, about ten miles east of Pine Ridge,
where so many of the Lakota Sioux men, women,
and children were slaughtered, then buried, the
last massacre of indigenous people by the U. S.
Army in 1890. I sit on the ground and cry and cry.
The dry grasses soak up my tears as fast as they
hit the ground.
TOD HOWARD HAWKS
Dec 2, 2022
Dec 2, 2022 at 1:11 AM UTC
faked botulism
and Beulah reds
Abyssinian horses
purportedly dead
all night blindness
that 'gravel' soothes
hovering indentions
southwestern barceuse
luminaries marked
tiny infantries swell
conically formed
so steady with shell
dihedral burns
for unlucky hands
swaying cognition
oh, little demands
sanctums ******
the sputum reigns
tenderness denied
a proper grave
you were ferried
holstered soul
lift your head
and let it go
Sep 28, 2011
Sep 28, 2011 at 5:20 AM UTC
from the sizzling southwestern sun
we stepped into the beer stenched shadows
of the Blue Agave Lounge
left lizards in the street but there were plenty inside
lurking in dark corners, their bodies draped like the dead
faces in pools of beer on ancient formica
we were killin' time
and brain cells
and any lingering ambitions
that lurked in our dark corners
on the wall behind the bar
was a "Felix Garcia" original
some desert artist
who doubtless killed some of his own time
in the blue shadows
of the Agave
the painting, unblemished by the dying around it
was of a schooner
white masts full in blue skies
rolling on purple waves
headed to some blind horizon
far from the Blue Agave
drunken eyes digested this
and perchance wondered
if it reached some blissful port
or took men to a deeper doom
if we could only ask Felix
but he is not to be found
and he may not know
for in the Blue Agave
hidden from the light of day
dreams are drenched in darkness
and tomorrow is a land the lizards fight to forget
Nov 8, 2011
Nov 8, 2011 at 10:45 PM UTC
"I'll let you in on a Secret - I don't know when I'm joking."
We go to a fancy-type restaurant. A nice sit-down place. My baby blues are bottled on dark wood shelves and this isn't a detail that you plan to miscount for. Waiters in black ties and the plates are already on the tables and I know that you are relentless in their shining reflections.
"Wine and Dine my Sensibility."
My seventeen-year-old skin does not belong here. Follicles producing my scent are premature, to say the least. Cultivated romance looms beyond a horizon of pale-brown clouds littered with mid-highway makeouts - I expect you to paint me a brand-spanking-new Southwestern sky.
"Let's talk about You" -
A past-prime Adam's Apple says to me. Gnarled birds' nests perch atop my faintly skin-encased splinters - I flex in hopes of a migration, but not too
Far
Down
S
o
u
t
h
"They're coming."
Barely flinching teeth rattle around my peripheral and then You Are Gone! - or perhaps I am. We drown quickly in dim red-lighting, brick-laid air swallows and belches out a humidified and much sweatier you and I - and I'm getting turned on.
"You look nice today,"
they chant. Spay-legged spiders tumble out of dank eyesockets and nest somewhere deeeeeeeep in my brain tissue.
"Yellow looks good on a jealous, jealous girl-"
You laugh and call them back home.
Lock eyes with me as I impale upon a salad fork.
"Talk ***** to me."
Third-World Countries have been delicately dropped into what I thought were love poems to you. Vines grow around your mouth, soggy with the meal that I think is over. They chase each other through your teeth and I want to strangle myself with their slim and tender necks - like you wish I had. Dark green darlings giggle in my direction - such a Naive Little Girl!
"Ha."
Six lines later and I'm reeling you in.
Oct 17, 2013
Oct 17, 2013 at 11:04 PM UTC
The Rozhen Monastery of the Nativity of the Mother of God (Bulgarian: Роженски манастир "Рождество Богородично", Rozhenski manastir "Rozhdestvo Bogorodichno") is the biggest monastery in the Pirin Mountains in southwestern Bulgaria. It is one of the few medieval Bulgarian monasteries well preserved until today.
