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.