Categories
2020 American Place New Mexico Poems

Into The Woods

Into the woods
The end of summer
Into cold morning
A gleeful glimmer
of a night without incident…
Nothing to prevent
Our awakening
of senses, primordial
Long forgotten, guttural
need for fire and food.

A great horned owl
awakens me from my
darkened state
with the call to its mate
to breakfast.
Brings my morning thoughts around
to the food we hauled up
off the ground
into a tree to ward
off bears out hungry.

A long winding walk, heavy
packs but light thoughts
down to the river’s edge we made.
With campfire rings and
the desire to sing
we make tales of what
adventure bring.

Categories
2020 American Place New Mexico Poems

Longitudinal Awareness

Longitudinal Awareness
Not really a thing —
Not spatial, more sensory
The open capillary of mental exercise
A receptor that activates once in the wild
A slower foot, a surer step
Knowing that it is too quiet
While noting every sound.
The calls of the creatures
No room for mistakes, so
you lay awake wondering if it
be predator or varmint
Alive
Open
Receiving
Consciousness
Ready for the surprises
Except for your own
Mental illness

Categories
2020 American Place Bird Song New Mexico Poems

Dead on Arrival

Migratory Birds
Dying by the 1000s
Warblers
Western Wood Pewee
Fly Catchers
Bluebirds
Blackbirds
Sparrows
—sorrow
Stumbling dumbly
Into the streets
Hit by cars
Falling
Out of
Trees 🌳
Starved
Of nutty energy
Not enough fuel to complete
A journey taken too soon…
For fires 🔥 raged
And burned their homes
Smoke fills the air
And burns their lungs
Away away away away
Into the dry desert sun
Only to keel over
Mid-way through their run
It’s not the apocalypse
Yet, one might blame…the devil
Climate change with dead bird denial!

Categories
2020 Albuquerque American Place Poems

The Alacrity of Spiders

O, happy kill
And with pure will
The tiny Widow
Hauls whole snails
Down below
To feed her sacks
Of tiny brats
By the hundreds
They will flow
Into my dreams
Reminding me though
There are things
I do not like!
Like counting spiders
Through the night
Who creep and sneak
And crawl to fright me
Out of my slumber cold.
Though I’m not their prey
A snack they may
Make from me
In the morning light.
(But, truly they were never there…
Just in my dreams and
Awakened stares
Taking from me my
Restful delights.)

*Alacrity – Not a common word for most. I stole it from William Carlos Williams. “Brisk and cheerful readiness.”

Categories
2020 Poems

1979

The bus met
In front of my school
Every morning —
Campus was 3 blocks
From my house
I walked there
Every day
Got on the bus
And was driven
Across Lubbock
Past the cotton fields
Past the smelly
Seed oil plant
To the “Black School”
At 7, I knew not
Of the segregated
Racist past that
My town was mandated
To reckon with
I was just a kid,
Scared and in a
Strange school
Where books were few
And school supplies
Were in my backpack
Bought at the Piggly Wiggly
Close to our house
If only they had told us
That we could have been
Instruments of change.

Categories
2020 Poems

Feed on Liberty

American fear
Spendable currency
To buy red meat
Bloody teeth tear
The pack feeds
While the poor starve
A wasteland
For liberty
Free to roam
The Desert
Until the devil
Temps you to
Take the leap
Of faith
“Feed on freedom
in the valley below
–All you have to do
is jump…”
We have wandered
Longer than
40 Days
We have endured
More than
40 years…
We seek
This land
You’ve promised!

Categories
2020 Poems

Rarity

Struggle
Struggle
Toil and
Trouble
Reflect
Upon this
Covid
Dreary
Near
And far
Inflicted
are all
Directly
Or by
Circumstance —
It takes
Our breath
Away
From our
Lungs,
Our economy
Our mentality
For now
There is
No cure
And hope
Is all
That seems
To be
Rare

Categories
2020 Poems

Listen

Why do we easily
Turn to hate
Instead of taking
The time to relate?

Why would I rather
Seek your demise
Than ever take
Your compromise?

Have we turned
From our community?
Undone thousands of
Years of humanity?

Or could I take
Just 5 minutes more?
To see what you see
To try to explore

The realities
Between you and me?
To understand
If not agree

And hold closely
The possibility
That to be heard
May be what you need.

Categories
2020 Poems

Daily Struggle

Struggling with meaning
My brain feels
Like it’s bleeding

Aneurism, stroke
The basics
I can’t cope

Terrorist of mind
To myself
Wholly unkind

Derision and retort
The basics
I can’t sort

Violence comes to find
A silent scream
A visible blind

Dig and dig
And dig
This hole

A full cave-
In to bury
My soul

Sifting through
Trying to
Breathe

I’m left
To uncover
This person that’s me.

Categories
2020 Poems

Who are you?

Who am I?
Who
am
I?
Who am I?

“Who am I?” He calls
into the darkness
Eyes closed

“Who am I?” he calls
into the silence…
Room Quiet

Who am I?
I think
therefore…

I am
who?
Questions the silenced darkness?

A thousand voices
Rise to compete
None saying
Who I am
Only, I am who?