Religious Extremists

Religious Extremists

The revolution
means nothing to them without the supplication.
        They love luster. They purify heretics’ hopes
           Into old orthodoxy, and then march over the mass
              mourners.


Shining veins of gold
purified down to the shape of an obedient mold.
         as if personal conviction in religious
            matters an ideological  idiosyncrasy , which


devoutly devours
dissent. As for white doves, I can barely dream hours
           of one’s visiting upon them, but to query
             the resemblance of the journey is futile, if they survive.

Steinke's Indian Maiden

      
Steinke’s Indian Maiden


        Steinke’s maiden stares at the smug faces of suitors
a gentle mind; she smiles through eyes

         the shape of almonds, oval, mysterious
enough to contain the secrets of grandmothers

        who simplify tradition, crafted into artistry
for artistry’s sake, focused to foreground or blurred,

        unique, as though  the painter’s brush so hypnotized
by light the folklore has burnished into canvas, and left a mark

         multiplied by generations of ancients that haunt
the minds of youth by likeness, the way the mirror shows likeness

        in the face, the way the eye usually traces
ancestral visages in reverse, a twinning effect

        that shadows, shooting black rays like arrows
into the pliable cerebral cortex; it demands

        a context, the context of culture, that we may peer inside
the maiden’s throbbing heart, her traditions, carefully nurtured

        like eaglets flying high and low with the elevations
of current blowing into every feather

        of the wing, infused  with renewed energy, so that the now
reflects the regenerations, like a tracing of a portal in a pond.


        

To an Enigmatic Woman

To an Enigmatic Woman

Piecing her puzzle on
The table an odd shaped
Section in her hand

It feels right to her
It feels right
to her. It feels
right to her

You can see it by
the way she places
the piece exactly
seated in the blank space

Satisfied
a chevron of white geese
seeming to cover the table
It feels right to her

Gus

Click here for My reading of the poem

Gus

I think of you, because I bought a new chair-
A big over-stuffed armchair to massage muscles
And comfort chilled bones on cold winter nights
By the glowing fire.

I think of your sad eyes begging for love,
Your black, wet nose sniffing my arm,
Your mauve coat warming my feet,
Your throaty growl when ignored.

I think of your floppy ears coming to attention
As deer in the yard raid the crabapple trees.
I think of your wagging tail thumping the ground
Like a drumstick, beating joy at the sight of my
Pickup entering the driveway, a one-dog
Welcoming band.

I think of all our chats from my old chair
Stories of fishing, love, travel, dreams-
Tales of woe, adventure and failure;
The secrets that only you and I shared.
I will think of you always, but
The new chair won’t be the same
Without you old friend.

Moving Between Two Worlds

Moving Between Two Worlds

I lose myself, processing words of thought.
A swirl, the mind’s black hole collapses
the screen as I dance across the keyboard.
Dusted off words fly from fast fingers,
lines between the skin and dream dissolve,
mining the shadow and the source, they merge.

Writing becomes automatic. Ideas merge
like friendly spirits who never thought
to hesitate with writer’s block-collapses,
never felt grief as new ideas dissolve,
stuck in hackneyed phrases on the keyboard.
Affable angels guide these furious fingers.

Words, palabras, mots, foreign fingers-
lexis of fresh, fertile delta loam, merge
Ouija-like from a mystical keyboard.
A spectator to the journey of my thoughts.
I stare through the glass as ice dissolves.
Word and phrase, each on each collapse.

From rubble, newness arises from the collapse
of dead dreams; massages with magical fingers
sore ideas. Intractable pain dissolves.
Old, new mythologies meld and merge,
blend truth and fiction, follow thought.
Fabulous realities fresh from the keyboard.

A laying-on of hands at head of keyboard,
a faith healer’s blessing after collapse,
restores lost souls to purity of thought.
Resurrects through the tips of fingers
heavy hearts, before they dissolve
Into deadly dry days and merge

without song or verse-simply merge,
like hypnotic hordes across my keyboard.
At the quiet of my desk, I collapse,
surrender in solitude, dissolve
into downward distance of my thought,
touching lightly with trembling fingers

time that collapses, disappears, dissolves
as fingers move across the keyboard,
thoughts merge shadow and source.

Peace Dreams

My Reading of Poem

Peace Dreams

Let us ride on the backs of heroic souls
              Where the brave, olive-helmeted soldiers play
On danger’s turf, with their shadowy foes
               Amidst fragile people who kneel and pray.

None of our thoughts will be nearer than death
               We will ride upon morning-doves smiling with peace.
We will make us a tent from an angel’s breath
               And stand at ease in the mourning breeze

                                  II

Let us ride on the banks of cool, clear rivers,
               Columbia and Missouri and Rogue and Deschutes,
Chanting our praises in high, lucid mountain quivers,
               Like shamans mimicking the Great Spirit-Owl’s hoots

None of our dreams will be harder than war
              Clad in the blood or gore, if you wish,
We will watch the black mouth of the thunderstorm roar
               And feast upon berries and bright silver fish

                                III

Let us ride where the moonlight shimmers on the water
               In the silent, sleepy sea, let us find ourselves
Let us pray by the dawn’s early light, with a brother
              And a wind song of worship, played by the elves

In our dreams, in our prayers, we shall see, we shall feel
              The steady drumbeats of our hero-soldier’s tolls.
We will drift away where the forest protects and shields
              And smoke the peace pipe from long-stemmed bowls.

