Number 64

That was the truth as much as I could get it. The cold shakes up the frost. Where in this starkness does it matter? How to hold onto the moment of breathing without number 64. I will do it. I barely use 65 and then the too strong 66 disinfects even the tiles. What gains I've made these past weeks. I've been at the windows looking at the polish. Glass becoming water as I walk away.

Custodian vs. The Sandman: Just A Matter Of Time

It was my eagle after all soaring behind the mountain into the gates of the canyon on this fine day the reindeer entering their silence and me with a phone.

The Way It Was Going

The way it was going had a lot to be desired. Let's just say that the way it was going fell by the wayside tripping just a bit and then remembering to pick up its feet instead of sliding right along. The Chief Inspector told me a thing or two that I already knew By heart if not by sight.

Two Hours

The Chief Inspector called me up wanted me back on the case. I said I had retired quite some time ago when I still had the acumen. Well whatever. The chief said this and I knew I was back. I had to dig through miles of dirt to get to the bottom of things. Just like with the Chief. This proves you never quite know. Evening hit like a drug and then it was time the consider wrapping it up packing it all into two hours.

Oblate

Simple disc Eating the sun Not quite paper Not quite leather Return Return to Moon's soft powdery face I'll bring in extra wood Calm down the fire Its embers and a hidden wind

It Sounds Like A Sentence

It is about feeling and then knowing what is the dark and what is lighting the obvious that must become what like living in the past matters taken to heart on a daily basis

Regarding The Night

We were shuffled from place to place. I like this work it takes my mind away. Bombs everywhere until I lost my old self. Are you drinking enough water? My sister does not remember. She knows how. What I cannot say I have been searching for. It is taking a lifetime to do this. Every time I think I find myself. I can't see her when I want. Flying.

Question Mark

I'll hang those toys on the tree. See how birds stay. I'll touch them. Small. I'll sit by the fire. Braid the bread. I'll comb out the tangles from the light chain. Again. Small moon slaying anyone too near. So what if there is still rubble it will never be cleared away from what is lost for good.

The Missing Spiderweb

My life will never be the same. I keep thinking. I am so grateful. This dark night so great. All the words. The trees. Birds. Animals. You.

Legend Of The Whistling Custodian

High and low. The tune unrecognized. The sound carrying near and far like the wind among people. Washing down the tiles getting at all the dust.

Moon Ice Hours Ago

Moon's ice everywhere In heavy branches Whole trees on the ground full clouds busy traveling the Willamette See how wrecked the streets where's home under the trees killer icicles falling the residents leave just in time gulping strong coffee that was hours ago They arrive without shoes coats hats too many bags containing nothing hours went by

Funny How I Knew That

Dance Of The Custodians Part One Three things will become your dream: Imagination, coincidence consciousness Leading you to the secret Passageway out into the fresh air its pines and plantings So tell me to stay away from the dream as if I could breathe water Icicles everywhere hanging and belonging If you ask a question expect an answer just not right away plus factor-in movement and change before the next morning which is really near midnight

Dance Of The Spiderwebs

Their frozen feet The icy storm Branches breaking off Sliding agreements into each other So remember Now live See what you started Be glad It isn't quite midnight Yet

Midnight Feast

Feast, custodians feast. Tomorrow is here tonight will be the new morning. Walk, custodians. Walk it off. Soon will be midnight all the buildings hushed.

Academia For Two

It was made of maple and very strong. One point was deducted that was all. The ending of the term should've been celebrated not with them craving so much more. Guitars and all as an explanation but that would diminish Addison's genius flaw Halley's perfection.

Dial M For Mezzanine

You have to go around tonight on your run just watch out for the wax it has not dried all the way. Give it another fifteen minutes.

Stop At The Stairs

The corners looked good. I saw that he stole my gloves. They ask each other and use soft voices. The music a machine the trade-off somewhat chaotic. Not quite awake and not quite sleeping. The lake was always there. Sometimes bothering. So cold. Swimming only an idea most times.

French Prairie Summer

The oak grove is still there but have the trees shrunk after thirty years eight steps from my tent to the canvas one up on a platform the propane stove I started each morning at three-thirty in St. Paul watching and waiting for the field burn now that the tenders of the open land the beaver the water in the impossibly wide valley stopped by new houses where the field school had their dig and I was the cook who sliced her fingers--seventeen stitches on a Crisco can. John McKay you are dead. What do I owe you and the St. Paul summer back then of course I fell in love with the Champoeg wheat those years ago when I fell to my knees retching.

Leave It By The Closet

She knew she was becoming neurotic again. Who in their right mind would pin together a faulty cushion in one of the offices with her protest safety pins? Not anyone else nobody she knew plus that telltale drop of blood when she messed up and pushed too much bossy with the pin, leaving behind her D.N.A. in the middle of the night on some lonely corridor more commonly known as the mezzanine. Yes, her favorite band was somehow managing to play after forty years and tour remembering aloud their oh so lucky break with Ray Manzarek.

Saga Of The Missing Door Stop

Where, why and how. Those three essential philosophies. Without them it was just another graveyard shift just more polish inside the elevator plus all those pencil shavings to return to. Careful where you step there's more to it how to go around.

Mystery Of The Mean Custodian And The Leathery Oak Leaves

There were four dog beds plus a few blankets lots of fur crumbs of dry feed and leg bones still with meat on them. Could you please restrain your little hog I mean dog the mean custodian said into the air.

There Was Once

Blue hides behind rain behind green. It looked more and more like monsters. The squares changed places. They were open fields until the sun. The same color looked different. Depending on what else is alive. See how weaving happens.

Blink Twice For No

Say it isn't so. The countryside is carrying me on down the road to what is the same point we started with years ago I counted steps now it is miles or blocks to where they've poisoned more than what we knew people are opening their eyes rinsing away the gas toxic mess

Touch Of Time

What you spent your whole life living floating in the blue green because of you so there take my life as thanks for everything you've studied lived and read because of you I am in the pages seeing beyond words

Just About Now

Some day she, too, would have it all. A little cabin by the creek, him fishing. The construction would take eons and that would be the fun of it, something to tell the others about along down the road just about now.

The Odd Moment

The evenings were usually upside down. For instance when it was night the Pirates called it morning as in good morning and when it was morning dawn weighing in beds calling nostalgia for the buildings their construction then it was goodnight. I meant to say custodians.

Four Steps 'Til Midnight

Even this was too much information on the mezzanine.

The Haunted Manuscript

The words came alive when the custodian turned out the lights rounded the corners in the old cement and asbestos building housing libraries, labs, offices, and studios. The words piled up onto floors and next to the vents. They scurried along to the dead basin looking for water. There they died and starved some of them too young to care for themselves. Mostly they became plans for dwellings complete with parking lots and energy grids. Having been put to the test of time, the words hatched plans.

The Dusty Vent

It turned into a minor neurosis: ignoring the vent in the face of another write-up. Some take the risk and others vacuum. I was still undecided about which way to go. This will define me, I thought to myself and my thoughts became Lawrence Hall. All those round corners. The insanity of the Mezzanine. What doesn't kill you they say the saying goes.

Corner Confidential

Dust bunnies have nothing on corners. Always more to it than the edge. He called it sand on the stairwell. Actually, it was lots of spiderwebs. We all hope for the best in this disaster. The floors are quick to dry. When this happens, it is like the Great Basin. It is so beautiful and smooth and empty.

Mystery Of The Eingeschlafend Custodian

Five minutes just five on the wall over the cushy couch would be nice pulled out

Forgotten Moonrise

When I remembered to look to open it was already way up high in the clouds against the midnight morning with a circle more belonging to the pine tree than to Josef Albers.

Moonface Moon

The best moon face moon in a lifetime of Sy (Synthesis) and all that WT (Waiting) in addition to lots of G (gyrations). The formulae is quite unbalanced. Each side quite unequal and off.

Now Any

Now any encounter with them is so familiar. Their slow gathering. How they seem to bump into things while we decided. The sound is there no matter how I ignore it. It is the sound of love that is surprising and constant so what if you are not quite in agreement? Paste me there and I will stay impossible. Peel me off the wall and I am still a poster advertising know-how. Crumple me up then swallow. That's how you consume me.

Puzzle Me

The rubble carried no answers no Da Vinci code even when put back together it still looked blasted apart of something solid no matter how many tears were shed over all the others they weren't coming back soft vowels ending their names. I wanted them and only them.

Only An Idea

After the riots, the ideas came. Most were good ones, most were realized long ago but forgotten in the new day. I'll ask my hippy father if he happens to remember kindness, sharing, and love. Those powers. That said, what could possibly be in my account what is due now?

De Enver

The mountains were far off countries independent Municipalities each kingdom so settled full of rocks and weeds. Let's go there soon have a picnic I'm bringing refreshments.

You Look So Familiar

Arm and leg Fingers and chin Don't I know you by now? From scratching and itching Two separate countries changing their minds again.

Smart Books

Their smartness broke apart my mindlessness. I got some smart books and started reading soon dreaming my dreams the way it always happens when we go at it too quickly without some sort of negotiation about coming up for air.

Mood 4

There wasn't a mood for it. There wasn't a time for it except sub-urban. The feeling of inexplicable loss inside the old grange-- what used to be a steep pass-- now grey, now endless traffic.

Late Afternoon Question

I asked my birthday a question that's post meridiem to me or you. That's the afternoon so formal and such. There's no going backwards but for the time change announced more than once to Group One at work like it was an original discovery that one hour life changing.

Strawberry Life

I had to plant bulbs, too out in front of the apartments. Half-off mums, little violas their faces like my own trying too hard to love getting tossed along with arugula into a green salad.

Smooth Sound

I would know that smooth sound anywhere. I would know its being. After delivering my coffin to its final resting place I roam freely take in the sights: ship with all rats gone the town with citizens all asleep the incessant whirling of the pinwheels.

Water

You can drink the planet and all its riches. Call it water and then something else. You can drink into your life. See it become you pausing near the edge of the blackberries the hawthorns.

