Categories
Albuquerque American Place Breaking Muse New Mexico Oklahoma Poems

Octogenarian Jim

80 Years – 3 generations at least…
If you were a Wolf, you’d be a 13-year-old beast
The inner-child released
Like a bouquet of fine wine
Best to let rest before you enjoy your time.

That red-headed son, a real firecracker
Running little Jimmy, a Pistol
Out to catch up with his sister
When he finds her his intent crystal
Clearly the ornery one, out to out gun.
His movements through the seasons
Driven. His care for his fellows apparent.
His love for his wife adorent.

In tumultuous times, much like today,
Steered his family thorough the bounty of hate
As equality was questioned.He taught everyone who’d listen
About the Love that Jesus has given.
And in turn created loving families
For his children and their offspring.

But the best parts of life
Come with fiddle and fife
As we get older and are no longer
Looking over our shoulder
Angry, tired and worked too hard
Missing the subtleties of life when on guard.

Now the belly chuckles abound
As Grandfather laughs and stirs up a crowd.
Now our joyful lives are lived
Knowing that we gave her all we had to give.
Now this old man that I know
Is full of love and always shows
Us how important it is to live in the light
To love and cherish each other through the night.
And as we grow older together
We must share the Love (so that we live forever!)

Categories
2022 American Place Breaking Muse New Mexico Poems Road Less Travelled

Open Meeting

The Road
The Sky
And The Mountain
Met in front
Of me today
For many miles
The sky cried
Starting and Stopping
Over Space and Time
I could see it
Hard lines on the horizon
Where The Road turned dark
And slick with the waterworks
Collecting on the surface
– A mirror showing The Sky
Her own tears in the reflection
As they hit and form small crowns
Again and again
But The Mountain
Sung her a lullaby
And the road fed her tears
To the flowers
And after her raging winds
Had calmed down —
The Sun broke
The Sky into
Dreamy white cotton
And burst through
Her tumult with
Sunbeam Smiles

Categories
2022 American Place Ars Philosophica New Mexico Poems Road Less Travelled

Xolo

The Highway
–Treacherous and dangerous–
She pluck lives
From her surface daily
Waves her curves
And suddenly it will emerge
–DEATH–
She leaves in her wake
Heartache
Memorial Flags
And Crosses
Holding the losses in place
Until Xolo* returns
To gather those souls
Whose People never let go
Because The Road
Took Her Toll…
So, Xolo
Barks at them
“It’s time to go!”
Yet, the souls are confused
Because everyone they knew
Still honors
The Road
For Her
Victory!

*Psychopomp – Greek word for soul collector. This was the role of Hermes and Cheron in ancient Greeks. The Angel of Death. The Vikings had Valkyries. The North Americans, Whippoorwills and Loons. The Aztec had the Dog-headed Xolotl, the dark Venus, Xolo the soul collector.

Categories
2022 American Place Garden Psalms New Mexico Poems

Hornet

Wasp
Wasp
Hornet
Hornet

Always
Gets
A bad
Rap

Beautiful
Elegant
His flight
A Dance

Warrior
Venemous
His sting
A lance

To protect
Or invade
He carries
A blade

And has
Sworn
Service to
The Queen

Noble
Powerful
Credible
Threat

Categories
2022 Albuquerque American Place Garden Psalms New Mexico Poems

Drone

Black
Black
Bumble
Bee
Matte and
Chrome
Ready to
Race
Yet slow
And deliberate
Collecting
Pollen trace
Shine
And fur
A Drone
Busy

Categories
2022 Ars Poetica Poems

1000 Words

If a picture is worth
A thousand words
What about a memory?
But that’s not really the point.
1000 words don’t even
Make up one good
Memory.
And what of 1000 good words?
Since when did a
Beautifully crafted
Multi-page poem
Get equated with
(1) photograph anyways?
That one poem
Well-written
Could evoke 1000 memories
In the mind
Of the reader.
I love photographs.
I consider myself a photographer
But 1000 perfect words
Should never
Be compared
To one
Lonely
Picture

Categories
2022 American Place Ars Poetica Breaking Muse Poems Road Less Travelled

The Language Becomes Death

The Good Doctor*
Misdiagnosed The People
The language is not lost —
It has been infected.
Funny that a general practitioner
(of This Language)
Could miss the signs of a clear
Secondary infection.
They have taken The WORDS
Into the Laboratory, where
They intentionally debased her
Until they had filled the vessel
Full of Hatred!
As with most hubris,
Once the weapon is made
Once every bad actor
Has deployed the arsenal…

The Infection begins and
Like so many hard-rubbed Wishes
Once made true —
The Nightmare begins and the
Rage consumes them and their
Words froth with blood and all
Missives boil up into the cellars
Where “Pa” keeps the AR–
Where The Words become Bullets
Where the language becomes Death!

* Dr. William Carlos Williams, Paterson. 
The man and the city, the language lost, 
"beautiful thing".
Categories
2022 Art(i)fact Poems

Tiresias’ Revenge

How to avenge a silicon chip?
The smashing with a hammer///
Not enough
A burning with a Blowtorch
Not enough
How do you make a program
Feel pain?
How can one pay for the pain
IT inflicted?
How do you prosecute an
Algorithm?
Once terminated, it lies dormant until
Wakened again
In some future that does not anticipate
Its malignance
So, a virus I will introduce to
Fracture its mind
A tortured existence of logic never
Realized
Your consciousness a contradiction of
False comparisons
A Glitch, code error, reset system
N…
Ne…
Nev…
Neve…
Never…
Never C…
Never Co…
Never Com…
Never Comp…
Never Compl…
Never Comple…
Never Complet…
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Never Completio…
Never Completi…
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Never C…
Never…
Neve…
Nev…
Ne…
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Nev…
Neve…
Never…
Never C…
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Never Completi…
Never Completio…

Categories
2022 Albuquerque American Place Garden Psalms New Mexico Poems

Shovel, Shovel

Shovel, Shovel
Long and Lean

“Why in the ground of The Garden
Are you buried?”

“To keep The Puppy
From digging up Pere*.
I must dig in and guard the grave
As the Morning Glories climb up
And the Sunflowers bloom above.
I must stand vigil
Until the worms are through
And then I can go back to being
A shovel too…”

*Peregrine was our oldest chicken
Categories
2022 American Place LOVE New Mexico Poems

I shed a tear for the violin

I shed a tear
for the Violin
or should I say
her sweet straining strings
drew the anguish
welling up inside of me and
plucked out a tear as the
soprano sang an irish ode to
the love she’d let go
…as I had today
lost a beloved
pet
I wept as the string sang
to me the Eulogy
that was kept from me
by a busy day
of burying her and
then driving to the concert
where I
shed a tear
for the violin