Thursday, December 03, 2020

Zeit Bis Zum Ziel


Time is ticking, the old clock on the
Mantle, the digital clock on your phone
Following the same pattern. Tonight the
Conjunction of outer planets means
nothing except the universe is intact
For millennia. Which we will not see.
Because they’ve figured out your frame
They do not know the skies show
An earlier picture, locked on distance
Locked on time. But yet I am one to ask
You look up at the sky, remember its patterns: some nights nothing but the gray clouds.







 New poems on the way!



Monday, May 06, 2019

May 6, 2019


Now the war
Comes among us
Like a rusty
Chain. Ships
In the Gulf, bombers
Fueled and ready to go.
For all the bluff
Bustle, and deployment
We mean to
Shake the Persian
World for they have
Bombs like us
That could ruin
A continent. Then,
There’s the addiction
To oil. Someone out there
Has conquered this
Technology. But who?
Atoms stray around
Asking to be chosen.
I’m gonna start
Typing stuff. Like how
It’s green and the cardinals
Are mating and there are
A few Swifts sewing long
Parabolas against the sky.


Saturday, March 16, 2019

Success Logging You In


Suburban-blasted H. thought it was gonna be difficult
to stand among the medaled
and talk about a grey old nurse & father
to Ginzy while no one expected much.
Such was the union of souls back then:

a grey time, no allowances and the Union
Kept together by a thread. Still, he worked
everyday even if was just reading
the sad poems of post-adolescence.
Those he marked with black pen,

in handwriting to hard to read. He blamed
some odd neurological disease he couldn’t pronounce.
These days, these days. News he
could never come back alright,
news he could not begin the flight.

-->

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

There were those


There were those
who paid attention
to the old
texts which meant
nothing to most.

In those texts
the story of our errors
our incompleteness 
and the danger we wove
around us, called Hubris
by the Greeks.  The freaks
in the class know, but others
of you who read my words now
didn't know the elders’ words
were like gold:  this civilization
will end.  Greed and monstrous

ignorance crowns every empire.
But you didn't get it.  You
wrote notes about 
the football game
drew pictures of Eagles
swooping from the mountains.
Nothing is lost 
to the old ghosts
of your notebooks

inhabiting the hallways.
Of Herodotus they
still whisper and the
wars, the wars, the
wars we went over.  But
there is nothing
important there.  The teachers 
taught to atomic dust.  
For those of us
who remember
it is late.


Monday, November 12, 2018

El Doctor

The dr discovered in
His alcoholic haze
He had no regrets
Didn't spin all day in
Self accusation
It quieted his crazy
Mind which had
Turned paranoid,

solipsistic and the body
A hermit asleep behind
His books. Reaching you
He says, "the pain
Is horrific, mental,
Worse than a broken
Hand. Leave me thou
In this pain state and I will
Go away. Sleep will
The hummingbird
Acquire and be in sweet."

12 Years

Twelve years, the time it takes
Jupiter to transit its own plane
Round the sun. And there are
False prophets about: fists, torches
Like it’s 1938. Am I to tell you
To give up the sky
For the politics of a dying
Planet, with so many infected
By hatred or indifference?
I keep telling myself
This is not my world
Not my Cadillac not
The road I thought of
thirty years ago. You,
You who have made escape
Impossible, well, some of us
Are too old to fight. I tried
To drive today
Made it home in one piece.
Tonight the planets are
Supposed to surprise me.

New Mexican space warriors

What a hectic
Fuckin ride it’s
Been: from cheap
Rural outcast
Un bronco
From Gallup
Un chilero
From Hatch
Twin worlds
That no one
Wanted. There
Were the rough
Albuquerque schools
And the shallow waters
Of UNM. I’m a brown
Guy. I didn’t expect
To go anywhere.
O here I am teaching
Poetry and the apocalypse
Teaching dignity and acceptance.
On the one hand
It may be the case
I am wrong and I am free.
On the other, the ace
Of spades tells me
It will always change, forever.
We want to strive for this, but
Institutional and cultural
Walls keep us apart: imagine
The 18th century and oak boards
Separating sleepers and lovers
All night. That’s your representation.

Monday, June 26, 2017

Songs for the displaced: 1


There is
Terror in
The morning
Especially the
Summer when
The light lasts
The sun springs
Up at 630.  Counted
A thousand
Stars before that.
When I wake
I'm scared
My muscles 
Twitch in
Witchy circles
I bolt from bed like
A crazy baker
Trying to save
A burning 
Cake he left
In the oven
Overnight.  My 
Dreams consist
Of ex lovers 
Traveling in
Large semis,
Impossible buses
And aeroplanes.
We're always left at the
Same place:  a lame
Ranch house
Below the Sandias
Where we find 
Curios, maps, jewelry 
That costs a fortune.
But the machine
Is always broken,
We cannot 
Go anywhere. 
There is the shaking
The hard shaking
In my legs and arms
As I wake consider
My day:   A long
Drawn out sun,
Some rain after 
A walk, stop
Running away.


Thursday, December 01, 2016

Pitchfork

This hammered out darkness
has been here for while.  I’m
reminded to recall darker
ages. but I hadn’t expected
the fall to whittle me away
shredded, carved, discarded.

About those ages:  young
I picked the apple tree & dreamt
of leaving,  packing up
books, towels, credenzas
in a truck that was going
somewhere I’d expected
but somehow didn’t know:

it’s the time, dear one, to
make decisions.  The wind & rain
have come on strong.
Sheltered as you are,
someone has written doom
somewhere in a book more
like the symphony of humanity
scored by the devil, odd
notes and a trail of codas
as it becomes a sequence

of sirens going off in the night.

Light in La Jornada del Muerto

The daemon of Southwestern
light wove in and out
of the thick summer clouds.
Now the war’s been going on
For 70 years, at least.  Even Bear
saw the happenings—the
last beat-down on the rez
made him sick.  If you start
to lecture about the future
you’ll lose.  Nothing cuts
through times that
no longer exist, perchance
perhaps a page from a book

radioactive, not yet
burned for warmth
the war in that phase
a deliberate attempt
to break the mad ones
down, making new
made mad ones only this
time with other enemies

who I shall not mention
For the State is large
on me these days, heavy
as canvas sacks filled
with depleted uranium. 
And what to fear.