Poem for Friday, June 28, 2013

Two Lovers

In the hill country, the winding curves tend to lull me
to sleep. My dreams go like this:

Somewhere out there, two lovers are making love
in a pile of alfalfa hay while the sun cooks their
young limbs. When they finish, she curls into sleep
imagining how their children will look. He slips off
into the woods, treks a dry creek bed and cuts
his leg on a jagged rock. His blood forms a new
river.

Minutes later: the stink of dead coon. I awake then,
lost in an army of black-eyed Susans.

Poem for Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Nineteen Ninety-Seven

There was the time we sat on some brick steps
with an empty glass bottle between us. We
used it as a makeshift ashtray while cars with
broken mufflers shot north, while honeybees
selectively pollinated the hydrangeas, while
sweat greased the backs of our knees. You
asked me where I came from, so I said look
around, this is it, this is where I come from;
the highway in front of us, the pine sap
dotting the old Chevy. The red shutters, the
empty window boxes, the cloud formations
above proclaiming blood wars and summer
storms. I confessed to you the time I trapped
a bumblebee inside a mason jar turned
upside down against the grass and watched
it orbit frantically until it suffocated and the time
I ripped an earthworm in half before drowning
it in a five-gallon bucket of faucet water. I
have not played god since nineteen ninety-seven
but where do you come from, I asked. You
pointed towards a random spot, a random set
of coordinates in the atmosphere, indicating
you did not expect me to understand. It began
to drizzle then

Poem for Tuesday, June 11, 2013

The Indian Woman under the Tent, Name Unknown

Beneath a blue tarp
      not like the sky
she is saved from the sun
      not like the pines
canyon-swallowed in
      dark green surrender

in her chair, sitting
      red clay, gravitas
some southern tourists
      eye her wrinkles
finger the turquoise
       laid on her table

her daughter recites
      who carved the flutes
who made the jewelry
      breaks their fifties
and sends a message
      on her cell phone

if you were to ask
      she would explain
the eagle feather
      will guard your soul
and remain so delicate:
       like this

she would say words
      in her language
for you to repeat
      and smile childlike
at the blood on your
      fresh bitten tongue
     

Poem for Saturday, June 1, 2013

The American Southwest in Four Parts

I.

Entering and Leaving the Muskogee (Creek) Nation:

along the interstate is a row of dead
trees standing as ghosts among those green
and living. their branches imply they
died while dancing--wind-stripped and
painless. down further in an open field are
clusters of black cattle munching their
way through spring. there is nothing
else.

II.

Driving through a One-Horse Texas Town:

in Vega, TX exists one of the handful of
Shamrock gas stations left. across from it is
another gas station and across from it is
some kind of white silo or tower that
surrenders to the sun a little more each day.
across from it is a wooden building lettered with
'Saloon'. combine everything and what you have
is a lonely intersection.

III.

Cutting through the Land of Enchantment:

crossing the northeastern border is more
surreal with the radio on. the signal is aflame
and will crack-hiss until you find the first of
the four or five stations: mariachi band music.
spoiler alert: the others are honkytonk and classic
country. once upon a time, there were buckets
of blood spilled in this desert.

IV.

Cresting the Red Rock Formations in Sedona:

they are not mountains. mountains are formed
from upward thrusts of the earth. they are products
of sedimentation--erosion, wind, sand, clay, skin
and blood. there are two differences between us
and them; bones and the ability to endure time and
humanity. we shall never have the latter and they
have no need for the former. these are the things
to which we must succumb.