Rozhen Monastery website
http://rozen.pmg-blg.com/index.php
Rozhen
on a dry tree hung
does the monastery hang
and a road is curving
like a snake
with its tail up
do you hear that cry
of the rocks
the silence screams
overcome
by all the words
by the roar of crickets
by the blood in the vains
I've never understood nothing
stuck the palms
and three fingers
above the soil
The original:
рожен
на сухо дърво окачен
виси манастирът
и се извива път
подобно змия
с опашката си нагоре
чуваш ли онзи вик
на скалите
тишината пищи
сломена
от всичките думи
от грохота на щурците
от кръвта във вените
никога нищо не съм разбрал
залепнали дланите
и три пръста
над пръст
*Translator Bulgarian-English: Vessislava Savova
rarebird
© bogpan - all rights reserved.
Nov 30, 2010
Nov 30, 2010 at 10:30 PM UTC
A spider clings to the brick and mortar wall
Facing the setting southwestern Sun
A sack of a thousand eggs hangs from her backside
Meticulously thrown over her abdomen
She watches wearily for saboteurs
Or watches hungrily for prey to quench her thirst
Her web ripples slightly from a hidden breeze
Giving the illusion of her dancing
To a lost tribal mamba
Apr 29, 2012
Apr 29, 2012 at 9:36 AM UTC
in Portugal here
at the continent's southwestern rim
where as the legend says
enchanted horses and their riders
turned into rocks
break up the waves
Hesiod's vision of Atlantis lingers on
and with some luck
you see
the path
that leads to a submerged paradise
yet beware
lest you tread gently
and with care
the palace falls to ruins
and the fair beautiful women
grow Medusa's hair
* * *
Mar 26, 2015
Mar 26, 2015 at 5:06 PM UTC
her dark hair flows down her back, she finds herself
in another basement in southwestern ohio,
there's a drink or two around and the faint scent of cigarette smoke in the air.
she takes another tan boy with
a forgettable italian name
and a forgettable italian ****
back to her room and locks them both inside
not much happens after that
some say she takes herself too seriously during the day
**** i say she takes herself too seriously during the day
she's eighteen and she moves to new york
and changes her name
and moves to miami
and changes her *****
and moves to california
and changes her mind
southwestern ohio is barely a dream
that italian boy is barely a dream
so is everyone else.
May 13, 2012
May 13, 2012 at 12:58 AM UTC
Almost blue
like some stained-glass Christ
that never felt the saving sun burn
his caulked stigmata soft like
cinnamon toothpaste in the creek
bed.
Were his robes Robin's Egg, or Giotto
like the clergy wanted?
And when their fake pearl bracelets
rattled, fishing out cheap change
from brass-clasp purses,
did Christ stoop to gather
the sixty-something-year-old pennies
from in-between the arm rests
while they sifted through
the silver?
Almost blue
like a southern / western overcast
that never calls New York in advance
to schedule time to sweep up
the sky, standing on cold water flats.
Buys a Southwestern ticket straight thru,
walks past Madison marketing
her ***** underwear to anyone—everyone—,
buzzes in, third floor, apartment B-6,
but the door's locked, and the canary
curtains dance out the window like a house
fire.
Almost blue
like the Dawn dish soap
glass I neglect to rinse well.
But more like a lazy oil stream in a gas station
parking lot beneath the perforated banners
yakking in the still-cold March midday
about $12 sheet pizzas or unlimited
free coffee for $1.19 a refill.
Money better spent on a pack of Marlboro
Blues saxophone squeal by the plastic-
wrapped firewood by the almost-
blue wiper fluid and the antifreeze peaches.
Feb 11, 2015
Feb 11, 2015 at 2:15 AM UTC
I have three favorite things:
Coffee.
Whiskey.
The southwestern sun beating down on my bare shoulders.
And if one day I leave here
Don't let me forget to take the sun
And wash it in my sink.
