Categories
2021 Albuquerque American Place New Mexico Poems

End of Summer

End of Summer

A walk in the foothills
At the end of summer
Still very warm with
A hint of coolness in the breeze
Roasting a landscape full of seed
Getting ready for winter winds
To scatter the next generation
Of thistle and sage across the plain
Cottonballs full of flight-ready potential

Starburst purple Asters and little
Fucsia-colored clusters line the dry dirt and sand
While hundreds of pale blue Dragon Flies
Do helicopter fly-bys filling
The air with their hyper activity
Butterflies big and small match
The colors of the coming fall
And set my mind free
To fly with them on the breeze.

Categories
Ars Poetica Poems

The Clock

I don’t know if I have
That much time left
There’s an urgency
Thumping on my breast
I don’t feel well
And they don’t know why
Their test inconclusive
Their guesses they belie
The truth that’s inevitable
“No one here get out alive”
So what do I do with myself
For what can I strive?
To peck and hen out words
To make another poem?
For if I don’t complete these thoughts
No one will ever know ’em.
My epic will fall apart
My legacy forgotten
No one can read my writing
These seeds will never be sewn.
Yet, in a panic
Poetics will fail
These themes ill conceived
Will just flop and flail
So what do I do
When money needs be made?
To care for my family
If I don’t see the next day.
Do I close up this book
And say goodbye to this dream?
Or do I take my last breath
Trying to say what I mean?

Categories
2021 American Place New Mexico Poems

By The Lake

As I sit here by my fire
And the morning turns to day
The fish we caught
Is made a meal
But we no longer can stay
For time is short
Out in the woods
As time is short
Out in this world
These simple things
That we enjoy
Don’t last too long
Once they’ve unfurled
Yet these moments make
Great treasure
And some may get written down
Yes, out here we take real pleasure
In the scene, the set, the sounds
But, out here there are no actors
Only characters pure and true
To this theater we take for granted in
These places where they do what they will do.

Categories
2021 American Place New Mexico Poems

Ripples Through Time

Ripples In Time

I sit in my canoe
Thinking of you
My Mentor
My teacher
A man drifting in calm
Waters of the present
Looking across the ripples
Of the past.
You taught me the blessings
Of Smoke
Steaming Cedar branches
And Sweat
You taught me how to return
To our Mother
Hold her sacred
Center
and
Still
Oneself as the
Ghosts of the Buffalo
Silently graze on by
As shimmering ancestors
Follow
Singing their stories
To you
Creating a new narrative
That will ripple
Out into the Future–
For nothing created
Is ever truly destroyed.

Categories
2021 Poems

Broken 2

My heart is broken
Not a teenage love un-requited
A literal misfire
In my bifurcation
One side getting the cue
The other don’t know what to do

My heart is broken
Not my emotional figure
No this is real
Not some token
Something has gone wrong
That could end my song.

Categories
2021 Poems

Pop Ice

I’m addicted to Popcicles
I just can’t stop with the otter pop
Cold
Crunch
Sugary
Munch
For dinner and lunch
I make them
Disappear
Yes it’s weird!
I think I’ve
Gained 5 pounds
Slurpin’ them down
I know it sounds strange
But the slush
The sweet rush
Cold tongue stain
Freeze brain
Making me insane
For
Popcicles!

Categories
2021 Garden Psalms Poems

Deep thoughts

Spring flowers bloom
Bright and buoyant
A sea of shimmering potential
Then the unbridled sun
Beats upon them like a drum
Until they are withered dry
And drooping down
Faded colors, petals falling
A return to soil as
The seeds are calling
To be carried into some
Future spring.
When you get disheartened
Breaking down
–Feel forgotten
Know that the circle
Always turns round again
And the things that you lost
You may soon come across
As you complete
This rotation
Around the sun.

Categories
2021 Ars Poetica Poems

Self-deprecation

What radical shapes
Can these lines take
To blow the minds
Of the critical judge?
My rhythms and beats
Would soon hit delete
If held to the academic lens.
My forms seem standard
My themes unenlightened
The topics of today
Shaped by cruelty.
My meter 4/4
My couplets I adore
My birds and trees
Are all that come from me.
What would they have me do
To stand out from you?
The poet deemed better
Than the rest?
What duress must I endure
What heartbreak must I cure
To be considered the
Greatest of this age?
Some sage for the annals
Whose words fill these halls
And speak to a new
Generation as the
Voice and wisdom of the nation?

Categories
2021 Ars Poetica Poems

Gone Fishing

So few times
To Carry me
Through these days
Lately
So little written down
As I toss
These thoughts
Around
As if they
Are forbidden
To see the light
Of day.
Gone fishing,
Off camping
Must work
Or some other
Excuse
To refuse
To record
This poet’s dream.

Categories
2021 Ars Poetica Poems

Write, right?

Write, Write
Everyday
Even if
You have nothing
To say
Make it habit
More than a goal
If you don’t
Just do it
You’re leaving
A Hole
In your notebook
Where thoughts
Should assemble
And emptiness
Is what’s left
To ressemble
That you had nothing
To say
And no one cares
Anyways
So write, write
Every day
Before you’re dead
And left
Something unsaid.