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.