So it shines brighter and brand new
On every cactus in the Sonoran Desert.
So it reaches all the way to Washington D.C.
One day while I'm reporting
About monkeys in suits running the playground
I'll feel it.
Take off my blazer and let that southwestern sun burn me red.
Then I'll go home.
Put some whiskey in my coffee.
And I'll be happy.
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 2:53 AM UTC
you quickly quipped cunning comments
in the skinniest jeans west of the mississippi
sighing softly then,
glancing to the left to keep an eye on the spider
scurrying on the wall.
you emerged triumphantly
luminously translucent
like a goddess of the noon sun
your eyes skipped mine in a beat
seconds behind my own
and with the final say from your fist
the walls began to fall
and outside, the small southwestern suburb
watches with fascination as the spider skids away.
Mar 19, 2013
Mar 19, 2013 at 5:01 PM UTC
***In the desert
dewdrops are sparkling over cactus thorn
like icy diamonds this Southwestern morn***
~^~
***warm winds through the Mesquite Trees
the sweet smell of sage lingers in the breeze***
~^~
***the desert Sun climbs past invisible clouds
the burning sky melts the misty wet shroud***
~^~
***the mercury is high but the air is dry
somewhere under the tangerine sky
life in Arizona***
Jul 26, 2015
Jul 26, 2015 at 9:52 AM UTC
Global economies
On thr brink of destruction
Planet earth being ruined
Because of man's ignorance
Man is not a good steward
Of this earth
Martial Law
Military take over
Of the Southwestern U.S.
Through FEMA camps
Food Supply cut off
I am convinced
That American life
Is going to drastically change
People are clueless
Most people are not aware
All the world's wealthiest
Leaving America
Tensions with Russia and China
We are open to a EMP attack
Our currency worthless
Jun 21, 2015
Jun 21, 2015 at 12:59 PM UTC
All the stars in the southwestern sky
couldn't add up to all the tears I cried.
When you walked away that February day
after three years we had shared
on a day meant for love
you proved to me you'd never cared.
When I saw you that chilly November night
nearly two years after that fateful break,
you had turned into something I hate.
Silence encompassed the space we occupied
and once again my heart cried,
shattered in front of you
I realized
I will always love you.
Nov 18, 2010
Nov 18, 2010 at 2:24 PM UTC
I had ceral for breakfast yesterday
I went drove over and put seven dollars
Worth of gas in my tank
That's all I can really afford
Then I drove over to the golf course
I was going to hit a few putts
But instead I just parked in the shade
With my feet out the window
I drove by my house
To see if they had left yet
I wasn't in the mood
For a family outing
I parked a few block beneath
My street in the shade
Covered my car
With the cover
And made my way
To the trail
By the golf course
I used a long branch
To reach golf ball
Above me
On a little hill
I am a golf ball collector
I sat on my yoga mat
Underneath the shade
Of a tree
I noticed a sparrow hawk
Land in an oak tree
I zoomed in to take a picture
And it flittered away
I made my way back to the car
And drove home
I figured I would have
An hour or so before
They got back
From the movie
I had the other half
Of the double double
And small chocolate milkshake
I consume those items
Over two days
Because they are
A bit unhealthy
I began my walk down
To the gym
I wrote "America is doomed"
And Jade Helm
With a fruit and that green plant
Jade Helm is a cover
For the military takeover
Of the southwestern U.S.
Alex Jones has been told
By hgh level military sources
I stopped and sat underneath
A tree on the median
Small pink flowers
Had bloomed
And these little white
Fluffy seeds were falling
As I looked up
I climbed the tree
Look at me
I'm a monkey in the tree
I laid back againt the tree
And put my legs up
I spent quite some time up there
Waving to the people as they drove by
To be continued...
