We Have Always Lived In The SpAceship

The spAceship has always
         lived in us
mother, father, our rebus owls

Outside is a river with water

Too cold to swim

The color of a grape

And
See the sMall copse
Down there

In the canyon gorge
igniting
aversion

We lOOk and lOOk

The Shamen

In the yellow house why didn't?
It was supposed to be perfect.  Stupid.

he was giving and giving.  Difficult.
Changing and changing.  That's the drama.

He wanted a lot.  nowhere.  Beliefs.
They knew everything exactly

Their faces were beautiful.
Outlaws without the bankroll.

true in the blood rapid
Their dying expression.

Up A Creek

When I am shot
After!
Beating the odds

Just a whiff

Hours I've spent dreaming
saying I have no dreams

This life dangerous
Beautiful in spite of
What they call it

Hiding out in the open
In the tunnels

There is no
Middle of           things

That's when

You'll find me



Low        to

the ground

Even    in it

Waiting

Out

the        heat

🐴😂sister tell me

Sister tell me
About the crawl😘
Is this beneath you😭
Underneath you
Free😳
As long
As           You.   Get.  

Now you mow lawns😃
The old regime thoughtfully😜

inside 😁  writing
Letters
Saying😣
You're really this time
Dead😒

All The Water

Fresh out of the mountain
An arm hanging
Opened fruit
How could we leave
Our short lives behind
stay here with me upriver
Stones will be our furniture
sage pillows, a carpet of sand
Feet finally quiet

Look

At
The

Immense
moving

Liquid

Ignoring wind

Going

ahead with it

Redsides

He wasn't there at Trout Creek.  Wapanita is another matter.  Then it might be good to check at Upper Dant after getting a looksee at Harpham Flat, Nena, and Locked Gate.  I imagine he went to Dixon, maybe on to Wingdam.

Backwater

They blush telling
Big and even bigger
With the steelhead
In the fall.  What
Was so important

The race downriver
Not thinking it won't
Come back Klickitat

Fire Downriver

I remember when Mom was in love.  She didn't act different, just calmer and more determined.  Who would've thought of oaks left in the canyon but there they are.  Sage, twin fawns, white-tailed Kites, vultures, and ospreys carrying fish, carrying sticks, crowding the oasis.  A fire helicopter stirs up a wall of distance. We ended up hating John at the pizza parlor.  We loved him before she did. He was ours until she stole him from us that summer.  Then, Dad was the dangerous Class VI it would do no use to scout. John was good with ropes and with the necessary triangulation, carefully and somewhat tediously calculated for the best advantage. Victims.  Which we obviously were, which she obviously was.  The most important thing to remember if you dump over is don't panic.  Wait for your chance to breathe.  Wait out all those bubbles.  Then find the tongue.  Point your feet downstream and look for the nearest eddy, the nearest shore. That's what you want to find. And don't forget to swim.

Notes From The Underwood

Over time firm footing logical crashing
Explaining a lot about why we're here
I mean me when I say we so I don't seem
Lonely and weird just weird is quite enough
To begin with.  Hearing about it
I can now see what was there but I didn't
Put two and two together.  Finland
And all.  It was about knots and ropes.

The rescue.  What type of victim?  A
Three will blackout.  A
Two will try
To climb over pulling you down
To drown.  A
one will do exactly as told.

Alone Moonlight

Struggle defined.  Roots tree fingers
Passing through colors through surface
To get to nothing.  Gnarled
surface.  Being in a place not quite.

Not so fast.  Wagon wheels.  Their implements.
Window dressing.  Hardscrabble.  Hand me down
To each blade petal twig branch offering best.
The news from there more than sunny
With rain.  Alone Daylight.  Moonlight.