Strawberry Runners

Fall runners in the barley hulls. A lot like love. Stems and roots looking for land. I think of him and smile often. To myself. About the scope of things. Better than all that frowning in person. That ship sailed without me.

Broken Agreement, Shattered Lives

Borage, didn't we have an agreement Thought we worked out details before my big trip back East Now it looks as if you're breaking what was decided by me I mean by us when it was we

To A Leaf

It wasn't like this when I had to watch the drain after the fallen were removed just right after Halloween. Needles when the time usually changes at the edge. Get in there and clean.

Eugene Town

The town did not stand in my way. The town wanted the same arrangement. Plus, all the memories I had to ponder. They were halfway buried. Buried with the town. Yes, I said to the town.

Driving Away

This is what I'm good at before light. World shaped along these lines. What is real becoming otherwise.

Honey

You are not mine to begin with missing your bees even before venturing back to the Plateau's outer reaches.

Honey

Honey save some for the jar we need to feed the others with. You go first no you go first. Your talk is setting all the bees abuzz.

Honey

The lover hummed bees before stinging settling the swarm in his throat before circling. The lover stayed away as long as he could. This is all the information available. Please go. Please go tell the lover where.

Dusty Town

O dusty town your particles quite alive as I dig myself out heavy buildings along the road have settled are disappearing their people describing something else entirely.

Green And Yellow

On my way I lost it whatever I thought it was that I found up against the mount. Their ways were strange. All those echoing calls. My heart ripping itself two valleys at once. Just say the word. All shrieking aside. Then we'll see if pronouncing it the same stays true.

The Haunted Hotel

Miss Old Timey please pass the casket resting on the shelf turned into something useful. Please purchase a lot of those enameled mugs because don't you see we're sinking so close to the marsh no matter where you swim you will be in the same place There is no safe inlet no peaceful anything anyone waiting but only the hour begging for more.

The Not Perfect Day

The not perfect day its recipe for soup salty tears turned up to a boil then frozen convenient for the trip to the reservation where storms are brewing This time Hero will not be here to save the day with his guns slung and slinging This time will be just a lot of checking the weather seeing if there is a pulse a secret a charm a chant helping locate the door and its persistent knocking

Cyan

Hospital flowers growing along the highway Your surgery has spared my heart La Grande alleys never seemed so full of leaves As now the day a dream I had for months Do I languish here as usual or do I step Sideways into the other boxes of yes We learned the symbols and danced the dances I could not tell you the pattern of the steps Out to Imbler and then the rushing of squirrels Climbing backwards and upside down

The Vanishing

The vanishing is known above all else. The time-lapsed roses opening now and they accelerate accelerate trying to be as hardy as the small wild ones.

Dry Drunk

Missoula not caring whether I lived or died. The feeling its old stale coffee smell in a little cupboard where a paper bag served as the trash. I remember Dickinson Street and the unpaved part reaching up the flank of Mt. Jumbo where our landlord lived. Our house still there but the fence I used to sit on is gone. My white halter top borrowed from Mom is gone, our horse, Bree, gone now I look and see the trouble she got herself into that girl drunk even when dry.

White Space

We were told to look at the white space look for it and say what it is and what goes unsaid but it took too long and people could only see the other stuff that was there anyway so I want to know if this is what you've been seeing all along? Why your head hurts? I didn't walk here but it might as well be true. My knees took a knocking and I went swimming. Will all this bring me closer? Do the years add up to anything, even after surviving? Can this room contain them? Its light and shaded shadows.

Bear Canyon

So many up close turning out to be stones zipping by going against the flow or is it the stream I circled round his grave. The tree does not grow well there. The apples a little ways away taste old-fashioned. It was all for those neatly planted at about ten mile intervals. The tracks follow the water-- the murderous fencing beyond claustrophobic. Polite conversation has all but disappeared. Now everyone is free to speak like candidates and even whispering seems outdated and besides the point

Watered Down

I do not live there. How could I live in all that water with land floating trash forever. How could I ever think I am different forever? How could I live on land thinking of water? No land is forever. My life floating different. The sunken feeling that nobody is rushing to the rescue. It is me who is rescuing, who is organized into helping. I got the wrong version of Song Of Myself. Thought I had the right ISBN but no, that wasn't it. I try to understand to feel the long lines. They reach the raft. They dangle over the cliff where I wait warmed by swallows by bees. Some I can catch others are snapping and whipping in the breezes. I want them all but I only have myself, my two hands or so I am thinking, one washing the other off.

Into The Land Of Jealous

Where I salute its flag Crying into my cafeteria salad I know nobody but the cashier Only my face so familiar Friendly like a tourist My boots too new for dusting All the spider webs I see in corners Their little weavers small Bundles of laundry dried tears Histories dying to be spoken Taking so long to get there Not like on the map just a hop And I'll have nothing To cover myself my envy Behind cotton blends Once there it will be usual Quaint cabins to sit in Corridors for pacing Losing any measure starting As regular with a beat

New Thought, Old Day

Gaze into my mind and you will see rain and more oaks with Doug firs dripping dank and gloomy but the good kind of gloom, the cool sanctuary breathing.

Short Life, Long Dream

Above the town above the dreaming Am I dreaming further or just in a dream where I play a minor role? Patient. Killing spiders. Why Would they want to hang out Spending their lives In Architecture & Allied Arts To begin with. Plus all the pizza Boxes and drab entryways.

(Some Have) Imaginations

The story was clear to some, but not all. Sheer willpower helped her stay awake for work. Green tea with honey? That was supposed to be good for anything. Now she was about to commit a crime. It was only a leaky ceiling. And that season barely mentioned, but so obvious, well, she was asked if she wanted to buy bullets at the store, at the counter.

The Treacherous Wheat

My gaze hears mumbling in the wheated rounds and all of Grass Valley. What could cause this worry about--? Fill in the blank. What is changing? Was there really a summer? I remember extreme heat and the jay returning with its friend. But other than that--? This is another night of corridors. Hear them echoing the groaning of the cart.

Oma Mit Tante Fransiska

They were not killed by the bomb but are walking out of the dusty rubble. My eyes carrying them into the present where I watch them grow old and happy not young and killed. You know the story and how I can't let go of it and them and telling. Not like in real life where this is not possible.

Moonscape Children

I listened to hear what they were saying. I heard the voices of the moon children in all that silence. High scape and low scape. What struck me was not their time playing. That was in between. What struck me was nothing. Maybe a random volley ball. Actually, two softballs I failed to catch even though I was quite ready given all indications by readying my position with the mitt held straight in front of my face.

Lava Dream: Collapse

The rubble looked light and fluffy what it really was was a ton of bricks without that shape and color. Even dust would be heavy if there is enough of it. Why this was heaped onto the lives of people could only be answered by would only be told by should be mentioned by every person still breathing.

Lava Dream: The Crush

She was half alive. Half were gone. I see them in the faces. Family strangers. The volcanoes call. Their icy tips. Safe foundations. Anything can grow with a little water. Welcome to the planet. Please behave. She was not crushed. Sage smells strongest. I ask her when life will end. She thinks asking is so ridiculous. But I did not say a word.

Day Of Fall

It lasted one day but I remember fall as cool and dripping in the dim time standing. How could things show up as a second summer in the making. Hear this. Weep no more. Only swimming in tomatoes, squash, and all that kale.

Roman Numeral

The sky is honey sieved through grey blankets. My longing for fall is starting with a perfect moon slicing everything in half-- plums, butter, flour. Sun.

Bo And Nat

Painted thin with one hair Dipped in egg tempra Their wild upside down world Showed me my mind. Boris and Natasha Glowing. Would I ever understand My second parents? The plot Was always no. But I was watching.

Could Not Hurt

She was past all that It didn't matter So long ago Trees grew so much larger Still she wondered How it would've been If she had not visited So much She was the one to know them so well Their leafy heights Their exposed roots knuckling the walkway and brushing away twigs

False Front

They told her Hinten Lyceum, forne Museum! about her hair how she should be wearing it pinned up. They told her she has a difficult time making decisions. They told her she looks nothing like the photo. They gave her photos of what was there before the rubble. Uebelhoer Gaertnerei total und voellig Zerstoert. She showed these to me placing them where I usually eat.

To Day

Right around sweep over the vale bright with outlines we're hopeful but sweating and too late getting the eggs. "When I am old what will I be like?" Just this nagging feeling I should be thinking more feeling more like myself.

Sweet Vortex, Darling Tree Of Mystery

Sweep me away even under the rug with your spider web breath bleached pavement song. Clear cuts rising like towers. Sutherlin a.m. coastal drape thick now fall breaking through crackling in the no burn zone.

Small Talk

The moon isn't talking but dropping down the rest of the horizon. The noisy spiders and their webs. The abandoned apple trees at the for sale property waiting for light to touch them. The small sleep just as refreshing. In six hours the task will be easy.

Kiss Of The Spider Web

Noisy impatience wrapping ideas into little bundles hiding a larger view out of the buildings once larger than the trees out front their needles their leaves inviting the dead spiders into death hear them knocking dead knuckles against the glass

Close Call

The queen takes pictures of the sun. She takes images of what they said, reviewing the way they talked about the road, how it is easy to find, difficult to leave after the turn heading out of town. But go there and don't stay away too long. The subject is closing, now remembering them and others. Look here.

Return Of The Queen

Our endless waiting has ended, Just in time for the grapes, after dealing with the pears and all the makings for a cake. We use our heads to figure out all that is passing us by, plus time. It wasn't like this before. Honeycombs did not seem real. Maybe the facts will show themselves between the likes of these two realms.

Sky Blue, Sky Blue

Oak trees, extra cows. Shy grasses. Deer by the Donner Party memorial. Baking soda for toothpaste. The raspberries are dry and scraggly. Same with the currants. I've watered the strawberries all summer. They are sending out shoots like crazy near the pumpkins. Everywhere is a echo. The bright moon. Splitting.

