The Son Also Rises

The Son Also Rises

I am from the Big Sky,
from ghost towns and silver dollars
I am from the fumes of the smelter smokestack
(proud, towering
it stood like a phallus)
I am from the succulent bitterroot,
the meadowlark
whose wake-up songs like reveilles
set summer mornings in motion

I’m from beer and billiards
             from Emerson and Paris Gibson
I’m from Black Eagle Falls
              from Anaconda Copper
from coal mines and hard winters
I’m from the glory of the west
              where they love me best
               and still know my name

I’m from Myron and Ines’ tree
pot roast and russet potatoes
from the orphanage of my grandfather
                In Twin Bridges
the pain of my father’s sudden leaving
Beside my bed is a shoebox
bulging with old photos
a blur of past faces
that drift before my eyes
I am from these visages-
sepia tones taken before my dawning-
progeny of proud pioneers

Waiting for Your Answer

Waiting for Your Answer

Night
sullen and unfriendly
breathing heavily
as on a respirator.
If only the walls could talk!

From Tee to Green

From Tee to Green

The hole
tiny and round
sloping gently
liked a cocked head.
If only golf were basketball

The Purple Devil

The Purple Devil


Interrupted by incoming mortars
Our messenger chat hesitates,
Holds its breath,  
Listens to silence
The turquoise pawn
Blinks its burning eyes
Waiting for the knight
To reappear announcing
An enemy’s demise

This war, a first
Where instant messages
Reach moms and dads
as rockets explode overhead-
a technological war
a war of blinking cursors,
messenger chats,
battlefield dialogues
of Civilians and warriors
This is a war
where e-mails detail
yesterday’s close calls,
dead comrades, bloody gore

The orange rectangle
flashes, signals return
a “Whew almost got us”
neatly typed
in the blank box
followed by a smiley face-
a purple cackling devil. We
chat of Notre Dame,
The Raiders, Tiger woods.
Our time is up.
I pray
at the altar
of the blank screen
another Sleepless sleep,
waiting for
The cackle
of tomorrow’s
purple devil

The Gift

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The Gift

In quiet moments
He cocks the hammer
Of his brutality

Waiting for the target
To rest before
He pulls the trigger

She obliges, off-guard
A rabbit caught in crosshairs
Of his cruelty

His words penetrate
Her heart
Like a sniper’s bullet

The thirtieth anniversary
She buys his gift
From the gun shop

The River

Click link to hear reading of the poem


The River

In spring
over the jetty
the bright fish
brawl the tide’s
muscular wave
avoiding
adroitly
the current’s undertow,
the pelican’s pouch,
the sea lion’s jaws,
to spawn
new life.
I don’t know
if they know
their destinies.
I don’t know
if they know
their final fate.
Up the river
the pools and the dams
give a brief respite.
Up the river
the osprey cries out.

Up the river
the osprey cries out.
The fish know
this is the osprey’s river,
this is river of death,
this is the river of suffering
where you swim and swim,
where you live by tides of the moon,
where you end on the beds of gravel
and they cannot feel your flesh
where life has no meaning  
and is neither just nor merciful.

Where life has no meaning,
and is neither just nor merciful,
it begins
to decay,
it begins
to shed like the casing
of a snake.
At the gash of the gills
the old skin rots.
The fish shudders
but does not falter.
She rolls over.
She releases her red eggs
like bubbles.

Totem Poles and Watermelon Rinds

Totem Poles and Watermelon Rinds


Never caring enough
to cry, They did
what they always do,
pigeonhole skin, every
skin a color
black watermelon rinds,
yellow dragon kites,
brown sleepy sombreros,
red totem poles, all
contained within a canvas
of the white space
in the pale painter’s world
a canvas divided by
degrees of intolerance
arranged on a bias
a particular slant of light
a diagonal, avoiding
sharpness of right angles
Not caring enough
To cry, they do
what they always do
paint with the same brush
from the same angle
shading their particular
slant of light,
avoiding sharpness.

Chokecherry Picking Time

Chokecherry Picking Time.

My cousins pick wild
Chokecherries. Baskets full of the ripe ones
The others are left to mature on the bush
.
Finishing the harvest, they return
While my aunt boils water and sterilizes
Jars on her old wood stove

We had to pick em quick
Before those critters came, she tells me.
She’s right. When the first frost comes

Black bears lumber down the mountain
Seeking succulent jams and jellies
To spread on pancake dreams.

Bill Clintons Ways

Bill Clinton’s Ways

Bill Clinton’s ways
Deserve no praise
With “that woman I did not do
The nasty thing, though I wanted to”!

Bearings

              
        
               Bearings

           My thoughts float out of their caves
   Into the blinding light of sun. Why do I cry?
   Words tell me what to do. I see and I am blind.
    I fill my heart with food and my heart sings.

So Much Depends upon a Broken Windshield

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So Much Depends upon a Broken Windshield

Nightmares awaken, and I remember
again my father’s goodbye,
Vivid images of exhaust smoke
trailing an old Kenworth, diffuse
as wisps of black clouds, a gathering
storm of gloom circling my fear. Before
leaving he forgave me for tossing
the ball through a windshield, for
disappearing after school one day, and
for those things that 6 yr olds somehow
manage to get into when they shouldn’t.
Only fathers can absolve these sins. Like
Jesus, his hand placed upon on my head, he
exonerated with a promise to return soon.
A broken promise.
With a new life, a new wife, new children the word
disposable became meaningful long before
aluminum cans, paper diapers, plastic bags.
Forty decades after forgiveness, forty dark years of denial
he reappeared one Easter Sunday
during resurrection service.
A sad old uncle seeking exculpation for lost years
I the son became the father.
We embraced, dined and played with grandchildren,
said our goodbyes, promised to reunite.
A broken promise
Maybe   just maybe
if I hadn’t shattered that windshield
he might    just might
have stuck around.