Welcome To Glass Mountain

Nature's furnace
Hard at work
The other self
At little crater
Round the bend


The the story about the glass mountain

The obsidian flow
Ponderosa
Disorganized atoms
As opposed to organized

See it in the trees
Vanilla puzzles
Carefully growing

Thoughts about the artist
Not separate from anything
About my life

Cones

Look at all the pine
Cones
I mean spruce cones I
Mean fir
Needles
Large rodents
Eat their bark
Their fur
Prized
For hats and things
The spindly mountain top
Such a flat tail
Once were bear-sized
They position their
Twigs and sticks

Whisper To My Mother

Not so fast nicht so schnell
I cannot hear your answer
should I pack my tambourine
before we head out
to the desert
imagination in ruins
consequence instead
smooth river
summer alongside

Diamond Lake each wavelet
a glistening tarot card

didn't one say to pay attention

summer is short
we don't spend too much time
watering the trees
but a little each day
remembering

I thought about Shaniko some more
thought about my behavior there

The boardwalk hollow
the only thing alive

Antelope looked shady
lawns with people

there were more faces
in the rocks this time

right above the falls
where it narrows

ripples curling wizened
into late July

Je Suis Désolé Mon Frere

They are singing in the desert
imagination slithers to water
signs, trees, lights, action

The message is clear
but it is so dry so dry
our throats are human
eyes moist
dancers
please listen

Blackberries

The field
its memory
of water
the day
its ocean
wind

finding them
is not hard
holding them

a small panther
silver bowl

Passion Card

It said follow
all those
don't be afraid
they multiply wild
wind is good
water an afterthought
right by Scan Design
just down from the butte
where the view of the jail
is out in the open
noise from the train
all hours so much
don't hear it after

Kerouac Haiku

Fires
in the great bowl
keep us
on the green side
sitting pretty
I think of the silt
the river's milk
how we didn't go in
but drove away
just like
they told us
crumbling

Luxury Collage

Micro sure sounds sexy
even the gleaming counters
free of dishes clean sills
so appealing if occupied
would not be anything of
the sort and so easy to step
into the wall of green mixed
with grey imagining winter
already and how it will be
against the eyes two places
multiplied river puzzle pieces

Dusty Drama

What just happened
Trampling the dust
Into the blanket
What and where
Past the altars

taxis deciding
Upon a clown car
Water alongside
As a side car

Their Tree Is Gone

Only a slab left by the steps
very flat their house looks small
now they could be anyone
with an ugly house
their tree made it alive
connected to everyone
and everything air

Notional

There is a mountain
hugging
the oak grove fair to say
embracing black leaves
A small river is scratching
the canyon's throat

Oily weather overcast
Never enough time to love

Dots ticks ruined calla lilies
thirsty for it a large blue bird

Problems of Stances

"I'll tell you some stories...memory and the imagination might modify and transform experience, problems of stances...to order language...Some of that heavy stuff."

Richard Hugo, The Triggering Town, Chapter 8, Ci Vediamo


The moon does not consume
hardscrabble dandelions continuing
what was before to be there before
today is too new
broken zippers

steady winds across steep clear cuts
my pet falcon not my pet
acres frustrated with developments
why do they just bake there?
When I was there it was home.

The tree is not the same
tree the road drops off too sharp.
I looked and looked.
Thinking there was power
in staring but that only
makes them really mad.

The Ticking Clock

Globe with pine trees
Fish leaping lining up
To
Leap
Up
Over the falls
Some say time
Is in the details
Or is it love
all that water
Swirling

Union Pacific

Four deer
At least
Pink sky
Falcon tiptop
Cedar air
Afterall
side by side
Neighbor's silly
Longhorns
Another's
Wishing well

Working Away

It is that the edges
Flowers faces turning west
Deep space deep shade
Found under the house
Pinging of small picks shovels
Just thinking this a secret world
How great a gift what's its worth
Hands on cool stone wishing for bread
jumping back on track despite
crowds their Olympic isolation

Away With It

With names you can get away
adding things that would
just as soon be left out
as if requiring something else
someone else not just here
smoothness of my teeth
Jay scolding
for a good reason
but what is it?

Waxy Growing

Mountain smell
juniper sage pine
dry wooded water
weeping under moon
fast like running away
while standing still
white volcanoes cooling
down flowers
the ocean floor
its door

Zone

White River suddenly

its name
mixing  

nearby scene so distant

milky glacial silt columnar basalt
under Criterion Summit

only time
tells
whether
unquestioned acceptability
hops on board
agenda riding 

Set Onto Roam

The road leads into the canyon
What came loose inhabited

My eye here past looking
Better sage invisible fence

What I knew or thought
Thirst is what is here

stopping starting over
Working itself new

Big full light out past
Space flattening