West Desert Journal

Writing from the far edges of the American desert.

Category: Poems

  • My 44 Year Old Hands

    25 years this blog has weathered space and time and it was offline for a couple years with no backup. Thanks to an older backup XML file and the Wayback Machine, I’ve been able to restore the original journal that spans a quarter century of my life. This poem is a time warp from the poem I wrote, which is in the archives, titled: My 22 Year Old Hands…

    My 44 Year Old Hands

    These are my 44-year-old hands.

    Desert hands.

    Sun-cured. Split. Salted with years.

    They don’t move fast anymore,

    but they move like water in a dry wash —

    only when it matters.

    There are canyons in the knuckles now,

    thin arroyo lines where old grief carved through

    and never quite washed smooth.

    The bones creak like truck springs on a washboard road.

    Weather talks through them.

    These hands have gripped a steering wheel at 2 a.m.,

    held a camera like a compass,

    picked through rusted towns and shuttered doors,

    lifted stones just to see what lives beneath.

    They’ve bled on sandstone.

    They’ve shaken with anger and mercy.

    They’ve held people like fragile relics

    and buried things that never came back.

    I don’t use them to reach for everything anymore.

    The desert taught them restraint —

    you carry only what you need

    or the road strips you clean.

    Now they know the feel of wind,

    of heat that hums in metal,

    of prayers sent up with dust devils

    instead of pews.

    My 44-year-old hands aren’t pretty.

    They’re honest.

    They tremble less from wanting

    and more from remembering.

    And when I finally lay them down —

    sand-cold, still,

    done —

    I hope the earth knows them,

    like a long-lost stone

    rolled back into its riverbed,

    and trusts

    that they tried to hold this world

    without breaking it.

    by Nathan Arizona

    Related: Braffits Creek, A Thread in the Great Basin | Sonoran Spring with the White Wings

    , , , ,
  • Hovering Up The Canyon

    Middle of the night

    during a dripping light storm

    Clouds dense like soup

    with a smooth humid stench

    permeating the mossy August air

    it came to me in the early morning

    around 2AM with a lowly hum

    shortly after orbs were playing tag

    which stirred me out of the deepest of sleeps

    They danced like ancient spirits

    and shimmered

    above the New Mexico pines

    near the Colorado line

    in a place off the road, I encamped

    on my way to Dulce

    on Jicarilla Apache Lands

    it was an old growth forest.

    It was where I saw the triangle craft

    hovering up the canyon

    above US Highway 64

    rotating on its side like a wagon wheel

    before climbing into the moon soaked

    cloud quilt above

    and vanishing.

    Poem from my UFO Encounter in 2014

    by Nathan Arizona

    ,
  • The Shadow Man: The Visitor

    I’m hearing the voices from the far distant past from a time when earth was on a different sphere

    I could see them roaming the empty landscape underneath the constant turquoise sky. And the valley floor went on forever beneath the bright hum of sun accompanying massive cloud ships. The calmness of the wind whipped up silent dust devils that soon hid their view.

    I now can hear their footsteps in the forest but something else walks through the undergrowth. I cannot spot his shadow even though I have always known who he is, because he came to me! He disappears in the rays of filtered sunlight that drift through the skinny pines.

    This shadow man constantly dances with me even in the lively flame of my red warm fire; both the fire and the shadow man against the black night – flickering off the trees under the twinking stars. . . those infinite star systems as far as the eye can imagine.

    In the early morning the smoke is still rising from what’s left of the smoldering embers and I can catch the wisp of slight burning juniper, maybe a little sage.

    I have never forgotten this man – The Visitor who came to me in a deep sleep when I was a 18. His face still haunts me with beautiful flashback memories. This thing, the spirit, the entity, this old man killed my greed and healed my heart.

    By Nathan Cowlishaw

    December 31, 2017

    ,
  • Tonight, They Arrive

    Tonight, They Arrive!

