Leafy-with-love banks and the green waters of the canal

Pouring redemption for me, that I do

The will of God, wallow in the habitual, the banal,

Grow with nature again as before I grew.

The bright stick trapped, the breeze adding a third

Party to the couple kissing on an old seat,

And a bird gathering materials for the nest for the Word

Eloquently new and abandoned to its delirious beat.

O unworn world enrapture me, encapture me in a web

Of fabulous grass and eternal voices by a beech,

Feed the gaping need of my senses, give me ad lib

To pray unselfconsciously with overflowing speech

For this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven

From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven.

My hair is braided, I swear
Somedays I wear it like a crown
And somedays a crown of thorns
Creditors keep calling
I don’t answer
Friends reach out
Reluctantly I engage
Engagement like a minimum-security prison
Hush, the weak have arisen
That’s some days
I long for, crave for
Nothing
Answers
Fulfillment
Peace
Emptiness
Apple pie?
French Fries
With loads of ketchup
Presence
Yes, That’s it
The present-perfect moment
Wrapped in gift gold
A pen that doesn’t skip
Except down the street
A pen that writes what it wants
Not what it’s told
Without regards to you
A totally naked pen
Unselfconsciously naked pen
A pen without permission
A pen without presumption
A pen without proper purpose
A pen without a penchant for perfection
(excuse the alliteration)
Without politeness or uptightness
A pen that flip-flops
A pen that hides under the covers when you’re around
A pen that doesn’t stop
Even after it runs out of ink
Pink Ink
Think ink
Until I get tired of pink think ink
A pen that doesn’t get bored so easily
Like you
Maybe I do  
And maybe I don’t
Maybe we’re two pens in a pod.
Oh, fickle pen
That’s so like you
Yup’ the pen made me do it
I’m a slave to the pen
What’s up with you?

I love the way you unselfconsciously answer the buzzer still drunk in the morning.
Your blonde hair that glows at its edges as if you were radioactive, but with a soft white light that just comes from the window in the lounge and frames you in that doorway.
And your body that melts into shadow and then flows out again where you're leaned on the wall cupping the receiver against the darkness of your face, talking to the electricity meter man.

In Ulzana's Raid,
the Native- and European-American concepts of property
      ownership and rights
are incompatible and irresolvable. McIntosh
had no illusions about that. He said hating Apaches for killing
      whites
is like hating the desert for having no water.
I suspect the movie's not a good source of anthropological
      data
and overlooks the commonalities among human communities
to focus on just a few bold characters
as all art must.

I consider McIntosh fortunate
to have died commensurate with the way he lived his life,
rolling a final cigarette, nothing between him and the desert,
and no gravediggers waiting, jesting, defecating. Also,
he is lucky to have had one last, dispassionate friend
to whom there is nothing left to say, the Chiracahua tracher
Kah-ti-nay.

Last night's performance of Beauty and the Beast
may have been the most victorious, ecstatic, cohesive
moment in our little school's history. Emily was Beauty, a
      filament of energy
who doesn't like to be touched and has been known to punch
boys hard. She had memorized her lines until she was hardly
Emily but only Beauty in a blue dress unselfconsciously
hiking up her tights between the Beast's advances.
Is this done in every American town and the world
over so there's no need to feel lost or lonely
ever?

There is no context for a man
outside the platoon or raiding party, home or shop.
When violence comes to the neighborhood,
the hierarchy of communicants will hold or fold
it is then the peace work proves relevant. I noticed McIntosh,
grizzled as he was, accepted the given hierarchy, a raw
      lieutenant's orders,
as he did the desert and Apaches, with a shrug and
      foreknowledge
of the outcome. If there's anywhere with no Emily or Beauty
we should bring them such blessings at the point of a
gun. But there is no place without Emily, not
the least-known prison in deepest space as long
as we do not hate or hurt or shun
the Beast.