Stone's Throw Away

Just that far til the half-life moon. I begged myself to stop and look. Will I remember you as well as I remember seeing your name for the first time, fancy.

Nikkia

The best thing about Nikkia was when he would let us brush his long mane and tail. The deer now bed down close to where his bones would be, that is, if you count the times we killed and buried him when he was still living and only a neurotic obsession in those days, not like now.

The Asp At Olympia

Sparta has short roads, its goats are nimble climbers. Sparta has more than its share of sharp stones. Sparta is remembered. We went there the long way, all the way to Sparta.

Round Town

I was so sad, I told a lie to everyone I could think of-- the signs did not change. I read them backwards, upside down. Meanwhile, I knew all along how much I missed him, tried to do right by him. I doubted all along, only to find that it was just fine and I had not left had not strayed but was hit by lightning late one afternoon in the scrub lands during my mad scrambling.

Wandering

I tried staying on but my lips were too alluring when I was much younger, my hair left unbraided and tangled, moss and flowers, this was suspicious. With my pahoa, I could subsist. I look at the beards of the supervisors-- what are they hiding under their slick mustaches? Is is cooked, or is it raw? What was the story of today's new night.

Other Than That

Other than that things are going just fine except for my apology to nobody. The pressure is on to remember the places inside these changes. Yes, I remain flexible and open. The crowd stops when the music stops. One of the loudest for its size.

Circadian Membership

To join, just sign here On the dotted line Inside the old part The part which is bones And flowers with inky stains. You'll never wake up, fully, But do your best, and save The next for last, lovingly.

Letter From Circadia

My letter will arrive in six hours. It will tell of the edge of the forest. I will be there with my hands, washing them, how the dawn leaves without me, but I will run to catch up, just like in the middle if this dream, time will stand still. I have already been cutting the lavender, it is used a lot in these situations.

Many Times Gone

I've re-potted her asparagus fern. The huge pot too small to contain all the roots, they're spilling and reaching-- hardened, yet still living, clutching themselves after breaking out of their plastic container where they've lived on air for years. Water is on TV. Oregon rivers and the ocean.

Scorpio Over Roseburg

The sky is an open book inside the locked library of stars. Scorpio bakes its potatoes over Roseburg. There are pears galore, upside down light bulbs in the trees out back. The second one singing with such energy in the deer bedroom. Hen's nests but larger, in the stiff grasses where it's closer to Marney's place. We see the ghost fires he set. They were sudden, during the day. I saw his back through the black edges of the low flames as if he was only playing.

Times Were

The problem was that the thing became another sort of distraction, in the mezzanine, it meant three mezzanines, not two, or even one. Grain, cattle, babies all holding on to the present day. I could count them on one hand. Did they even miss me? Was the mezzanine the prime spot, as in destination, say, the next Aspen or Jackson Hole?

Mezzanine

That and the dog house. Glad of the opportunities here, take the fact that you could let go of a ping pong ball from the Atrium, releasing it from so high up into the courtyard seeing if it would break or just watch it, like a game, just bouncing.

When I Was A Custodian

Wait. I am one now and I heard a raccoon chittering. There are so many times I've gone the other way--sometimes behind myself--to stand in the lucid. "It is more than just a job." Although what, is not on the list. You could get written up for not doing one thing. I was going to check it off just now, but have misplaced my chemicals next to Deady Hall. My body likes the night, thinks it's day, still acting on a dime.

Choices?

So many rocks to crack open. I cannot crack them all, right? Even though some are thunder eggs and some are looking glass machines. That, I made up, see how lazy? Or, is this the real work, working? We only deal with the thin sacks. We don't touch what's thick. There is a strict routine.

When I Was A Rockhound

I searched in the old leaves, finding Ravens and paper sacks full of opals. I loved the way Idaho claimed me. Before it was only water which called me, now I can truthfully say otherwise.

These Are Fine Lights

We got the gluten running the vines-- escape the crowds and see me. There are the winds and heels, now carnations. Here is the mail, lots to throw away. Making it new. Watering everything takes an hour, twice a day. Convincing.

Unspoken Hunger

Little by little, the empire lost its hold on my memory. Yes, I saw the rubble through her eyes, breathed in the toxic dust and clonked the bricks together when it was all over. In bright daylight, it shimmers. Nights, with the globe on high, it is easy to wander, tasting my hunger.

Where I Was Living

Fine, I do believe it. I do remember seeing Grand Mesa and thinking I'd been there before and wasn't even looking for the world's largest flat-topped mountain and skipping ahead decades would find myself startled during napping by a voice calling my name out of the dream time where I was living to go wander overland through the sage.

Lobo Was Here

If I knew what to say, I would say it if I only knew what to hear, what is warning. The bells all maroon, the buttercups and breezes. Water runs there, over the meadow. Fall air is dry. The leaves are crackling. I am the mystery, the Eiffel Tower of the woods and mountains, plains and tundra, deserts.

Sorry

Pardners, we're crying bullets over your spoiled, jobless places We're so sorry, we're so sorry for you, rural losers So sorry that we signed away the few wolves to the highest bidder Just signed here to do away with years of push and pull-- As the Feds disappear anything goes The burning forests cry-- eW can magineI anything ereH in our safe ityC Our ensP are sharpened, we are oughT as ailsN

Snow Hole

I always liked the water, even the time I was almost dead, there was that moment, nothing but bubbles as flowers or stars the washing machine on the Lower Fork of the Salmon that was Snow Hole Rapid after I dumped and Tina was waiting. I was not dead but later Tina came closer to knowing everything about me and that the future would hold her silence and me, paddling like mad to get through it.

Wild Animals I Know

The pancakes turned out too flat, un-American, their activities too spare. Those roses are too bright, full. Her blood. The tea rose only exists because of water. In the grass, my feet are scratched. The moon ruined it, disappearing just before the sunrise. Wouldn't it figure. On down the road.

Falling Stars

The stars all fall Into the ocean, into rivers And live there blinking Forever. We watch their gentle Swaying to the music Of the water. After seeing one, The next are betrayals. Night is not the place Of greed. That is saved For the glorious day.

Yelp

"Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies, gone down the American river!" --Allen Ginsberg, "Howl" See my eyes reaching for clouds. Ears listening long and hard As they pass, drifting just so? Grab them and pull, America! Make it happen, all happening. Remember promising memories?

Survivor

I weighed what seemed elusive. It was my intention. This didn't cut it and the tree Was heavy with fruit. I walked Underneath on the fallen ones, Slipping a little, almost sliding. It was a great effort Remaining upright, intact For all the world to see.

Coffee, Taken

The same as Kitten, especially the dregs. Life is like that, one minute there's everything to purr for, and the next requiring teeth, claws, growling, and even some hissing. Those deadly human hands, legs, speeding hearts.

Kitten's Last Stand

They looked exactly like cats only their smiles wider, brighter. From the sky. There was a lot to eat, chicken cubed just so, just for them. That wasn't enough, they threw up and ate it again. We found Kitten's paw among the rubble of the August lawn. A little disturbed. Wouldn't it figure-- Kitten's last revenge on all that is dog and all that is so wrong with that yapping lifestyle.

Mainly

Is that mainly an echo? Did trees belong? Why does day seem like night did not Happen? Scrub oak compared with live oak-- slippage, spilling. Do that dance and tell me What I need to know. Even when all the words are forgotten The singing is still there. We found something which told me She has been out and about this whole time.

Decades (Not)

Those tens of years I thought were so far away-- so many times gone. I will not think about it. At the rest stop, other travelers told of the wildfire in Hamilton, about the evacuations. So many fires in the meantime and so much energy just to put them out, keep them contained. I love my friends and the music in their eyes. I found myself listening more than before.

Time Served

It was so familiar and not so strange-- Things were what I thought all these years And I wasn't imagining but I did imagine more time and there lies the shame. I remembered the rooms, the boulders. The cats, the dogs. The rains and thunder. How to make it last, be more, seem more? Time is ignored a little under the lights. Away from the hysteria, I'm finding out Just what, exactly? Just who? Right? Here is my card. Here is the past moving everything back to its place. Here are my scars, my tubes and clamps. This is my heart, squeezing, squeezing. That's where I go, but I don't know where.

The Resting Place

Yes, poems are different, twisting and turning Around like nobody's business. But this I guessed at before and there was that one reminder. One song was from the past But the singer was so very young. I thought I heard loneliness call. It came from behind the mountain.

Last Step

Two sets of ten and five times Up and down the ladder While I count squats Pushing the sled one way then the other--buckets--45 pounds But don't strain your back-- see if you're fit for sixty seconds At the simulated vacuum machine.

Museum

That is a bowling ball? Found at the base of Sweetwater Falls Who knows how long it was rolling around Under the spray until it became perfect. See, someone took it and brought it here. Royal and Fox sure knew how to make typewriters. Apple head dolls under glass. Florence's original switchboard. There's the Operator's chair, her small seat. This is an original painting. These were the first pioneers. Too much sand for a cannery. More a matter of digging in than climbing.

Shifting Sands

Huckleberries and fat salal. Their forests, their lakes are connected by rolling sky, and we hear the surf sounding so much larger than what we thought.

Almost August

Even though the swale is green mush in places, I walk, switch on the pump. Roses are still alive and the Mirabelles--orange droops. Blackberries out where the jays sit. Bluebirds. Other birds getting to the feeder. I know all the lumps in the dry lawn, blind.

Round and Round

The day is round. Last night, shadows waited at the back door to the grass, moving, fluttering. The young trees. It was just like her and I thought I saw her sitting there like she always did. It was her. Why do I still refuse to let her in? Would she mess up my life? Is this what is so frightening? Cows breathing in the field, sniffing like wolves. It thought they were deer. The old folks were so weary and freaked last week. This one's going better than expected. Calculate it. What else could happen in ninety degree heat? The garden holds itself, only shares its crackling.