    They came pouring through the portal
    like fiery stars
    speaking in eternal languages
    beyond our threshold
    waking me, in the middle of the night
    and awakening the soul
    to the biggest thrill of a millennium.
    Never thought this was possible
    or even close to real but
    it’s happening
    I’m leaving
    I’m gone.
    Going back into the portal
    heading for closer
    to the far-away
    listening to the little people
    singing their strange themes
    inside these cobweb tunnels
    descending back in time
    forward in a backwards sense
    All beauty ripping loose
    from the seams of surreality
    This, a dream coming true, unfolding
    a reality, beyond a vision.
    I welcome you
    Into this mystic.

    By Nathan Cowlishaw

  • Fresh from the Transfer

    Mind Opening Portal
    exploring the possibilities
    as infinite as they have become
    as soon as I had broken the windows
    of everything I knew.

    Then, as if divinity stepped in,
    there he was with all the
    beauty that he brought with him
    to give to his chosen
    unconditionally.

    Sentient spirits came from
    out of the thundering abyss
    from the deep billows of the storm
    and down below
    all was calm and mesmerizing.

    Somewhere out of this chaos
    came a powerful peace that predates
    our time and place
    that came into our space
    and brought us together.

    It’s quite extraordinary,
    this unknown scheme
    that is more natural and mystic
    than earth-made systems
    And into this unknown we venture.

    by Nathan Cowlishaw

    , ,
  • Aliens in My Early Life

    In my early life, not sure exactly when – some source of intelligence came to me when I was a child. It was not traumatic. It was nothing like being abducted or taken against my will and I was not violated and nothing questionable was committed against me. I have a definitive connection to the Universe outside of our planetary world here on Earth as a result. Whoever they were, wherever they came from; somehow they were involved in my upbringing. I have to give credit when it is due; they had profound influence during my development. There is no other way to explain why I am on this UFO/ET Road, now. I didn’t wind up on this path obsessively until 2013 – when I started witnessing real UFOs in the sky, especially one that was a triangle craft in close proximity on the boundary of the Jicarilla-Apache Reservation Southwest of Dulce, New Mexico in 2014. These events caused earlier memories and recollections in my life to resurface. They are basically telling me, “We Are Still Here!”

    Like Humanity, there is good and evil throughout our history with examples like Hitler and the Third Reich, and righteous individuals like Jesus Christ. All these individuals were prime sources of influence on mankind and polar opposites of good and evil. We often blame Lucifer, the Christian Devil as being the source of these evils, and Lucifer is also an Intelligence. The ones I speak of exist both in human and non-human form and when asked whether these intelligences are good and noble or evil and hostile – I respond that they are all the above. Like humanity, there is all sorts of good and evil in all of the Creator’s Universe and I attribute the “Most High” of the Intelligences as the Creator – or what Christians would call God and Muslims call Allah!

    We are not alone in the Universe and I think the Creator intended it to be this way. We are being visited and influenced by other intelligences whether they be of light or darkness; there is a balance along with the many shades which accompany these BEINGS. Some of them use technology that is far more advanced than what is available to Humanity’s disposal. Some of this tech has been gifted to us as well, only to be locked up in secrecy.

    All I know is that I am barely scratching the surface and I have a lot to learn and there is a lot that I do know about but do not fully understand yet. I have seen some some of these Intelligences, beings, and some of their technologies. I’m comfortable acknowledging this in a very grounded way. Their influence in my life has been very positive with no malevolence but there is a lot of it steeped up in uncrackable mystery. I get a feeling that in due time, more information and knowledge will come to me along with many others who have had these experiences or events that are closely related.