Bad Beat

Bad Beat

I am delirious
My heart palpitates
Palms sweat
Regal kings peer from the pocket
like seers casting certain fate
The grizzled veteran slides chips forward
I hesitate, announce “All in”!
The table folds like fresh laundry
He smiles, declares “I call”!
Kings lovingly embrace queens
One, two, three the flop-
a benign wind I am safe
The turn shows nine, no threat
Slowly the dealer rolls the river
card and I drown in a tear
of the red queen’s knowing eye.

Touching the Heart

Touching the Heart

Touching the heart
    can’t be taught
        in workshops
           where wistful poets
                wish for words
                    of wisdom

Touching the heart
      can’t be learned
         in schools
            with algebra equations
                 scrawled on boards
                     of black boron

Touching the heart
       takes tears tossed
           in anger
              where mother’s dead
                 babies lie sleeping
                     in fresh graves
          

Osama's Promise

Osama’s Promise

A mosh pit of Muslims
Frenzied fedayeens bang

bodies feverishly
Crazy kamakazis-

Diving planes of fanaticism
Wild Wahabiists

Frenzied children of Allah’s
distortion dance in open

Mosque squares like purple-
haired teens slamming

to Dancing Outlaw insanity
Puffing chests, explosive vests

moshing madly with a promise
To fuck 72 hairy virgins

Crescendo

Crescendo

Violent violins vacate
My vile heart
A symphony of virtue

Soothes my sad soul
Music surrounds the solarium
Of the psyche

The tympanic heart trembles
Bold tunes beat rhythmically
Courses blood flowing

Through pulsating fingertips
Anticipating your arrival
Creates a crescendo of love

Excuses

Excuses
My words
Wise and earthy
Lying lonely
Like dormant seeds
If only my laptop was alive

Cycle of Abuse

Cycle of Abuse

Crestfallen
hellish nights await her
Tears like flames
fail to burn away memories
scorched walls of yesterday
Where are the exorcists, the priests?
Indelible her suffering.
yet greater  her tolerance
for the tormentors of her spirit
Where are the guardians of serene sanity
lambs to wash away the sins of the world
extinguish tears of smoldering silence
slay the sloe-eyed misogynists?
Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.
She cries-
crestfallen.

Dealing with the Diagnosis

Dealing with the Diagnosis

Tiny tubes shrink away the shadows of her fear
Dealing with the diagnosis
Depends upon the depth of disaster
Small hope emboldens the darkest days

Dealing with the diagnosis, a train
Derailed chugging up the mountain
Small hope emboldens the darkest days
As rain resuscitates the wilting flower

Derailed, chugging up the mountain
Children’s voices refract the light
As rain resuscitates the wilting flower
Chemical tears shrivel the tumor’s growth

Children’s voices refract the light
Their melodies inject intravenously
Chemical tears shrivel the tumor’s growth
Drip by drip the poison slowly drops

Its melodies inject intravenously-
A nauseating song of restoration
Dealing with the diagnosis
Tiny tubes shrink away the shadows of her fear

Now that I'm Making My Own Way

Now that I’m making my own days

Broccolli      is delicious
Shopping      is entertaining
Girls with tattoos      are fun
Juan the gardener      is my friend

Now that I’m making my own days
I can fly      with no fear
I can write      with no wrong
I can love     with no hate
I can dance     with no steps

Now that I’m making my own days
You are mine     I am yours
I am yours     you are mine
We are together     we are apart
You are you     I am me

Music to My Ears

Click here to listen to poem
Music to My Ears

Sitting here quietly beside you
My ear against your soft, beating heart,
The sweet sax of Paul Desmond
Floating around us as in a trance,
As our thoughts drift beyond the room, and float
Out over the rooftops, silent-
So silent the now moves beyond us,
So silent, the clouds barely breathe,
So silent, our lives, full with the
Tunes and harmonies of love, our
Hands entwined, silent in their grip, hidden,
Our thoughts, calm, steady, predictable
With their intertwined digressions, the beat
In your heart kissing my ear, silently.

Poker Fleas

Poker Fleas

Pok
Er fleas
On green felt
Cling like leeches
Sucking infected blood
Preying on powerless suckerfish
Swimming against current
In unsuspecting schools
Of railbirds-
Fleas of
poker

Legends

Legends

Lives sanctioned by years
Years sanction life
One’s life, sanctioned by years
Years endorse life
Years endorse living
Years, signatures of having lived
Legends endorsed by signatures of years
Live on, sanctioned by time
Sipping twilight

First Poop

Poop
Originally uploaded by hombreciego.

Suri Cruise's bronze casting

Suri's First Casting Call

Suri’s First Casting Call

Holy shit! Crap! Your
first poop Baby Cruise,
immortalized in bronze!
So snooze, my child
don’t you cry
the turd assures
you will not die.
Nutso Daddy’s played the
fool, cast your poos
instead of shoes,
cast your tiny excrement
into precious sentiment.
“Aw ain’t that cute”
friends will exclaim
as you try
to hide your shame
Don’t worry, Daddy Tom’s
not to blame
a victim
of a  vain fame game.
Nothing
can be sole or whole
that’s not been rent.
Crazy Jane was wise
to realize ”Love has
pitched its tent
In the place of
excrement.”