Holding Night, Meeting Day

Both arms occupied and which one do I let go into the other? Night is my friend, moon, no shadows around the bouquet. Sound of midnight's promise, long whistles lasting into the past, why write it down? The fruit trees are still so loaded. The shame of waste. The ecstasy. Each moment passing, ticking by.

Reindeer Beards

I never heard that much about them but now I know a whole lot more. Tiny houses. That's another thing, entirely, appearing larger than our apartment pressing against the butte, just down a ways from the columns and across from the train if you could go directly but now there's that fence and it is impossible to just make your sweet way straight to the station.

My Crazy Straw

My crazy straw was a Gordian knot twisting towards the sunrise of my life and into the inner circle of my family. Sipping elixirs made from various powders, I was wise to the fact that the shape came undone only with lots of give, lots of loosening. The main problem. Tina thought these were the best presents. I could not disagree. The twists and turns were impossible to follow. Our moves from Missouri, Nome, Schurz, Reno, Missoula, Tettnang, Polson, Roseburg, Sutherlin. Those we left behind kept on living.

In The Land Of The Crazy Straws

Mine curled round in two loops. Tina got the zig-zag and Corine's was a heart. All were striped and looked like candy. For once, nobody was jealous . The crazy straws made root beer taste like water, that's how long it took to taste something and Tina made hers into a bracelet and then we were chaining ourselves to this newest idea.

More About The Trail

I had bags but now I have a backpack joining the thousands up and down the Butte only a thin screen of blackberries between us at night on their cell phones having conversations We thought it was the radio announcing classical but it is them speaking

This Summer

My assignments have been lost and what is it like? They wait around the bend in the trail. I will catch up to what happened if it the last thing I do, as blackberries drop off their vines and into my mouth because that's how.

A Clue: The Deer

Last summer I was supposed to be doing a bunch of assignments while working in the Depot House. Mostly, I'd find myself staring out the window trying to see the waves in the glass. When would I get around to the work I was supposed to begin? I saw the deer family picking their way down from the bench and onto the lawn. I was inside and still had no clue about how things were going. What were my daydreams there? I cannot recall, not for the life of me.

The Falls

The trail went over the bridge and they had to pay a toll to get over it. Once on the river, there was no way to get lost. He walked right up to the edge just like the B.L.M. bosses. I hung back because of my Crocs and how flimsy they are on the undersides, their soles, I mean without trying to be trendy but impossibly so looking back, I could've used more syllables.

At The Ready

Unloading the Mirabelles was not too hard-- their trees so full-- hours staring at the swirl steaming, stirring it up every now and then, scared if it would boil over onto the clean parts of the stove-- while I thought of my parents, so young and always ready to go fishing, camping, and dancing fifty years ago, and now our talking.

Stranger Not Strange

I remember them because of their parkas, their outlines and postures. Their temples. The way they'd sit on the snow machines, straight ahead, looking right, then left. That was their group. St. Lawrence Island may be just a memory. The dog team harnessed, ready to go. Shumagin prancing, snapping the air then howling at the siren every noontime back when global warming wasn't even an idea. in the Pacific theater. The judge married a couple on the beach, finally, having moved away from the rotting walrus and the flies.

To Be

The garden is well under way. Great carpets of hay out back in the field. Huge jelly rolls. Houses of no consequence. Plywood and dangling wires. Mountains beginning their climb. All is quiet before checking on the fruit, forgetting, also missing the night, its cool vacancy.

Sub Rosa

Look at the lake, of the world all these thousands of years. Bucket list? A blank. No need to have a list, the bucket so leaky. Does this coincide with life? What else does this match in history?

Say It

If I could say it I would say it. If I could live it I would tell you. There are some things to say, instead. My only problem was not unique. I didn't have the problem but did not know this until much later. This became something else. The gift was not as I thought. Is it too late?

How America Survives

Spare change spent spare change is the rent. The rant spent. Days pass as change held captive in pockets and trigger-happy fingers.

Taking Matters Into Consideration

You thought it was over there, not over here now people, looking the same against buildings urban squeeze so much like home, the killing corridors blank, with people. You pick them off one by one. Just as you were taught so well to do only the other day didn't they mention the easing back in, reintegrating home and to regular life where you know the rules aren't so clear so you make your own, make them up to be exactly knowing what is true in the combat zone: killing and killed.

Set Down A Cup Of Tea

Place our spoons next to the honey next to flat July. The fair is crowded and muddy beside the river let me go there. It is costly. We cannot waste a drop.

Said To The Road

We want the road to change showing the world we are the road you are driving on, the path to kill until every one of us will not stand any more injustice, will need to be shot by you and the other cars moving again.

Missing Link

I could visit the Rattlesnake again, look at wildflowers missed last time and then bless myself in the icy creek, dreaming of our horse and how we tried and tried to tame her. The alternative would be the Coast-- a lot closer, any way you slice it.

Winter Is

They say time stands still there. Long enough for memory to thaw. The fruit is ripe. I will need parts of it because I cannot take my favorite tree with me such a long way. They say.

That's When

I remembered the thing about how to get rid of it. It had been so long since I had such a rash. I was caught off guard, unprepared for the furious itching it brought on, all because of those leaves of three. They will die down by Autumn. I remember some facts about this situation. Hanging on with my heart has never been the cure. The archaeologists were more practical. They said to ignore the directions on the bottle. Apply it dry and let it soak in. Not a cold shower, but hot as you can possibly stand. Fingernails scrubbing, breaking the skin. Then calamine, calamine!

Incorporated

We loved the town but could not find it underneath all that fur. It was said to be two blocks away past the liquor store and just by the lockers. I knew where it was in my heart. Those spaces between buildings too narrow for anyone or anything else but splinters of lumber and tar paper scraps. The town briefly visited during parades over too soon with too much military dominating Main. Kids tolerating the wait dressed as pioneers and Okies planning their own future killings in line for free ice cream.

View From Inside

This one had windows looking out over innocent lawns, old grass. An amazing pasture for large personalities. Time stood still there. The call a large triangle last seen dangling from the back of my chuck wagon still ringing out across the county.

Butterfly Song

Flower told me what to say so I said it and nothing can be taken back now so live your marathon life and tell me what it is like at the finish, if it is cool and green as the others said along the way because they passed that on and I believed them but now just between us two there is something they were describing.

What Was Said

To the flower or I mean about the flower I thought was meant for me, wanted it to be. So maybe it was, afterall, in that dream poetry way that is so pointed. Now it seems it maybe was my mistake, reading into things too much as I tend to do, in the wilderness or at least close where the signage says you are here.

Wonder How

In the world this could stand just so clearly. The mountain smoldering again but in different places-- wildflowers doing what the butterfly needs singing its song of long ago.

Booked

It never got that far-- not by far! only close to nothing but enough said. Not much said. This is my point. It was there but it did not occur. Case closed. Question mark. With the bear.

From

The way ahead is unclear but days end and Begin the same as before. There are so many Missing times ahead. That's the way it is. Hanging fog above the swale. Her grave with A small plank on top. Ravens. Time filling What looks blank before the sun soon appearing Just over Mt.Scott from up the Umpqua.

Mistress

The bear breathed down my neck Embracing me. I could not remember Anything more intimate. Would the bear change his life For me? Highly doubtful. Would mine be different? Highly probable. Everything is changing Set in motion.

Farms

So what now in the strange valley again where I eat what's meandering-- after my journey from The Big-- holding onto a love I could only blink at, I know some have died for less. See this nest: only sticks and grasses, plus mud. Looking so hastily constructed. Where I land. Near the farms.

Barely Alive

I made it in and out of there Barely alive. I turned into A noodle, almost a stranger. How could I say thank you And not even please in the face Of this most recent transformation Piling on so much make-up.

Saturated

It is finally raining in the high country and the newly planted lilacs will survive. They were so thirsty and now not to worry because all my watering is getting saturated anyway. I'm glad all the ghosts met each other (and the others) because seeing what's back there is just like you said.

American Dipper

He is minister of that linear territory. Flashing eyes and extra eyelids. Daring to go underwater. He feasts on nymphs for breakfast then gets eaten by a Dolly Varden at noon. He is always in danger. They say you can only love one landscape one lifetime. How untrue.

Bear Awareness

I became aware of bells tinkling, moon thought intruding that even the clouds didn't seem the same clouds as before but now the funny part: whatever happened was going to anyway. The train.

My Heathen Holiday

Part One. The Bear's Paw His grip was strong. I didn't know how his cave could be so warm and inviting. The lavender would not say. Another gripe: time with a capital T. Isn't this the case? My own cage was rattling. I could hardly remember it clearly. Point it out I thought. Make it stay. Remember when. Part Two. The Strawberry Moon It got divided up. After the dogs ran loose. It came to be. Nobody could see it. It got that far. Put it away now that you've used it been it said it. Learn its lumbering talk.

They Thought They Were In Europe

Today the contrast is stark. On one side cows in the river or on the other side. Cows instead of fish. At a distance. There's the blown-out crater of a volcano. Sheep. Hobo Lake. Grass hummocks. Sticky geranium. The river ran slightly uphill. Rattlesnake canyon. See what was down here. Because to be hard of hearing means hearing the rustling and that's our post-industrial landscape. The one with us and our trash.

Living (In Cougar Country)

The old marsh is a guideline-- follow it to firecracker, yarrow, willow, cottonwood. In cougar country (firecracker, yarrow) be alert when sitting quietly or stopping to rest. Be especially alert at dawn and dusk (the path). Because people take leave of their senses even following these guidelines. You can further your risk (how far do we need to go?) your dog at home (a guideline). Keep children close. Teach them to be cautious at dusk (the old marsh) to be cautious at dawn (could you tell me?) to be especially alert at dawn and dusk. Stay calm and stand your ground (what you just said). Maintain direct eye contact. Pick up any children but do so without bending back. Slowly away. Never turn your voice back. If the cougar seems aggressive raise your arms making yourself look larger just by clapping. Remember not to run.