    In my teen years I was backpacking solo into the hills. A few of my friends thought I was either suicidal or crazy but I was quite the opposite. While I was out there in the desert, or the mountains, all by myself, powerful things happened to me. These experiences changed my life forever, and the course of my destiny. It made me who I am today. There’s an Mormon adage/scripture that says; “By their fruits, ye shall know them,” and these beings brought about changes in my life that were for the better. Sometimes these episodes left me spooked, startled, completely at a loss and deep in fear but when I came to grips with the experiences, I quickly realized that these events were teaching and preparing me for who knows what? It was something that is coming at a future date. The truth is though, I am an artist, photographer and writer because of these beings and intelligences and their visitations.

    If you read through this journal and go through some of my poems/pros written years ago, the words will shed more light on what it is I’m talking about.

    ,
  • They Are Returning

    hey Are Returning!

    As I was driving out on the highway tonight
    outside of town
    watching the sun disappear behind the mountains
    with night settling in
    crimson slivers of light
    igniting the bottoms of cloudships

    I felt the warm November winds
    of the snowy high desert plateau
    in an unusually hot winter

    It has been a decade since this mystery
    paid me a visit
    but the hills of juniper and pinion
    are calling me
    I could hear them
    as they distinctly whispered

    Tonight was a desert dance of red fiery
    with a light rain upon the snow
    and the stillness of the clouds
    and the slightest breeze swirling
    around me after halting the vehicle and listening

    My dreams of the old ways are returning
    I felt their strong embrace
    not sure what it is exactly that is haunting me?
    but the taps of the rain hitting softly on the tin roof of my Suzuki
    alerted me to the presence

    Things that remain unknown to most
    are returning to me as of late
    a multitude of eternal intelligences
    that provide the shrouded glimpses into the infinite
    beyond this life

    By Nathan Cowlishaw

  • My Inter-Dimensional Self

    This heart of mine dreams
    because I have a really beautiful soul
    that knows and feels the mysteries of the Earth
    And recognizes the most subtle light in the canyon
    and the complex and simple sounds of the Unknown.
    I’ve prayed to my Creator, daily
    verbally and in thoughts,
    and ponder about
    The Creator of the Universe, daily
    and wonder if he can really hear me, still?
    Somewhere, I’m out there in interstellar space
    listening to those far-distant stars
    and down in the trenches of the darkest
    parts of the Earth’s ocean –
    And I’m up there with the traveling snow
    being swept off the highest peaks
    and down in the desert bottoms where
    the whirlwinds whip and roam.
    Love cannot be this timeless,
    but it still hurts this same heart
    because I am human when my eyes are open
    But I’m capable of endless visions…

    by Nathan Cowlishaw

  • Honey-lit Afternoon

    Dreams of a honey lit aspen afternoon
    Smiles full of laughter
    Trying to keep a straight face
    Lost in the reality of it…
    In the simplicity of your dignity and grace

    Coming off the mountain
    And meandering off the desert mesa
    With you nearly by my side
    On a sunny summer afternoon
    Singing folks songs…

    And I look back on it all
    And it all comes back to me
    In the moment

    By Nathan Cowlishaw

  • Real Beauty

    Real beauty surpasses the physical realm
    and is eternal.
    There is a reason we change worlds
    while this life is short.
    Our evolution is infinite
    even though we all must face death one day.

    by Nathan Cowlishaw

  • Date with Jazmin

    The wind softly
    sliced through pinion branches
    while the sunset’s crimson fire
    burned the rock face
    Imprinting trees in shadow.
    As purple monsoon clouds shifted.
    in the early August air
    The chorus of insects sang ancient
    flooding our senses
    with ethereal sensations.
    Somewhere, between
    reality and dream

  • She is my new muse… An artist is she…

    I can hear the soft whisper of the wind as it gently brushes the window blinds and evening starts to set-in… The Robins are singing in the late afternoon summer. Fine sediment is blowing in from the dust bowl west of town. And I’m just thinking… thinking about a lot of things.

    Life is full of beauty with the simple, if you just let. them. be.

    , ,
  • In Canyonlands

    Let’s run that river
    when it’s the muddiest wild
    through the hell
    of Cataract Canyon
    and listen to the roaring song
    in the heart of the candled night.

