Medicine Jar – for Kokopalien

Medicine jar sits

Upon Sedona window sill

Still.

Leave your shoes, feel the earth, we share

the autumn blood moon, but blood roots no…

But we know:

Over the road, Mrs. Daly’s ponies run wild,

Salt-rock rounds grapevine trespasses,

Goldfish, in koi-pond pool-side, hide from

Large black dog on guard,

Tetherball circles pole, chain clacking

Bumper-pool balls rack and roll,

BB-guns air-pumped,

Pepop, Pepop we know we knew,

Foreign currencies pinned to the wall

Downstairs, kids play out the holiday, circles

Our memory as the blood moon circles

The earth we share.

Kokopalien circles the court

On his mongoose

with two mag rims.

Catching Air – for Josh Derksen

One by one, under streetlamp light, we took turn
at the makeshift ramp (if only Life was built upon
broken stumps and plywood scraps). With our hearts

in our throats, steadfast our grip, we charged our bikes
at slanted fate with surging awe and untamed naivety, 
peddled fast, as though our lives depended upon it;

some of us, failing to launch, unable to handle
the weight, followed the bars over, falling, while
some of us, with the gift of strength, of knowing

when and how to pull up, caught elated air, felt
the rush of being alive before the cold wind whipped
bliss into tears. A few of us, those who had the

deepest hearts, the gift of grace in their stride, and the
love of us all in their pocket, those friends rose above
and never came back down.

The Present

Together we tethered Pop’s yellow rope
to the highest branch; over creek-side cove,
dared cow-patty poison-oak, barbed-wire fence
post tripped, we slogged o’er goat-trails like young goats,
dipped bridge-belly side, stopped twice for the ducks
riding the current. We felt the present.
Ray-Ray’s handlebars, vintage chrome, we used
to construct the meanest fuckin’ rope-swing
a soul’d seen. Climbed tree-up to launch; its arch
bowed beyond Heaven, the mind’s grasp, bough-bent
to the weight of Jesus Christ hair and beer,
(bottles of Draft snug in gray creek-grass mud)
under foot and sway, holding on, for Life,
and you grinning there in the thick of it.

Buckaroo

Poppa used to blow-dry our hair;

sisters and I would sit as bathed pups

upon our family-room floor.

With slow care, he’d pull through wet locks

his black barbershop comb.

Under towel wrap, thick orange shag

clenched our naked butts. When

Poppa would yank, we’d dig hard our small heels

and snarl.

Avon blower, warming our heads, held attachments

to help detangle knots but

that’s not how he’d had it

in the Nam;

slow till of the hills tending for punji pits

careful not to brush up dap loi mines.

Mom scooped Rocky Road into blue tupper-

ware;

called my sisters chickadees,

called me Buckaroo.

This explains a lot about Emily…

I saw this today and got a kick out of it. Thought I’d share. Cheers~

By Pound

Under posh lamplight I

unzip my urgency ‘n

piss all meaning through

thick drifts of feral snow

albondigas

bayou hallways

hallways bayou

lion bayou

hiss concubine

           magnesium monkey Cirrus, warm

           cathedral dirt, crisp

           swamp shrubbery, bayou

Boo! Boo! vampire bayou

hallways

lion bayou, hallways       fluttering

lavender coyote-clown feathers, whisper

hiss whisper, hiss

hiccup

hiss memory fractured

hiss vapid maelstrom     hurricane

fiasco, hiss

bayou

hiss meteor cage

memory fractured, hiss

fences’ boulders

fractured hiss memory

hollow

hiss guillotine glittering

crackerjack, hiss lion

hiss whip-

(poor)

-will recliner

hiss concubine

          warm, Cirrus magnesium monkey

          hiss meteor cage

lion         bayou

hiss lion        bayou

                       hallways

hallways

bayou

hiss lion

hiss dirt.

Grand Moff Tarkin

Grand Moff Tarkin

Once, rising star of the Imperial Construct:

known for his goal-driven project

management methodology over the course

of the Death Star build-out; despite its short life –

the successful recruitment of Darth Vader;

and lesser known, his being the sole strategist of the high yielding and resourcefully

 prosperous stormtrooper

outsourcing program, and scandalously uncovered,

no longer myth, that being his being

the chief commanding architect of the Imperial Destroyer sub-leasing

initiative,

has resigned today.

The Empire wants us to believe he was simply ready to retire.

However, the Alliance Ledger’s new narrative has cited him as saying,

“Imperial Management has lost its conviction. Once a universal threat, hungry

for power and strict order, has lost itself in a cosmic cloud

of intellectual properties. It’s focus on rule

through merchandising and distribution is not in alignment with

our value code and in fact, has become

too ‘Mickey Mouse’ for me to support.”

SL #2

Dark Roast comes from a place

That few will go

Unless they have in them

 A resilient desire

To find a bean that offers more

poetic richness and depth

than the lighter roasts dare

to dream for but forever

elusive;

setting the dial to a less distinct quality

and an honest but somewhat forgetful aroma

Unlike yours, if you try

Harder than a coffee bean

Don’t try. Do.

SL #1

Belief, you see,

                Believes in dreams,

Believes in me,

                As the air you breathe-

                As the wings take shape               –

We’re the same, only you

                Have yet

to find the name

One day soon, you

won’t help but you

will see, that the day that comes, comes from me

                And I give them all to you, with a tenacity that cannot be forgotten.