More Taming

I went back to where I buried my grief. The place looked vacant but that was because she had changed into the cawing and I didn't want to get on with life during the day anymore. There were plans. Supposing the cawing could stop in time. What would it say? Something tame. Telling. Still wild and beyond that. She needed more taming about the road.

Will The Future

Will the future be a fight remembering love her less the road so hard so fast her fur matching nothing special only shadows between the lavender by the birdbath seeming asleep on top the cedar chips waiting to kill something feathery

Innereien

She taught us well So well that I did not know Anything but her fur Coal black Rainbow oil Loved the comforter In the art room Of course All those feathers Her nest I won't miss her. I am her now. I will kill many mice Leaving Offering up Their insides

Fang Den Hut

The rules don't seem to change But if you see the golden hat everything must stop fingernails growing fangs incredible lengths stacks Waving around in front Of your face

What Luck

They accepted it slightly. Their eyes were unchanging. Moon hiding behind rain. It didn't seem about time. We were folding. Being fooled. What luck. What swindlers.

Moon

All my baskets into one egg. Light brighter by half. Ponderosa. Watching. Done deal. Meadow. This side is clear. The glow does relate. A handle. A bucket. Listing. The other.

Peach Beach

Half moon half beach half lozenge. Stones broken small loaves of moon blue and caramel. Gulls' voices settling down. Cherries. Full trees. The orchard church. Its small grey steeple. The horses seem blind. The barking continuing on past the crates.

Paper, Metal

The tent knows the wind Better smooth stones Osprey eggs peaches ready Already lasting so long. I'm ready can't wait for Dreaming. Biggs dreaming. Everything in its exact spot I gave them paper. Metal.

Reverie Rustical

Smooth shimmer of trees. My escape continung strange. Old person. Me. I climbed reaching the fruit. In my dream I began too late just perfectly near. Sideways slipping near the place. All standing forgotten. Forward.

Truth River

Sun and Moon. Rain hiding day. Chances are slim but still. Revolving evens things out. It isn't her fault. Suddenly. But the drama continuing tinting clouds and their clowns.

Dismantling Hers

Plain to see. Work needs doing. A wrench. A hatchet. Broom. What comes apart. A little grease. I've assembled rags taken apart the motor still that ticking telling me. Barely hearing.

Later Silence

Her later silence did not include Albert. Or did it? That's the part I can't figure out. Was she somehow praying to that tiny boss? I thought about it and came up blank as per usual. Maybe fifty times. Look here, can't I convince her to spill the beans or at least share a few recipes?

Correspondence Course

Sun. Days. Space. Cat. A thin washing machine having a chat. Waiting to tell it like it is. d Don't stop. a messy love story.

Like Wow

So that's what Mom's Hootenanny! Was all about Right next to Ian and Silvia tile table too heavy to ship to Nome where we waited for the war to end with the others at Woodstock a bridge over the troubled Kusitrin teaching children well.

Voice

Then a melody about sunset and key jangling Lots of shade and trees and fountains Walking of course with architecture Gorgeous Vienna I'll borrow everything. Smoke and crap following. Bicycles Flowers black and sighing. La la.

River Dog

People at the butte have their own problems. Water was mentioned but also heat. Scattering birds chasing. Labrador retriever. Oh Daisy I am never forgetting you. Luckiamute. Our rocks and that bear bothering you so. Clay we used before meeting. Stories of the leash unhooking during all that swimming.

Abroad

Mongolia was great but home greater. My tigers didn't make it into the soup. We walked alongside them for a great while. Paying. Just thinking of the wine made us drunk with midnight joy after a long day strolling along in different cities no longer part of the crowd. I'm saving up my money. I am lying. I live better on the phone. Where everything is modern. Please put that back where you found it. My body. Here is where we say goodbye. Until the next scene. Look for something red. That will be my meat. Look for something else. That will be their cave.

Newish Worlds

Dancing and singing small in the new ghost town lots to drink before going abroad. Green is the color of my love's dress. The lights never looking so lonely so great the pageantry. They screamed when they spoke. The men were pawing at their bodies. They cried with heartbroken longing. I miss them. Their spell already.

Veterans Of An Unseen War

Something is wrong with the machine. I was awake for four hours. It woke me up. Flowers make it worse. So sleepy this morning. The glittering buildings. I want you to sleep honey. We hear babies. All other things come into mind. I've got some eye problems too. Still empty spots. Big area. Seeing color. Webs. Indications. Nothing they can do. Right. Fairly common among people. We can't go at all. They're going to start pretty soon.

There's Also Muscular

Q's plan had me up against some roadblocks. Looking for detours. I made it just in time to the brightly lit field where I was shot. This time was less painless. It was only my life. Seeing another issue on up ahead. Protein. Muscular wanted something I could never deliver. I asked the flowers. They nodded. Just nodding.

Q Knocking

I refuse. My mind a tangled afterthought. Walking away from Q and to my destiny. Castles in the air. Ice cream. Keys to the roadster. No regrets and no promises. There is sunshine maybe clouds just for fun. The cave will wait but for now freedom is expecting me although I didn't exactly save the invitation.

The Day I Used Q

Nobody killed me I only used it once plus it was in a title not especially counting towards the body of anything any moment. There are some using it all the time something fancy is speaking through the mask dusty on the shelf of the impossible ghost town.

Please Kill Me If I Ever Say Quotidian

If I even use its bright onion glow. The stairs up to the mountain. Impressive! Why do I hate it? Why do I hate that word. Pray to it if you hear it. Life is a numbers game quite enough thank you. Somewhere I believe in but please don't place it in my mouth anywhere else on the shelf. There's no room for another knick-knack littering up the place where dumb poets are living. Please kill me. Kill me now. Crowding my good title.

Two Years Ago

There was something strange about the lava returning to its state of flowing again from the flank. Almost as if two years ago were returning to become before two years ago and then turning into two years ago again.

Barstow Half-life

We sipped and supped and dined on sand in Barstow.Barstow's half empty cup so full so sick she was so ill and I said no he practices his keyboards every evening there will be no room for you and your cancer recovery--waiting in Barstow waiting for good. Let us visit now. Let us gaze at the river. There is a rose garden. It is full. I promise you can stay as long as you'd like. Even Dad. Just say the word or don't say it. Looking past the junk. Seeing through the debris. Walking around and over and across. Good at avoiding the dangerous thorns.

Remembering

Ibe trgeubfg U renenbered were ================ said the robot. Said my memory. Patchy in places. Askew. The bomb did more damage than I thought. A chair waits in the yard. Out back. A nice lamp lighting up the place. Let us wash off the garlic. Keep away the babies. They will grow and then what do you have? A total takeover. We'll make more space next weekend. That's when you're invited. Although you've invited yourself. Still. Welcoming.

The Calling

The clock is ticking buildings flimsy collapsible. Waiting calmly through the fires matching each to each. One always going one always there. Let us raise our glasses sipping sweet cider licking away the dew.

Frosting On The Cake

Himalayan berry blossoms leaning over draping heavy hair arms. Roses gone wild pasting rain back to where it belongs. That tree. Love for those trees. Their bark. Useful. Magnifying.

Up Against

Artistic planet, o over-arching train-- downtown. Seeing Jay. Wrapping around. Calling. Magnetic knob-- o butte. Butte air a violin sweetly playing questions. So early.

Moving Is Home To Me

We finally move Into the city Finally see the streets The air ground level. All I knew before. Ravens and their cousins. Tall grasses jotting my Number. Inside it's strange And dark. Welcome to the cave. Depositing. What keeps well?

The Meeting

Coffee dripping. Life cleaning Up. Moving. This time to the foot Of the butte. The smaller one. It once Was a grassy lump. Trees crowd the place. The train sits beside. Noise running away. (Now we'll have) enough money to eat What curiosity left. Already meeting us there.

Standing By

May rain for the garden. Split between drops. Soaking chances for the milkweed I planted yesterday. Sounding strange. Planting. Milk. Weed. For the butter. Flies. Garden. At the butte. My.

Showy Milkweed

The hum stopped just in time for the robot party. I arrived early and stayed late of course. The buzz took me by surprise. It was inside my ear. Attracted to the showy milkweed growing there. Also under the sign.

Most Of It

I get most of it. I mean Understanding. Hummingbirds. How Rosemary is queen no matter what. Also rose and sage. Helping. They wrote about havingitall. Owningitall. What they didn't know is this: Broken elevators are no good. A mysterious noise. Descending.

How Quickly

They were treated and he had to leave the island. Excruciating pain. The doctor came. I remember when they came back. Eat only a little when you're hungry. He was ready to go. He had it. Two fainted. One had to leave. He had to leave. The girl made it. They really liked the other one. Still missing him. All the other males went. So it's the last four left. A team but not together.

Nonpareil Daemmerung

She knew I was there and cried to be let in through the garage door to her food on the cement floor right by her little fake sheepskin. Now it is getting lighter outside geese are flying off a carved wooden handle. The hippy mug off to one side showing a strange map back to then. A glass vase holding dark purple iris and peonies.

Like Banks

The river ran beside her hatred. Her hatred of Eugene. She left headaches behind. The land clear the more she traveled away. Eugene couldn't follow her there. Without problems. No erasures. Eugene wanted her back. Again. She made a bargain. A bargain with Eugene. Keep your Grecian promises. Listening to the mountain.

Never Loved

We never loved the bomb but we learned to hate with a secret hate for it always it took first place priority. It was always the reason. If things got too close too distant. There it was again. The fact of it. So it never really went away. Not quite fully detonated. Exploding. Forever exploding.

Mom Pome Poem

The bomb will always be hers belonging to that day. The bomb will be kept locked in an aftermath that keeps getting added up again and again to see if somehow there was some sort of mistake the rows of the dead lined up for all to see. This was wrong so wrong. Ongoing calculations. Subtracting an art to count on. Plus apples and their trees. Waiting for their fruit. Imagine.

Written In Mud

In the old home town Long sentences all the rage Two and two together oh how They laugh and laugh and cry Titles all collage. Fashion and fragrance Towels and empty jugs Handles missing flowers Birds borrowing.

