The Poetry Marathon

Across Circle Avenue

sun strikes black soil of the prairie;

weeds, dust, insect drone.

Small child thinks of Indian time

& snorting, thundering bison.

On her side of the avenue,

behind the brown stucco-sided house,

railroad tracks–

boxcars rumble comfort.

Wheel clickity clicks

let sleep trickle in to train’s rhythm.

Sometimes, she and three big sisters

boost each other into empty boxcars.

Bits of hay, pieces of packing labels

to mysterious destinations.

On Dad’s lap, they watch

the train wheels roll over

a 1946 Indian Head penny,

examine the elongated face and headdress feathers.

Silent Witnesses

We walked by a statue

every day

for a hundred days

never knowing what lay inside

 

We walked over a bridge

every day

for two hundred days

never knowing what lay beneath

 

We walked under a tree

every day

for three hundred days

never knowing what it had seen

 

Eyes in the statue never moving

Weapon in the water never stirring

Tree in the grass never telling

 

How one night a girl died

1

The loudest weep for guidance is tongue tied and held together with a sheepish grin on I had mistaken my makers for a mother and father. Nurture came from the sky. We cried together. Trees fostered me. I was built on a foundation of forsaken failures and left with no patience. Nobody saw me standing there longing to be loved.

Rachnoc Haiku – Hour 6

Silent, stealthy move,
Anger in silence only proves,
It ever comes hungers boon.

Back and Forth

You got this

And I’ve got you

I say

You have that smile

That makes me smile with you

You got this

And I’ve got you

I say

You can create mountains

That make me want to climb to you

You got this

And I’ve got you

I say

You are everything

Everything is you

You got this

And I’ve got you

Take for Granted

Take for Granted   (Poem 6)

 

there’s a lot that we

TAKE FOR GRANTED

like social media

farmers markets in summer

the sun coming up in the east

and setting in the west

 

but what if these assumptions

and a lot of other ones

were false?

 

could it be that our lives

and all the complexities

of this planet are just

constructs of a third grader

who made a terrarium

on planet Xymtrador

in solar system Piscrimidin?

 

On another day he might

have made the earth flat

while making us the same as now…

 

Well…permit me to jump into this possibility

and peek over the edge to see what is there…

 

I’ll be the scout and report what I see:

The other planets are the same as the round versions

but they look like interstellar frying pans.

 

The stars are too far to tell, but it seems they’re

less pointy and the light from them doesn’t twinkle so much

 

and if I look beyond the stars…way, way far away

farther than one would guess you can look

there seems to be a shrouded round childish face

and yes, if I look in just the right way

I can see him better…and it looks like he’s laughing.

I Hear Your Words

Description: Several interlocking cycles of words, which can be read starting in a few different places. Moving left-to-right, one reading might be:

I hear your words have meanings even the meaningless interjections mean something to me I can’t unsee

Another might be:

Words have meanings even the meaningless interjections mean I am here I hear your words have meanings (etc)

And another:

I hear your meanings even when you don’t mean them (…or say you don’t…) even the meaningless chatter in scripted exchanges unchanging uncaring (note: I never got the script)

All the different lines converge on a smaller circle made up of the words:

So please won’t you mean what you say what you mean what you say what you mean what you say…

Be as the Butterfly, Hour Six

Be as the Butterfly

During the sacred Sun Dance, closed to the outside world,
the Lakota people celebrate the union of the great green bowl of the earth
meeting the great blue bowl of the sky, the Sun overhead,
and the union of the people in the unending Great Plains,
the horizon line unbroken, unabridged, a perfect sphere
in their meeting bisected by the Sun Dance central pole,
just as we two-leggeds traverse the earth, upright and unafraid.

Much may be learned in two-legged travels
from the animal companions surrounding and participating
in the journey. Their lessons must be learned
if a warrior may one day reach the horizon’s line
and step beyond to the spiritual plain.

From Buffalo comes abundance, the meat to feed,
the skins to clothe, the bones and sinews to create a home.
From Eagle comes power, tenacity, and healing,
the opportunity to fly above worldly sorrows in the company of Great Spirit.
From Dog is learned loyalty and protection,
the devotion to family and to personal truth.
From Rabbit comes the knowledge of fear and humility,
the ability to move through adversity and travel on.
From Deer comes gentleness and compassion,
an embodiment of Great Spirit’s love for all.

When one extraordinary warrior is connected to all
that the animal spirits teach, has mastered all they embody,
he will reach yet one more lesson, the Butterfly,
most delicate in form but strongest of all.
Butterfly transforms, transfigures entirely,
old cells traded for new to become a wondrous creature,
a splendor to behold.
Butterfly breaches the horizon line, flies beyond
and over the edge into the spirit unknown.

Be as the Butterfly.

Hour Six

Peering over a flat earth!

 

Cusp

 

The sea pouring into stars.

A waterfall of sweeping  light.

The mist of dawn

collected in a glowing orb.

Moon, upside-down, floats by,

a silver-pocked  rock.

Thousands of galaxies whistle by

in neon flashes.

A stop-gap of black, rushing absence of sound and then –

the square root of pie,

the ghost of Einstein

sorting an unending pile

of lost socks.

 

 

 

I forgive life on behalf of my uncle.

       I forgive life on behalf of my uncle.

 

In a story yet to be told, a strange

Air sweeps into the desert-dry

Throat of the earth, my uncle

Would not yet love, too blind

To see the world in its ugliness.

My uncle would not yet love,

Too halo to be left alone, too

Heavy to birth a strong memory.

My uncle is in another world,

Pursuing the endlessness of

Time, before the wind started,

Something fell and didn’t roll

Back to us, something fell and broke,

In our pursuit for its new glory,

We left the earth flat, we let it

Rot, in the end, if you look down,

There’s nothing more to see than

The six-feet holiness of life.

In the end, the light would also want

To stick to its darkness.