  • On the Railroad Tracks

    Let the starlight capture your gaze tonight
    where happiness never sleeps and
    dreams never soften.
    A heart that is pure cannot deny
    the truth of what was real,
    and I love life because
    of what may be?
    Never forget the
    memories as they come
    and go and flee…

  • The Outlaw Coyote Kate

    In a few words to keepin it short
    My heart trembles
    for Coyote Kate.

    In winter, the wind whistles
    over the dark Uintahs
    through steep strange canyons
    of sandstone and shadow.

    The beauty of that country is composed of
    lost gold mines, dinosaur graves
    and chocked oil deposits –

    a wild territory haunted
    by coyotes, cowboys, ramblers ‘n such
    even the ghosts of
    departed prospectors.

    as the sun sets
    in the freeze of winter
    you can feel the hint
    of a deep conundrum
    plaguing the
    land of the Utes.

    in quiet discontent
    an independent Woman known
    as Coyote Kate wonders
    the streets of Vernal,
    a town of oil drillers
    river runners ‘n more.

    there is something unusual to Her
    silence that causes Me to conspire
    as She moves about.

    far away to the south
    She rides the quiet canyons
    and labyrinths of a dream.

    I used to engage every adventure
    into the forested hills.
    I would follow the shimmering light
    that appeared in the distance.
    yet, I never felt fully content

    until She crossed My mind.

  • The Reality of Freedom

    Okay, I had a wild hair to break out of my shell of conformity and write a few words here on Freedom. I’m talking True Freedom and how it feels. First comes courage and faith to think outside the box and to be different from all the others. Freedom is finding the courage to really let a woman know she is beautiful. Freedom is the wild horse that roams the great basin or is the man that decides to hitch-hike the lonesome highways of America. Freedom is to enter the quiet canyons of the Colorado Plateau and to experience solitude and seclusion.

    I seek to be different and to emerge with a unique identity in a world of common imagery and unchanging static. My spirit is like a wild eagle and it cannot be bound by conformity, though I choose to conform. My shadow is a true rebel, but I have learned to bridal the Poncho Villa within. As I roam the great and vast distances of the American West and live the rural small town life – I have learned to experience true freedom on a daily basis. I thank the Creator for instilling in me such a strong and innate since of being. That is, because I am truly sovereign on a personal level and no one will ever tell me what to do! I choose what I choose and discard what is useless.

    My affinity is for those that are striving to discover true freedom and who are trying to break away from the mold. There are lonesome hearts and there are dreamers; they are all naturally my friends.

    True freedom and happiness comes from within. It all comes from my heart and now I am expressing it here the best way I can. This is just a sliver of my heart and there are infinite ways for me to go. Life is one big adventure to me and I am excited to see what lays around the next bend. With each major rapid I roar with anticipation and excitement.

    , ,
  • King of Trees

    It has become Methuselah
    while the sweat of black sun
    drips from its wooden claws
    which break
    timeless howling winds

    Daily
    the cloud people travel
    beyond its barren branches
    into the ages
    of silence

    On the furthest edges
    of God’s Holy Imagination
    stands the test of time

    With dark sandstone
    plateaus below and
    High above
    on it’s heavenly throne
    rules the ancient
    Bristlecone Pine!