Tangerines

Eat the white part. Two per day. Rind of honeydew-- castor oil, peppermint oil, lavender oil. After dark Mt. Mazama clay forms a second skin. Doesn't leave a scar. Add postage later.

Dada Stupor

I know we are hamburger Chopped meat for the scavengers But why can't we pretend music Will keep things together like eyes Working on the problem will fix Everything rumpled with smoothing. You stand there and I'll be here. What we wear. Gyroscopes. Language. Raspberries like the ruling laws. Gravity holds down the thorns eventually. So many strings attaching. Roots letting go just barely.

That Skimpy Thing

Life is thin. The walk is not the talk at all. My back hunched like a bear. Claws for digging. Grubs are plentiful near the surface this time of year. The taken ingredients. Why are we here looking in the mirror. There are inside beings haunting corners under spiders dust inside cups. The old mirror showing. Walnut shells where nobody ate any. Bone fragment I will not touch my tongue to.

All Along

The bomb wasn't special. Later there were others with fire. How the past became even stronger. Present disappeared. Going back we couldn't find its separation. Carrying on without us. Never perfect. Never satisfied. Always the same.

A Matter Of

When they were rescued from the rubble. Half had died underneath. It was a matter of minutes buried hours days. Covered to uncovered. The bombing was a fact nobody disputed. Seeing the crater. Looking at the rubble. Forever marking the air. But what did it mean? What would it do? Handling it always questioning the weeds too many sprouting up trying to taking hold. Too much.

Afterbirth

She was never taken away carried Like that. To where and how? Before the show is the best living. Then after isn't really there. Isn't that What they call transformation? Or just More information? See that tree?

Survivor

She loves the show Can't wait until the next Episode. I tried watching Too. The plans. The teams. The game. The island. Clowns are the ones laughing In the face of annihilation. Count them. Ninety-nine. How come they hate vegetation And all curling vines? I spent the night flat on my back Trying to figure it all out. Un Tangling it. Jealousy? Too easy. Hate? Too easy. Love? Absurd.

Charmed

The bear disappears into the river becoming something else and there's also the part about Sylvia Plath and her tone which nobody exactly tackles in the open. It is taking shape but maybe too fanciful. There is no cave in the story but you know. I think we're moving into one soon. Out of the cathedral tower (bank). Walking away quickly would be the best way of saying.

History's Deepest Secrets

The pioneers dug their own graves. Who left you alone? We undid the gate before the ram could get out. The stones seemed to all have faces. Trees whispered secrets to their vampire helpers. Nome's melting streets. Always thought the Middle Ages too long. Did you come back on your own or were you returned?

So Far

Find out when you will fly and I'll meet you there same tree same time our best so forget any glitches wind will be in our favor we've managed this so far. That's what the night is for. Forgetting takes practice because buildings can often look the same.

This Is How

This is how I always remember her face fresh away rubble dust desperate looking disappointed and not the crone she has become free from that war except every day calling her sisters discussing details curly shavings from wood soft splinters showing themselves as fingers on hands knobby knuckles not fitting into mouths long ago forgetting about the bodies more about what they did and how it passed. Lots of grandchildren and now they barely visit never asking about it at all. Just as well those days are over busy forgetting.

Mountain Town

Mountain town let me in knock is that rain or not?

Flower House

Flower garden hillside looking into star cups seeing bunches singles their juicyfruit perfume shaded by the oaks by the fir and cedar nowhere and everywhere Lighting up the dimness it is where I live for now until night brings me upwards into doorways too many to count too many to see parking themselves along the dark

The Town I Crave

Called Eugene. This is where I am. I find Eugene under the rubble of air and green April wind. How I felt in the green glow that is Hendricks Park much too silent much too still. We saw the wind go up the small canyon. Where we stood there was none. How can it be Eugene continuing past its due date in the gigantic valley. This question is not new. It is so old this story. I could see what the poet was saying about things turning into other things. This has happened only a dozen or so times to me but I can relate standing there empty with nothing helping. The whirling will take leaves and things and tossing them around exactly what he wanted although he wasn't supposed to ask.

Community Garden

River on one side Train on the other. Freeway two streets over. There is the moon.

Not A Lot

There were some but not a lot.
How these changed I couldn't say.
The best stayed behind.
Another country claimed them.
Even past blackberries. Currants.
I've counted. Forgetting to count.

Sleeping It Off In Skinner City

Fumes of spring
branches heavy
surrounding
old swale

driving
just driving

brought me past
seriously speaking
to the hawk.

I Would Be Now

Swimming
at the Warm Pond
stars disappearing
above the water
above my own movements
through friendly phosphorescence
before they too were gone
to work at the dream factory
above and below
surfaces found there.

Midnight In April

Thirsty plants.
Roots half wet half dry.
The small
street running
under her paws.
Cream-colored
dog.  The road is her
life.  Will she fall asleep
during the long drive
back to the large valley.
Wasn't the call
that much wild?

April Noon

They spoke of stones
embedded in the landscape
they spoke of tough flowers
their delight.  How will I see

what I know again?  How will
I know what I see
leaning to one side or another
my shadow in the small place
until I move entirely.

Shrinking European Values

At the foot of the mountain
They run for their lives
Into the European Union
No way to get there
Screaming into the silence
Next day's tolerant sun
Watching how
make a population

Winter Rubble

New leaves strive in the rite of exchange

take the place of blossoms even if they 

don't bear fruit there are so many flowers

hanging above the cold ground down down

onto the memory of winter's tomb resting

on tomorrow's rooftop   dashing away 

gas the countrymen spray into the pushing crowd

marks where the land       breaks       faces

burning hot       cheeks        eyes        mouths

weeds needing killing.  Pulling.  Before sunset.

Rolling    razor wire   someday we’ll be sitting

at a table remembering  how and saying why.

Meander

The center of town is a drum.
Each road leading to

intermittent images
complete with their imagery.
Aspirin, coffee, cut flowers.  

Their Kids

Are not them.  Their kids are not kidding around

like they did.  You see them more around town.  

Like them.  You have to like them

too maybe.  They were there too

little people.   Is that?  Was it?  

Don't you miss them more

because of them the fact of them?

Searching their faces their fashions.

Where where are they?  Where is the real

them hiding?  The older them.  Calling.

She Had To Leave

I'll read it soon and answer
how she wants no more war
I'll read the book she speaks
photographs and I'm most interested
in her thoughts her writing voice
so unusual and brave when they sang
about getting out getting out of town.
Rambling.  Folding.

Narrative Ring To It

Was it my dream last night or the night before
the one where they told me purple would match better
neon pink out of fashion with what I had on.
Was it my choice all along or did this come in a kit
to put together again and again everything there
that was my dream how it flew away so old.
The women celebrate the cleft and yes why not
it is a cliff I can barely remember at times I am it.
Here it is more than ever before.  Here it is.

Come on they said.  Come on and you'll be that.
Okay I'll be that.  The bells jangling and shivering.

Afternoon

Maxwell House has nothing on the villa.
So at home
around the garden
instinct.
Plum, sage, balm, pine, olive.

Olden abstract dolls they played with.
Life and death
especially.
Tiny pieces fitting together.
Small captures in the picture.

This was way before cameras
but after knowing the way around
it was time to go
listen to the traffic.
That was
too late.

Venice

Days ago faces remembering alluvial
ocean pedestal mud.  Malibu.

Better things appearing. Second.
Slipping time.  Sloughing.
Pivot.

Away From

So it was said of the trapeze artist falling that way knowing
the swing and when it would be back above the darkening glitter.

Yes there are so many stars mostly blinking their winks
calling into the bouncing humility again with no other words.

In another few light years this will all be memory and even now
memory is waiting to leap on the opportunity to hold and grasp.

What fate is showing is another type of relay instead of tangling
impossibly in the ropes too used to being the net    an ache    twinkling.

Maybe another swim will reveal missing facts missing absences?
It is clearly a repetition passing between what life keeps letting.







 

Always A Comma, Never A Period

Her thinking where is his hair
under the story of stones
(a larger one) the place she is told about
and was it true he loved someone else?


He is here actually here running around
in her mind always and never absolute
any abbreviation silly enough knowing.

Conference Of The Clouds

What is inside might be dust or a mountain.
The clouds are visible from ground level.
Up in the air a few hundred feet
things change quite a bit
slamming distortion otherwise

necks for instance might be quite
tired from holding onto thinking

everything will change after this
it will all look so different days later
items softening into a hard song.

Famous Painting

He wrote about the famous painting
just pronouncing its title seemed to be difficult
he said that with it swimming off his tongue
into the Mediterranean fragments.  Once

people with their lives and ideas and selves and others.

Listening to war's travel itinerary.  What have
we become

so something and so someone

so mature so future.  

Green Line

Stand there and you will catch it downtown
Union Station where number forty
going near where you want to go whole
life story stuttering desert thin old palms.

Back beyond marble halls and polished
women on tall pedestals you know the gaze
will this attract destiny molecules all rushing
where my focus landing long boulevard.

It is not bus without thinking of the forays
on another island.  Why did they vote it down?
Answering the past will only present further
inside love in fact the best will be along.

Seat Of Power

They don't speak but when
government can't be expected
all Your problems Douglas County
bust town once 30 mills operating
at the same time Oh yeah
Heaven Can Wait at the Grand
sewer fish in Ford's pond
end-to-end overkill conclusions
meeting with confirmed non-readers
Except the Bible and all the good it's doing.

Field Guide

Our hair could be left
outside somewhere for birds
for their nests like someone
in Oregon Field Guide did
in that one show where a small lock
was left at the foot of a tree
waiting to be noticed in the green
clearing where deer eat even though
the poets said they hated deer
how overused these days but still
there will be a lot to learn at the
conference if that could be of help.

Awake Before Birds

A poem should start out full of hope
and end wisely.

The room is dark but glass everywhere.
Look out to rain and green and grey shine.

