I hold a blue mineral
colored as the turquoise sky
like an azurite dawn before sunrise.
or even the deep blue night
holding a silver moon.

A polished cabochon
of Chrysocolla emanates
the early spring morning glow
or a dreamlike trance
that clouds traverse.

My grandmother’s oxidized
silver ring, is inlaid with
Robin’s Egg Turquoise.
She purchased it in Kingman
back when Highway 66 was in its prime.
The blue of the turquoise resonates
her own beauty, and her age.

Pieces of Chrysocolla
Turquoise, and Azurite
unite shades of dense blue minerals.
The earth painted them
from her soul of desolate
rolling desert hills.

I wonder the lonely electric, internet abyss
twisting with uncertainty
while sifting through uncanny piles
of restless information.
Raw data wants to reach sheltered minds.
Screams are muted
in the static of internet space
choked by joyous or horrible manifestations.
Religious or progressive fanatics
stretch forth leery hands
to offer weary hopes.
In a shattered world,
tangled up in magic power lines
nothing is really safe.
Cities sit next to dark oceans
towns next to old landscapes.
The internet motor continues to purr.
I am waiting for the lights to go out.
For the story-telling TV to shut down.
For the quietness of the howling wind.
For shape-shifting shadows that
haunt human existence.

I’m the sandstone cliffs,
that overshadow cottonwood trees.
I’m the dark basin valley
that engulfs your little cabin.

The shrieking wind is my soul.
I am the wasteland
that gives you access
to sleepless dreams.

My age will outlast human eras.
My heart will sustain life forever.
My wisdom will never die.
My grace is endless, eternal beauty.

Rusty, painted figures
animate on yellow sandstone pallets-
made from red ochre
that endured forty centuries.
These supernatural beings
dance across the pallet.
They are living, breathing souls.
Trees grow from finger tips,
Antennas and tangled hair
sprout from alien heads
I feel the beating heart of the canyon.
I can feel their ghostly patterns.
What are they doing when nobody draws near?
They look without eyes,
Whisper at night.

Painted humans travel
across the rocks.
Headless human beings
hold hands, or connect feet.

I leave a gift, a coin,
Or something.

Eddie was the old banchee-like man
with a twisted, hairy face.
From town to town he went-
singing quiet to himself
along yellow grasses and highway.
Eddie says he’s the Bigfoot Man.
At night-time he sings,
while watching the ancient moon rise.
Over each belt of cloud,
and dark mesa dream.

An elderly woman sits above a sandstone canyon,
looking at the moon, in the shape of a cow’s horn.
Thin and silver, its rests behind clouds.
She deserted her home, before her children arrived
to haul her away to the rest home.
Looking into the darkness of cottonwoods below,
She listens to the tireless flow of the river,
traversing an ageless path towards the sea.
Her own children betrayed her.
They ignored her dreams,
with their busy cell-phone lives.

This canyon overlaps her age,
or the wrinkles of her skin.
Her mind became wise
from listening to the wind.
She sings a lullaby, she used to
sing her children to sleep.
Now she sings softly to the sandstone canyon.
Her rusty Studebaker is parked
near the scenic overlook sign.

She wants the silence and beauty, one last time?
before those blind bats take her away,
to the place you go to die, a junk yard,
where society dumps your useless days.
They forget to acknowledge your long journey.
Nobody listens to the
Deepness of Rivers anymore…

I WILL NOT accept the things I cannot change.
I’ll break the windows of everything I know!
I’ll listen to passionate dissidents.
I want to deconstruct civilization.

I’m tired of frivolous squares
forcing circles to become squares.
I’m sick of Uncle Sam
the greedy pig, smoking
his cigar on top of Mother Earth.

I’m sad, because I’m
sick of the beast.
Squeezed by the left and right
to follow their political lead.

All I want,
Is the safety of thunderstorms
and gentle rains
and windswept red deserts.

Give me a horse, or a mule.
I’ll become an old hermit
With beauty in his life
and the wasteland in his soul.

I know that the first three segments of my poem are a little cliche But I deleted this poem at first, because I received a negative reaction from both parents. Why should I hide or sugarcoat anything that inevitably doesn’t go well with some?

I’m waiting in autumn for you.
I’m freezing in the snow,
waiting for the unknown to dissipate,
so I can witness a dream untold.
Somewhere in canyon country, you are waiting.

I see your crystal eyes reflect
off canyon pools in summer,
but nothing is there…
It rouses me, like weeping.
Only the howling wind is heard.

Sharpened trees, slice the wind.
Sunglow illuminates their flickering leaves.
The earth pads my tired feet.
Everything on the outside,
is stirring inside.

Something sensual and dark
hides in the bushes and rocks,
in the infrared clouds.
Deep from within Mother Earth,
the ancient shadow sings.

Chipmunks eat Starburst’sweet, fruity, and sour.
It’s not quite like regular seed! They enjoy the hiker.
But shy of humans, ravens plane the cliffs
looking down on the hiker in suspicion.
Junipers yield naked bluish berries,
hard like steel between the teeth.
The sandy creek winds its way
cutting through banks of fine sediment.
Boulders sit in rock slide piles,
coming in endless shapes.
Some without faces. Some frown, or smile,
to show glittering, sandstone teeth.
There’s the canyon’s shadowy ghost,
it doesn’t mind the human, either.
Clouds travel the September skies.
The hiker shouts while finishing lunch,
his voice echoes off canyon walls.

