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.