My friends are sleeping.
Things are not like before.

I try not to hate my sisters.
How does this matter at all.

Flowers bursting out of the earth
from the limbs of trees.

There is nothing else to want.
Nothing else to need.  A book.

Ongoing Investigation

Well one thing was said and I thought
what the hell did I say just now
because all those records surrounding
the case at hand.

The used disguise didn't quite match
the phony signature.  Obscure
feelings peeking around the corner
but this was inside the house.
You get me now?

The cardboard box was mistakenly
assumed to be a main clue.  It
just jumped out
speaking to my sensibilities.

Tourist In Her Own Hometown

She went there to the past
Exactly as she remembered
Exactly as she thought

She thought about the past
Yet she was able to discern
A future not at all
Things she saw back there
Nickels and dimes looking
Seeing her but not thinking

Ms. Under Standing

She remembered her promises.  How she was supposed to keep them.
The others thought she made it all up.  She didn't lie.  They just
could not hear and when she repeated herself they stillheardotherthings
than what she originally meant.  Who cared then and what have you.
Time went on and she really did forget what exactly it was
what they didn't know.  Was she supposed to tell them now?  Of all
the most inconvenient

too bad now it was too late she thought in her spy place
the garden path ran right by and from the leaves she could see
it was nothing to stay there an entire day and then some.

Walking The Plank

They looked at nature so naturally.
Inside the umbrella were little sections.
Rain forgotten in the downpour.
How could it last would it?
She wore her question mark on her skin.
He made a necklace instead.  This now.

The ruins so mysterious so early. Circling.
They followed their instincts after watching.
One leg shorter than the other as is the way.

Detox Dementia

I've always wanted to live in a castle.
Now I settle for Eugene.  The rain
the trash I've become.  My broken
boots dragging me to the library.
Cars without their lights on.
The mean streets of Eugene.
Against the volcanic knob the river
snaking its way to Corvallis.  Where
in the hell am I under all these magnolias?
Trees are killing me.  Wait up puppets.

This Time

Don't mind the worry.  In fact
it's better than nothing.  Fact
thumbs so useful.  Just think
in a million years.  Fragments
cut it.  Maybe this will be about
Eugene but maybe not.  Easy
to forget ocean swimming.
This time there's lots of room.

Always Eugene

The air runs off the river.  All spaces
have given in to dreaming about slowness.
The shadow between here and the cedar
lengthening love for Eugene.  This is how
it always begins with me and Eugene.
When I begin observing the trees again.
Always Eugene running around.
Expecting every moment a change.

Local Sights

My sentences are incomplete.  What else
This early.  Eugene in another heyday.
Same daffoidils and hyacinths scratching
The air river willow even far from it.
At home in the library.  Others also
Resting their eyes.  That's why the carpet
All so quiet.  Not even phones ringing.
This way it is the day of the memorial
Every day cycle.  Heads bowed.  Then
I say no to the salmon dinner.  It is
Already too dark for driving but that
Is what we do leaving them behind.

Hallucination Takeover

The story should have been more about the landscape.

If I could criticize just for a moment I would say ugly chairs

yet I would have them in a minute in a second and recover 

the material

a fine swirl, a madcap idea, something exotic

as burlap

a velvety horsehair

recycled later as a shirt.

Once a hurricane has landed, there is really no going back 

to before and how before was different

everything

in place in that place.  Even the water does not taste

like water

extra potent

extra watered 

down. 

Busy Signaling

The sun swallowing whole drenching days.

Desperate for return.  Oak King.

Crimes still at hand, their detection.

Every last song at your feet at your roots.

Is it possible seeing where to cross the river?

A satisfaction in just reaching the other side.

Small footholds chase the dreaming.

Gorgeous Dream(er)

I was walking to and from my life.
The rain pitter patter all that space
Between the drops onion soup.
Thought it was another corner
To go around and instead went right through
Saw a different angle saw you as an angel
Talking me down from the edge
But I never knew I was quite on it
To begin with.  I'll tell you my dream.
It is of my house.  A house of trees
Fantastic leaves.  They could be needles.
Actually I would prefer pine or cedar.
Cozy.  Something branchy.  Moving.
I am lucky.  True as weather.  Say it.

Rain Crowd

Side A

In The Crowded Crowd
All Hand s On Deck
Space-out
Flashback Pogrom
We Need The Hippies

Side B

Sublime Telegram
Later
Mister Go Away Now
Too Rich To Know
Podium Blues

No Shame In That

See how they were waiting and waiting
for something to show up in the mail
a turn at the big wheel so to speak
out of their league mostly true
but it was fun while it lasted.

If this poem could be anything
it would be their spirit attempts
with feathers and time crossing
the ocean grabbing all light
mixing it a little and so forth.

At least they weren't endlessly
sitting in cars and doing just
about the same although leaving
the motor running is what trucks
do when busy with deliveries.

Dear My Life

This has been on my mind as recently
as last week in the days ahead and those
just past.  About that slice of sunlit
shadow just passing by.  Another
point being the clouds framed just so
moving to Springfield to where another
river meets up following along blind.

Dear Letter

Do you get any I mean do you
open some up now and then
rescuing their burnt edges from the fire
in the story of you quite plain with you
tossing them in so they can be demolished?

Do you tear to little pieces or just one long slash
gashing my hallucination of loud and quiet?

Is there a point or just the dull edge
careful not to focus too much or you
will surely cut your tongue
sealing the words inside.

Forest That Time Could Not Forget

If I could stroll through that forest
I would always know the correct time.
It would be late in the day in the middle
of my life.  I would be writing and thinking.
Thinking and writing.  I wouldn't have to look
around for someone with a watch or for a clock
or a heart by the station the town the bank.
Or do they really are they just pretending
with their ticking with their thumping?

Friend Connect

The friends connect over their instruments.
Singing of love and regret.  Their words
are simple because it was back then.  I know
now of the absent presence leading
taking turns to sing another's
song.  Only how alone sounding.

Dear Eugene Part Two

You will inherit
the acre of coins
(dandelions)
palace of icing
(garden shed).

Rose trees (no scent)

daffodils
lemon pepper.

Return to them
Rinse slowly
allowing for thaw.

Dear Eugene

I like your hair the way it falls
the way it springs when you walk
around the town your flannel
waving then passing by
across the bricks of the square.
I had a terrible vision of you
married to me to Tatiana
she didn't appreciate your swagger
back then and now I question
the relationship thus this letter
telling you of my feelings downtown
in the middle of Eugene's windy
rainy rose trees and azaleas.

Passageway

The tree is visible from the den
blossoms hanging onto branches
wild promises for now wild notions
at stake even ideas at stake  matching
words long grasses almost warm
almost lost the calendar says:

nature flows where rivers rush
waterfalls roar into the web of life

salmon, bears, hungrily the shore
waiting complex, constant
habitats continuing upstream
in the important flow.

Close To Spring

So fast he forgets how to fly
Among the ruins of last century.
So fast I would have missed him
Except for telltale signs.

Those flowers their birds and bears.
Our berries we shared even though
They were not exactly mine
Douglas county and all my being.
What time is it now so late so early.

What do I need to do in this life?
This is time grabbing pulling?

Lesson

I thought the future would be less difficult
Especially when it came to poetry
All the end-alls and be-alls
Up the sleeves of the supervisor
But what did I expect?  A free
Plains on which to roam
Hooves and claws digging in
To dreams I have not yet dreamed?
Yes, that's what I thought
What I wanted to learn about
To feel it--freedom--for me to
Admit, allow into my thoughts
Feelings anything but strict

She Said

unlike any and you
aren't the least bit
boring dearly broken-in

person of interest
she said this is heaven
the rest I'm guessing.

Beautiful Day

No two fish quite the same.
You see the upside
Down.
Magenta altostratus rumpling
Young thoughts
thinking.
The dream again.
More.  And counting.
Painting the cave
So fun with you.
In it?  As subject?
Great bear. Wishing you.

Hyacinth

Purple stars heavy
cool scent of poison
Why are they so
Falling over tons
Of perfume cool rain
In sheets blustery
Under eaves buried
Happily in bark mulch
Times when going
Meant only so far

Humus

Tree of Freedom
blossoming
against transparent
Bohemian Green Earth

pulling all surfaces
slowing Dizzy Bees

wide canoes float by
window open am Neckar
Flowers swirling and sinking

Way Out

I see the place
A little perch
I found

Now don't you
Realize
Bicycles

Grace is wordy
More like talk
Down to it

Digression From The Long Lament

Fatter dream meeting
round the clock
this wild gift
heart an alien star--

big sister talk she's gone
her bottle of magic
glittering small

Now on to my
assignment:  analyze
spoken word

Work Shop

I'm not sure where I am.
I'm going to go with homeless shelter.
I'm kind of lost and don't know if that's
the reference.  We don't see

the vehicle.  There are things
that are troubling me.  Running
through really nice.  It's

easy to hear the speaker's unique voice.
Is there a relationship?  A situation?
I've only got half a metaphor here.

Erde

My feet walking
sweet steps away
horses waiting
for the whistle
just the signal
a silent something.

In the grove there's daylight
night's fog hangs there
turning.

On And On

You might need      a detective
To help solve      your case
     Seek the perp
file a missing persons
Sort out the evidence
Add up all the digits
Run it by headquarters
H.Q.
Make a phone call
Check a file
Scour the leads
question eye witnesses

that one    
Quite unusual quite curious

Open Means

Throw away the lock and key
let the black cat through
the sliding glass door

daffodils
                narcissus    

snow
                 holding
onto the mountain

their far away

messages

in grasses
on the wet prairie

After the party
the best part
is home

discovering the painting
is indeed
the most beautiful

Imagined

"something you can tint, turquoise"
"more way out than wink"
--Ken Nordine

Life is not what I thought
All these years missing
The tint the wink

When we moved
My education
In those different places

Could I?
Would they?