Deep in the harmony of painted labyrinths,
and steeply slanted canyons-hidden in time,
I feel condemned or exalted in the silence.
As I traverse blue mountain ranges,
The lure of Canyon Country is very strong.
If absent from its stark beauty,
The desert intensifies within my mind.
I feel safe with loneliness, my curse.
Between Earth and sky, my wandering shadow moves.
Clouds shadows creep over gnarled plateaus, dreaming.
The wind softly sweeping, sings to my soul.
The desert hears my song, my spirit.
The murmur of sleepless coyotes shakes me with delight.
The darkness of the wilderness
quenches my ghostly sorrows.

The clock’s ticking; crickets singing
Monsoon rains are outside
eating August away.
Rivers flow down streets.

The town at night illuminates
cloud systems in dark purple and pink.
There are no stars out.
Dense humidity smells up the house,
making everything unbearable,
sleepless, hot.

Lightning slams the earth
scaring neighborhood dogs,
whining and pawing
at midnight doors.

…I remember those early silent films
of the twentieth century,
playing to music and captions;
the music always weeping
along with muted actors…

Humans know nothing
of their existence.

…I love the antiquity of flickering,
and voiceless motion pictures.
The art was waged against
newly pioneered camera eyes…

We experiment and explore
because we feel alone in the futility
of our inscrutable universe.

…I can see true human dreams and excitement
escaping through every frozen frame…

We can only speculate,
and have faith to believe
we know where to venture.

Your thunderheads climb the glowing sky,
in a desert reflecting warm colors of sunset.
You bring sacredness this summer’s night
to enkindle a lonesome dreamer.

Desert storm of beauty,
Your clouds are breathtaking.
Your rain visits arid wastelands.

Your thunder echoes
over painted sandstone labyrinths
over cedar berried trees
over my sandblasted tent.

Your savor is intense.
Your sheer force humbles.
Your cloud juice is my soul food.
You’re my greatest friend!

Laying on my back beneath stars
galaxies and glowing gases
I think of the Creator.

There is no end, nor beginning.
There is no touchable ceiling.

Earth roams a mysterious-muted void
around a young star, quietly roaring.

My mind cannot wrap around infinity
nor the atrocious chasms of outer-space.
What about a 4th dimension?

For now,
I’ll just listen to the canyon wind
singing to my ancient soul
beneath those candled skies.

They have felt cold desert rains-
the warm air when it sifts through sage.
They’ve dipped into fresh mountain springs.

They’ve cuddled baby lambs
and comforted nervous ewes.
They’ve been blasted by dust
and ripped over bobbed wire.

My hands are simple.
My grandmother’s hands are
deep mirrors of wisdom and silence-
I want hands that inspire
after ages of life.

Dark rain clouds wander blue skies
where dreams come alive,
visions of the land singing

A raven cries from a hole in a gnarled tree
with twisted whistling branches.

Thunder echoes across the desert,
Farther than the eye can see

The black lava rock is the blood of that ancient beast
That was slain so long ago

Locusts begin buzzin. An eagle heralds
The dawn when sunshine slithers
Up over the mountain rim

Grandpa pulls up his trousers because
Of no suspenders; he laughs
Out with his diabetic belly
And sings of how he suffers from
“Noassatall Disease”

Grand kids pile out of
The truck hollering and
Shouting as grandpa sticks
His false teeth back in,
Everybody is laughing

Heavens above are glistening
A joyful meadowlark sings.

Those island clouds roll by.
The day is so quiet in summer shade.
On my back I lay.

The clouds twist and turn above mountain tops,
their shadows quietly roar.

God has been protecting my lonely heart
his olden days aren’t forgotten.

I dream and know the darkness of the woods.
I come here in the day time to feel the wind.
These things are clever.

I’m broken away from common life
thinking deeply on every rhythm
of the sleeping hidden grass.

This takes me farther away
and gives beautiful rain
from a dazzling gray.

I Dream of
cottonwoods gathered in river bottoms,
waving mountainous branches,
and knowing their wise spirits.

I dream of
sandstone canyons
and feeling the roaring of flash floods
and the thunder of rainstorms

I dream of
barren isolation,
of weaving through the deepest
interiors of the Colorado Plateau.

I dream of
constantly scouring the landscape on two feet,
beneath galactic clouds and blue sky.

I dream of
Creator’s artwork of sprawling wastelands.
I dream of the furthest horizon.

I dream of
someday dying in desert seclusion.
Let the wildlife feed on my remains.
Let my bones bleach under sunrays.
From dust we came.

The Creator gave me life.
I was born from dust and clay.
The Wind dances in my lungs.

From chrysocolla skies
my dreams are chiseled.

From granite clouds,
I was given inner strength.
My life and the land are one.

My faith flows in sandy rivers
traversing painted wastelands,
standing ageless as Bristlecone Pines.

One day,
my tangible existence will expire.
But I will forever roam
landscapes of beauty.