1 The son of the revolution was raised perfectly
2 Taught music and mastery of mind and body
3 A proud arbiter of the grand vision of The Republic
4 Soon to stand among the chosen few Philosopher Kings
5 Prometheus was a natural leader, a talented student and
6 A fierce fighter — His meter was measured and
7 His corps moved with the grace of the river
8 Yet, in his heart was a discordant song of sorrow
9 Stirred by the tours in the artist internment camps
10 Where those who dared to create were
11 Locked away and insured never to corrupt the culture
12 They were people – passionate, emotional, irrational yes
13 But people of his land, this country he was sworn to protect
14 Now from these people who threaten order with chaos
15 Now condemned for free will, free expression, challenging
16 The rational order of The Republic with their 3rd hand visions
17 Their expressions in word and paint and sculptures of the imperfect world.
Remove yourself
It’s hard not to insert myself into
The Poem
Of course these are my feelings
Expressed herein
To de-objectify my experience
Is often a poetic sin
For how am I to communicate
These thoughts and dreams
If I don’t put myself at
The Center of Things
My desire to write has come
And gone but it is
My love of Nature that brings
Out these songs
I must denote these beautiful places
That bring me joy in these outward spaces
Villanueva
The winds whip
the wiley willows
Young with spring fronds
The waters swish
and turn as the morning birds
search for meal
They caw and call
As they peck the soil
And live to breed another day
New Village
Pecos River
Peace and Heaven
May Day, May Day
“Somebody Help Me!”
I’ve got too much of what I want!
What do you do
As you sit in Abiquiu
Soaking in the sun after dawn?
A comfortable place to lay my head
Anywhere in the country I want a homestead
4000 lbs. of everything you need
Two sweet dogs laying next to me
A lovely wife, my best friend indeed
Two sweet children in their bunks asleep
All is quiet by the morning fire
The air is crisp and
All of my desires
Are quenched as I commune
With the waters of the Lake as I breath
In this May Day under the red rock moon…
(Written the first morning of our new travel trailer on Abiquiu Reservoir)
I stand on the side of the road. For she has stood for me, stood for Freedom, for choices, for opportunities un-bounded. Of course, she stands for interruptions as well. Dead ends; roads closed; terminus and for some she is the end of all things before her. The end of a journey; the end of a life; the end of a generation of prosperity. As I stand on the black tar in the hot desert, the orange glow of the sun casting my shadow across the glimmering mirage that dissects her never-ending sprawl across the sand, I can’t help but feel lost. Evacuated from time and space. I don’t know if the sun is rising or setting. There are no clues but my own presence observing the history of her procession across this place. I fall to my knees as if to pray, kiss the hot gravel and feel the surge of every road I’ve ever taken — After hours of driving through the Rockies we reached the end with a washed out road and had to turn back the way we came. The miles of road we travelled all night from Walla Walla to Las Vegas on the bus, the city a beacon of light shining out of the desolate night. Trading cigarettes for whiskey with a Navajo man at 6am when I wasn’t old enough to have breakfast in the casino back in the days before anyone cared that you weren’t old enough to be in the casino buying breakfast and pulling slots. The long drives from Prescott to Oklahoma along I-40 (aka Rt. 66), Albuquerque being the mid-point where I always remembered the dancing cottonwood leaves shining behind the bridge as we pressed on for Texas. The back and forth between Lansing and Louisville via Indianapolis or Cincinnati where the highways were pulmonary arteries throbbing with American life. All of this pavement laid down over the bones of those whose land this once was. So many forgotten dreams of the dead who got in the way of the road’s progress. So much progress fallen under the knee of authority that presses faces into pavement until they can’t breathe because they believe this black road must be painted with white dividing lines. These bypasses that left behind and isolated these segregated communities who now struggle and cry for the American dream that was paved to make way for Amazon and the next off-ramp to the nearest Wal*Mart. And, yet I must defend her. She has given me so many choices; taken me time and again into the beauty of our mountains and forests. She has driven my dreams of change and fueled my ambitions to do something bigger with my life. She has done nothing to us or for us, yet she lets us be good or bad or something or no one. She is my friend and my lover and I must forgive her abuses by the hands of the unworthy. I must revel in her possibility to bring dreams into the night of our awakening dawn.
It’s never too late for Love.
Even in our life’s winter
There is time to find
A partner to share the warmth.
No clock can count
The tides of Longing.
No ocean can quench
The thirst for companionship.
No, it’s never too late for Love.
The dawn is alive with
Songs of Love Birds
Calling that spring has come.
To find yet another day
For those in search of
A partner to share
Another night without
Solitude, another
Sunset that delights.
No, it’s never too late for Love.
So, as you find yourselves
In Love, it does not
Matter why or how —
Cherish this day
To Celebrate your Wedding,
This union, this moment,
This Love you’ve found.
It is a bit of a miracle
And a whole lotta weird
These Zoomy activities
That let me be here
First I watched Joy Harjo
As she broadcasted live
Straight from Tulsa Oklahoma
As she shared her memoir
Then on to a wedding for
Donna and Terry — My Mother-In-Law’s
Moment live for us to see
A modern wonder where I can be
Present while absent
Away, yet there — Live in my
Living room on my TV
Zooming in and out of those important to me!
Challenging your Philosopher Kings
Our Flights of fancy are presently
Bound to corrupt your perfectly
Crafted warrior spirits
And so easily deceived
These rulers you have gently
Coaxed and coddled through education
Yet admitting we all are too dumb for your nation
My lovely metre and flourishing words
Can outflank your wisdom, ursurp with absurd
Dazzling lies to corrupt and
Negate this learning you’ve planned
While my carbon copy of reality
Corners and craters your philosophy
You think it better I just leave
And not bother your wisdom with creativity.
Your Mimesis Nemesis
I will dismiss
Your plots and plans
With mere language
Say what?
What will I have to say?
When they have taken my tongue away
Cut out for the greater good
Silenced by my absence of breath?
They cried revolution
Only to be struck down
With complacency…
Standing in tree tops
New perspective
In yellow light
Trimming up
For the better good
Not interpreted as such
As if crying out
With one last gasp
A smoke puffs out
Exhaling the future
Into the world
In multiple breaths
Yellow powder
Yellow sky
Green tomorrows