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.

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 New poems on the way!

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.

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.

-->

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.

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.

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.

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.