Around the Bright Fire

Keith Sings the Poem

Aroound the Bright Fire

Around the bright fire, fire so warm
Sit yerself down pard, It’ll do you no harm
            It’ll do you no harm pard, It’ll do you no harm
            Sit yerself down pard, It’ll do you no harm

If you feel lonely, sit fer a spell,
And I’ll tell you a story, make you feel swell
            Make you feel swell, pard, make you feel swell
            I’ll tell you a story, make you feel swell

Around the bright fire, warming our hands,
Telling my tales, here’s where it stands:
             Here’s where it stands, pard, here’s where it stands,
             Telling my tales, here’s where it stands

In darkness she left me, that cold winter night,
Never could figure, try as I might
             Try as I might, pard, try as I might
             Never could figure, try as I might

Bought me a stallion sixteen hands high
Riding to forget under Montana sky:
            Under Montana sky, pard, under Montana sky
            Riding to forget under Montana sky

Bear in a trap, pal, bear in a trap,
Crying for freedom, feeling like crap
            Feeling like crap, pard, feeling like crap
            Crying for freedom, feeling like crap

Remember my face, remember it well,
I hope when we meet, pard, it won’t be in Hell:
             It won’t be in Hell, pard, it won’t be in Hell
             I hope when we meet it won’t be in Hell

Army Camp

Army Camp

Although they are not old enough
The young men have left their homes
As if going to summer camp
And hidden in their mother’s hearts
There is a silent weeping
There is a silent foreboding
That even the faithful dogs feel
As though all joy left with their masters
On the tarmac that airport afternoon
In one, spontaneous, fell swoop.

Why are the Imams chanting?
And who prays on the marble floor
With the grit of blowing sand today?
-generating a fanatic fervor
Beneath a golden dome
Echoing over and over a mantra
“Allah Akbar! God is great!”

Is “Allah Akbar”, Is “God great”
By echoing over and over a mantra?
Beneath a golden dome
Generating a fanatic fervor
With the grit of blowing sand
And praying on a marble floor,
Why are the Imams chanting?
In one spontaneous fell swoop
On the tarmac that airport afternoon
As though all joy left with their masters
That even the faithful dogs feel
There is a silent foreboding
There is a silent weeping
Hidden in their mother’s hearts.
As if going to summer camp
The young men have left their homes
Although they are not old enough,

To kill and die in the scorching desert.

Living Half Full in the Desert

Living Half Full in the Desert

This neighborhood isn’t home
No trees, rivers, lakes, mountains,
Meadowlarks, lilacs, deer, antelope
Elk, grizzlies, ranches, cowboys
Cows, sheep, pigs, wheat, sorghum,
Barley, rye, sweetgrass, bitterroot,
Agate, arrowheads, gold, Blackfeet,
Charlie Russell, Giant Springs
Little Belt, Augusta Rodeo, Hussman’s
Billards, big sky, Mike Mansfield and
Grandparent’s headstones, Mother’s love.
Home , home on the range!

An August Day in 1945 Remembered

My Reading of Poem
An August Day in 1945 Remembered

Hell hath no fury like a “Little Boy” scorned
Inch by inch he wreaks havoc
Raining neutrons and protons
Origami fireballs, radiate over
Scorched earth- a leukemic
Holocaust erases generations,
Immolates Rising Sun worshippers,
Melts the skin of an emperor’s children-
Another day, another bombing run.

Ambidextrous

Ambidextrous

To fall
From grace and
Re-gain credibility
A delicate high wire balance
Requires dexterity
To remain
upright

Chemical Warfare

Listen to my reading

Chemical Warfare

Invisible serpents
Pharmacological demons
Disguised as wise men
Bearing evil gifts
Squirm into open arms
Of unwary children
Wreaking destruction
And death deadlier
Than the holocaust,
Hiroshima or
Nagasaki. Deadlier
Than the twin towers,
Deadlier than Baghdad
Bombs, Beirut bullets,
Burning, charred buildings.

By day and night they
Slither, like snakes in
Eve’s garden, poisonous
Fangs probe fruit of
Fertile minds, replace
Hope with despair, love
With hate, good with evil.
Transformational venom-
Words like indifferent,
Inert, sluggish, soggy
Apathetic, slow- form
Torpid frogs, stuporous
Beings, pale zombies.

Eve has tasted
New Eden’s luscious
Fruit and again awaits
Expulsion from “Paradise”!
  

But Hes Such a Nice Man Margaret

But He’s Such a Nice Man Margaret!

She doesn’t know me
As I was before she came
My skin was blue
My hair was green
And my teeth were yellow.
The eye in the center
Of my forehead frightened
Even the soundest of souls.
My sins were black, my
Secrets dark, my thoughts evil.

She knows the now-me,
Fun-loving, church-going, next-
Door- neighbor, part time-lover,
Gentle-soul, who wouldn’t Dream
Of harming the most heinous
Creatures, let alone innocent
Children, who follow me
Like rats dancing
to the tune of Pan’s Pipe.
I shine in the light of day.
A license for deceit, my
New persona fits well.
Next victim! Caveat Emptor!




.

Choir on the Rogue River

My reading

Choir on the Rogue River

Breaking the mouth
Of the jetty with their
Sea lice-laden gills

The chrome steelhead
Are boiling
In the river now

Swimming upstream
Straight for the gravel
Where by now

Rods and beaks poise
In expectation, the men
On the bank burst

Into song- a fisher’s
Choir, celebrating
Eternal Spring