    ,
  • In the Candled Night

    It is a candled night
    in dreams they sleep
    vast distances lay between

    the firelight dances in their minds

    with each passing hour
    the dream fades
    then grows

    an empty void fills
    the interior walls
    of yesteryear
    even yesterday

    a vision of pairs
    walks carefully down
    an imagined street

    the soft candled
    sky shows fiery hues

    spiraling galaxies throw
    colorful intensities

    all the while
    in the deepness of the soul
    the heart rakes the
    rugged densities of life

    the feeling of absence
    grows arduous in
    dark moonless hours

    when a beautiful song
    cannot be sung
    …i know a place
    where no one ever goes…
    that is how the song is sung
    but silence reverberates

    no careful peace is felt
    on a moonless night
    when stars ignite the heavens

    and with the silence
    comes no certainty

    it is peace and quietness
    that claims forested hills
    in the isolated mansions of earth

    the quietest of solitudes
    are discovered

    i hear the song in my mind
    while sleeping as rip van winkle
    under a wise cottonwood
    of thick, rattling leaves

    it all seems a dream
    even the labors of life

    when basking
    in beauty and repose

    in the candled night
    i dream of the azure sky
    beside a mountain stream
    singing the same careful tune

    it is in a far off place
    somewhere
    far away

    , ,
  • Between Birth and Death

    My love of life is incredible and God made me into a pillar of light. Because I am happy to be free, to roam the quiet folds of reality, to travel the haunted night. I drive a small vehicle down the back roads and dirt roads of a big sky desert. My time is short on earth, but spectacular! When I die, allow the coyotes, buzzards, and varmints to eat my satisfied remains. in the end, I want to give something back to the world of creation that spawned me. How grateful I am to be a part of the grand scheme, from birth to death, in a world of the thriving unknown. Where ghosts lurk behind creaky doors and phantoms float the sandy canyons and the wind truly wails.

    , , ,
  • The Little Poem

    There is a rainbow over yonder
    it sings for you.
    Through stands of Ponderosa
    the same light creeps
    across your bare feet.
    While you sift
    the soft
    fertileness.

    , , ,
  • Wagon of Ashes

    inside the doorway of the traveling sky,
    there is quiet peace in this world.

    although there is a lonely wagon filled with ashes
    it wonders past sea and mountain, and through the valleys.

    when it gets dark and black.
    without sight, does it wonder
    and cannot find peace.

    the children that knew, are crying,
    while their parents lay in bed dying.
    and so the only mother of them all
    went to her autumn grave,
    and soon the peaceful snow gathered.

    the wagon wonders,
    with it’s ashes.

    In the dark it wonders.

    but in dreams, the children are free
    where burdens do not exist.
    where suffering has no season.

    sad world, sad people.
    God has been abandoned,

    in a hidden place,
    the wagon of ashes has stopped,
    far away beneath the treeless moon.
    the stars are freezing in the bitter cold.

    the children that knew are crying,
    while their parents were dying,
    in the realm of this sad, sad world.

    , ,
  • Go into the Wilderness My Friend

    Dream of the old way.,
    Vanish into the back woods.
    The power of the wind is strong.
    There is a shadow in the trees.

    The powerful mystery speaks.
    Dream of the spirit life
    Where boundless solitude is found.
    Go into the desert alone
    Because it is calling you.

    There’s a spirit home for every soul.
    And the shadow waits.
    In the hills over yonder
    The mystery sleeps.

    The sun is shining in a quiet world
    of peace and stillness
    Where the forever hills sleep,
    that is where you should go

    If you are a child of the mountains.

    ,
  • The Sound is Strong

    The sky is full of storm,
    As I retire for the night,
    listening to the dense wind blow.
    The rain begins to tap the house.

    This past summer
    the trees were buzzing with ghosts.
    And there on the edges of reality
    a fiery noise did grow.
    The noise is unquiet.
    Listen as the coyotes howl…

    Praise to those that can hear
    the powerful song of beauty.
    Beware to those
    who do not recognize anything.

    The beauty of the wilderness
    is beating inside me.
    Scenes from an ancient ponderosa forest
    flower in dreams, deep at night.
    These dreams radiate with the glow
    of black sun and turquoise sky.
    Wind dashes through the pines
    like white water rapids.

    The sound is strong, listen.
    Love the beauty.
    For whatever may come,
    be ready!