Jun 21, 2015
Jun 21, 2015 at 12:47 PM UTC
You thought you'd see her around
Not everyday, but fairly often
And no one quite knew how to take it,
When a new boy took your place up on the mountain
Remember those endless days you spent
Frolicking through fields and licking cement
Spelling out each others names in twigs
And stitching your bones together with gold thread
Now she's got everything she needs
A blonde boy from the state park
Who lives in a barrel of beer beneath the southwestern rapids
And a home made from the backseat of her secondhand car
You have sternum pains and you know far too much
You used to wear your hair long to keep those mountain secrets
These days it grows to hide the footprint left below your bottom lip
Some bonds lie strictly in memory
And
She knows she's been on your mind
Aug 14, 2016
Aug 14, 2016 at 12:07 PM UTC
*In the desert
dewdrops are sparkling over cactus thorn
like icy diamonds this Southwestern morn
~*~
*warm winds through the Mesquite Trees
the sweet smell of sage lingers in the breeze
~*~
*the desert Sun climbs past invisible clouds
the burning sky melts the misty wet shroud
~*~
*the mercury is high but the air is dry
somewhere under the tangerine sky
life in Arizona*
May 30, 2015
May 30, 2015 at 10:35 AM UTC
you roared into the driveway of our southwestern ranch-style house
on a new Kawasaki, all yellow and black
fresh out of the showroom.
our house faced west,
so the big orange sun positioned at your back,
lit up your magnificent silhouette.
how much better?
how much better can my life get?
900 cubic centimeters of raw whining power.
no outstanding warrants for my arrest.
whoa-whoa. whoa whoa.
the pirate's life for me.
I hopped on back of the bike, wrapped my arms around you.
and I sank my face into your hair.
and then I inhaled as deeply as I possibly could.
you were as sweet and delicious as the warm desert air.
and you pointed your headlamp toward the horizon,
we were the one thing in the galaxy god didn't have his eyes on.
900 cc's of raw whining power,
no outstanding warrants for my arrest.
hi ****** dee dee.
god ****
the pirate's life for me!
Dec 22, 2021
Dec 22, 2021 at 2:49 PM UTC
listen to the carefully made sounds,
crafted by southwestern winds,
full in birdsong woven
through the forest's top,
the rattle of seed in pod
and cone falling
upon the damp earth we tread.
this way is old and legend says,
it was the way of others,
keepers of these woods
before it was turned
stone and branch,
before it was deeded and sold
given one generation to the next.
the deed will continue only so long
until deep fertility reclaims
and renews, a marriage
of god and time, as
the wild grape, honeysuckle
and thorn over comes our paths,
a lover within whose body receives the seed.
and always the sounds linger
a broader scripture,
a bridesmaid singing in praise and love
and slight jealousy that the feast should be
for her and if not,
then for her whom she loves.
as this place is for us now in this moment
and soon for those whom the earth's
current will flow through,
it moves here now,
like it moved here then.
Sep 18, 2025
Sep 18, 2025 at 2:35 AM UTC
Fisherman's cap
There had been a storm and a 100 years wave
had struck many fishing vessels sunk
I found on the beach a yellow southwestern cap I wondered
if the owner of the cap was on deck
when the mountain of water hit and splintered his boat
into pieces that would drift ashore collected
as winter wood for the poor
Had the wave knocked him out, and he died unconscious
of the horror of the raging ocean no time to think of
his wife or friends left behind, and fishes would eat him
Maceral are fond of human flesh, I found a finger
once when gutting a maceral, it read “from Maria forever.”
I took the waterproof put it on a stone
perhaps a passer-by might find it put it on his head
not knowing about the tragedy at sea.
Feb 2, 2017
Feb 2, 2017 at 4:41 AM UTC
It came tumbling
My heart
And you caught it
Didn't know it could
Find a home
In comfortable silence
(most of the time)
And reverent observance of southwestern mountain ranges
crimson with the sun's waining blood
Your hand was elegant and kind as it reached out for mine
The most guileless beckoning to succumb
To our spiritual commingling and the beginning of us
May 17, 2016
May 17, 2016 at 9:32 PM UTC