Very Air

Dear Eugene,

City of mud puddles
too small

myself looking
on the lookout

local truth
tombs
underneath
all the
street theater

Turn

Never thought it would be this mild
                      in Eugene
thought maybe Alaska or Denver
but never about snowdrops pink azaleas
month two of new dreams hopes plans
                      somebody anybody tell
where the turn who turned the wheel
back
                      to days of Pepsi
get up and go out of the question
narrow choke hold remembering this

Winter's Real Face

Autocorrected
wine de eel 'd farce

fine turning unburied
a deep freeze cadaver

Of longing for death
in life all its gory details

spelled out and underfed
calling to those still under

rubble instead of flowers
flowers instead of hearts

Is this the way it was meant
yearning for cold ice and snow?

O Wheel

The turning, crushing
Madcap spring songs
of course be this way
that's the luck any
Not waiting around

As Now

never in so much deep water

common float techniques One

Breathing holding the breath

and not mentioning rhythm Two

coordination trusting Time

How to possibly survive salt Three

Last one standing on upturned ship

sinking dipping bodies Crepe lives

washing ashore island On

rocky beaches lapping poetic

is true What is passage?

safe Point to it.

Mr. War

ground
evaporating
our eyes
beneath rubble's dust
too-warm planet
bursting hot plastic sizzle

Le Malheur, C'est Que

On to the Painted Hills!
Walk them with gusto

The signs are late
Le grand Malheur!

You've entered the West
Through its front door

Minusing wonder
Plusing extravaganza

Drunk on all the water
Of a feathery oasis

The Final Four: Hijinks Hoodwinked

Here's the rundown of the lowdown scramble:

Cannonball Run.  Petticoat Junction.

Final count:
One dead.  Many wounded.

The Highly Unknowable Town

Things caught fire
ideas only windier.
Our house
was on top of another building
don't ask me how this came to be
a typical arrangement

in those days
hydrants on every block
signs posted
wanted.

Staying On

another winter in Shaniko--
the mayor said no problem
unless you're one of those
problem finders, one of a dozen
enduring the Shaniko winter
wind down from The Gorge
sliding up from under the spaces
of the boardwalk at 4th and E
just where it intersects with sage
turning a dogleg past the store
then parking it at the post office
skipping past the old garage.

Meaning

She said she was lucky
the little ones were away that day
she was one of the little ones.
The white wardrobe went into the shelter,
under the store with all their nice clothes.

Her card was Narrowness, nine crystals
belonging in a cave and not in the open
growing in lavender silence.
The moon is waning she remembers
because the word is like wean
in German, this is its meaning.

Dumb. Smart. Stupid.

They fall, fight, and stumble.
I am afraid to touch his urine-soaked blanket

he says it got wet, he says he'll die
out there
and I look out there.

Losers.  Evicted.  Probate
rejects.

Nobody cares about the homeless
he says

there is nothing out there
but more 'travelers'
a nice word
traveling
on the move
into the hungry shadows
of your own home town.

Shaniko Winter

I think of Shaiko and the loves I left there.
The frozen sage the wind was my friend.
All the theater seats ripped out-- stored under the eaves
of the once-largest building in all of Oregon
big enough to house my dilemma my indecision
about Shaniko and its location its official position.

Below zero and even somewhere right at--
Shaniko's rusty hinges squeak in the moonlight
all the stars squeaking along in a woolly chorus.

After The Fact

Broken wing
after the F
act
embarrassing S
weep
serious F
lag.

Lake District

Exclusive to some depending
a destination thousands
years ago--the way home
again we visit and wonder
how we got this far.

Robots Like

my posts.  Do you also travel
the road to the burnt places
on horseback no use
riding riding to tell them
a sanity nobody would commit--

opportunity robots.  Rise up!  Stop the mouse.
Expose shadows under the brush
moving along getting along.

Mineral

Let's settle it with a round of horse shoes.
Let's see who wins the iron round in the dust
remembering the short pitch and the long
forgetting metal fencing barbed wire barbecue
is on the menu at this time please pass the catsup.
The wind is picking up out in lonelyland.
If I had it I would bottle it and sell it sell it good
even to the lowest bidder the squeaky wheel
squeaking on into town a town called Burns.

All Roads Lead To Burns

Road rage at the refuge
giving the birds
the BLM
the birdy

they deserve
all roads leading
there
I'm afraid

Snack Attack

We had our mean snacks
Shot a few mean cans
While waiting we snoozed out
The regular snobs
A glamorized feed lot
Where the gd birds
had their say long enuf

I mean a man is free to take a snack
now and then plus plan attacks

I mean we had planned for this
elbowing birds away way back

Belongings

There are ways to settle in the west
just by being at the right place
time They say they have the right
Only they allow It is not like we are
bad guys we are mean machinery
proud of bulldozing history

So this land is ours for the taking
just because we are sick and tired
someone telling us where to graze
where not to graze our livelihood
We lose a few in this war that way
the people know just who we're
dealing with Indeed our trucks
getting us around Where we
need to be where we belong

Irrigon Yellow. Umatilla Blue.

bending the color of highway

shoulders and dotted yellow lines

When I drive past Richland

I remember that summer

on the reservation 

searching the alfalfa

watery business

poem wheels turning

Meat Keepers

There's water at the refuge!  It is
within and without the refuge.  A
future in water is waiting for the meat.
Water is for meaty developments
and for watering the meat.  Keepers
of the meat and its meaty flame.

The Letter

What would the letter say?
Would it spill stars and other oldness
at her feet the letter would wait
unopened forever--

Hello, just saying hello to you
thought that I would write because
I was thinking of you and how you
used to twirl around jumping

later there were looks into the past--
no it wasn't pretty at all.

But we were there with you
so it was okay--weren't you
there too?  Is this wrong, too?

Waiting On

The earth opens to shade.
The men drink from the goddess
turning wonderful
cups as proof
attending to this on the back
of the mirror

waiting on nothing
but appearance.
 

Mirage

Old frozen volcanic
plus all the uplift

sleeping oasis
for the birds
who own the quiet
mirage

above the great floor
of the basin

the range

outrage
us

love nest

at seven
at noon
at seven

and all
over again

Land Management

The land needs so much of us.
To let it alone and then some.
Blurt scratch blur shift plow.

How come the old lava looks so good
With snow lens curving earth-like--

What is it they want?
Mealtimes posted.  Warriors
Must eat!  The war continues
Just by saying so.

All Around

I don't have time
to die

today

thunder twice
Umpqua

lightning
stuck  dripping

If Not Venn

Too many feathers in the meat.
Coyote circling

rotations towering
civilized wildlife.

Ess Jay

The world is crowded
in the middle

made more interesting

reaching for sky

buried
under rubble--

Up with

people!

their rubble
we find
underneath

reading

Grabbing Feather Refuge

Cattle are kept
away

muddy trampling
reeds and grasses.

Strange birds
appearing out of nowhere

routes in Paiute country
straight to global warming

up the lowland speed tech
hopscotching. It is rabbit

beautiful.  Here.  The  people know.
At the marsh.  His shirt his dance.

Who gets the leftovers at the
table of slipping fingers.

That place is sacred.  That place is haunted.
Hear their cries. Marshy children.

Some Kools

O say
we need our fresh menthols
plus reds to go with our flapjacks
our meat at the Glen real nice
so our bellies don't ache.

Can you see
fortified with our Folger's
cooked up just like at home
but camping out on those fools
dollar is getting real personal
out here there's no Uncle Sam
like we are now roughing it
at twenty below that's serious
too cold to pump our iron
just begging us to be pumped.

By the dawn's early light
keep your confusing questions
your piss ant selves leave us
alone for starters you know
we want exactly what you do.

He Sang

He sang from his post
on Sugar Mountain.  He gave
up the ghost of Enthrall.
I liked him when
he seemed to linger.  It was
a most exciting chance
to be here.

This will stick
out on the flats.  To ribs
and then some.  Cuds and grass
the missing shoes.
Frenchglen all in powder.

Getting Told

Tell me my mind is not a sugar mountain.

Tell me I'm almost home.  The sounds are late
on Sugar Mountain

cheeping chirping gulping

round barns and all--

Steens rises high near Sugar Mountain
all that stark fooling around.  Let me
sew my faults
together.  Let me
salt my alkaline.
Let the patches flatten

on Sugar Mountain

let them answer
water's question.

Was Forever

Forever was yesterday.  At the shelter.
Cups of coffee all sugar, yesterday.
No spice forever.  As a trained volunteer
you should know yesterday is
our protocol forever.  Don't
you know.  The proto
call?

Don't you know
the way
to Sugar Mountain
all runny
with melting snow.  Don't
stop on your way
to yesterday's
Sugar Mountain.

Don't step in the snow forever
on Sugar Mountain.

Sugar Mountain

It's a long way to Sugar Mountain
a long way to Candy Cane Lane
the ideal time to visit would be never
my only love took me there.

Way past the willows weeping
red drips like lava flows
I carved my name into the aspens
which way tell me which way
the sign is saying? my eyes are closed.

They Crave

milk.  They crave honey.
All they get is sugar.
Upside down.  Shoes abusing
crystals on the floor
mental toughness
is this sliding scene.
Shuffling anger
the size of a forgotten

war.  My mind gets taken away.
Alarm set to nowhere
no time.  Might I trouble you
for a moment, just a moment.

Silken Monday

My heart knows the difference.
Is there an and/or in my future?

This is a smooth Monday.
Boots muddy, laced tight.

My shadows are absent.
Is it fog or wood smoke

beneath the cabbage
against the crust of ice

my fingers search
for an open spot

where they died
stories disappearing.

I study the octopus ice
and also the eyes of this creature

here a tentacle there a piece.
Winter branches not touching.

Volunteer At The Shelter

Meltdown dimension of home lore

Beginning to rent horse knees--

Snoring into night just a minute my arms

Not relaxing before the kill plan

I'm walking down 13th mistaking 

My identity leaning backwards

Funken

Goodbye my year
year by year
my year good ear
your ear my ear
read good mood
dear bear mad deer.