    , , ,
  • A Supernatural Wind

    The ferocious wind
    whips through tree branches.
    I close my eyes and imagine
    it’s a dark and supernatural wind
    blowing civilization into oblivion.
    The wind is singing, howling, and rushing.
    The sound is perfect, superb, and beautiful.
    Into the ocean deep mind, I descend
    remembering ancient days.
    It is summoning the anarchy
    that burns in my soul.
    Where’s an escape
    that leads to the past?

    , ,
  • Slow Moving Storm

    Buzzing power lines cut the wind
    The wind howls and moans as darkness grows.
    Winter pushes spring feelings away,
    And brings dark cloud ships
    that hug mountains,
    shrouding them in eerie mist.
    Fog enters the desert basin.
    Mule Deer gather in cottonwood groves.
    Flakes of snow start to invade.
    The sun’s heat has faded.
    The storm moves slow.
    By morning, theres eighteen inches of
    Fresh powder and growing.

    ,
  • Dreaming of the Afterlife

    A boy sat outside the village
    looking at the grave yard at the mesa’s edge.
    “What ever happened to the dead?” he pondered.
    “Are they living some where else far away?”

    Skeletons walking around after
    the day turns to night
    inspires the boy to dream of
    the darkness and deepness of rivers.

    “Are the dead living somewhere else?”
    Out on the mesa edge he prays every morning.
    He prays, waiting for the sun to come up;
    to come over and talk to him.

    Every night, he dreams of the
    medicine that will make him dead.
    He wants to go see the corpse house. Please come.
    The sound is making him old.
    His dream for the crimson light is fading.

    “Poem inspired from a Hopi story.”

    , , , ,
  • The Early Morning

    dark rain clouds
    wander the blue sky
    making the dream come
    alive a vision of the
    land singing

    Then cries the raven
    from its hollow in the
    knarled tree
    that twists its branches
    into the ancient wind

    Thunder echoes way across
    the desert yonder
    farther than
    the eyes can see

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

    the locust begin buzzing
    and an eagle heralds the dawn
    when that sun peaks
    up over the rim of mountains
    the clouds catch
    pink-red rays

    The old man pulls up his
    trousers because
    of no suspenders. He laughs
    out with his diabetic belly
    and sings of how he has
    “Noassatall disease”

    The grand kids pile out of
    the truck, hollering and
    shouting as grandpa sticks
    his false teeth back in

    while heavens above are glistening
    and the happy meadow lark sings of
    a beautiful new day

    , , ,
  • Changes

    I am wondering through what beauty is left…

    There is hardly a place to go
    where man has not intruded.
    Everything is changing.
    I dream of what happened long ago.
    What was Earth like then?
    There is a divine power today,
    not all is gone.

    I believe that the sky
    and the landscape will change.
    People will have no part in it,
    if they are not worthy.

    Strange things come to me on the wind.
    The sun in this quiet world is talking to me.
    The Earth is helping me dream too.
    The ravens are excited, and chatter
    the news around in their little circles.
    The desert is waking up,
    and the ocean of silence is telling me.

    So I have learned…

    , ,
  • Heart of a Resistant Land

    It is gusty tonight,
    as the fiery sun sinks into
    the western mountains
    Stars flood heavens deep
    The ancient desert sings
    The voice of the mountain
    wails through the pinion
    singing with the streams of
    yellow grass and sage
    The basin below
    is cold and dusty

    The mountain wind moves all night
    The Coyotes run the midnight hills
    yipping and howling
    in the heart of this resistant land

    Never to be taken!
    Nothing is controlled
    Nothing can rob the
    soul of the wild

    ,
  • My Destiny

    No person
    will hinder me
    from venturing
    into shadow

    creeping into the
    deeper wild

    where the
    wind sings
    ageless

    further ‘n further
    away from
    my captors

    …the wraiths
    of civilization

    No individual
    will persuade me
    from the call of
    creation

    forward,
    into beauty
    of earth and sky.

    , ,