Writing from the far edges of the American desert.
All entries that I consider poetry. When poems are posted, I consider them rough drafts which I continue to edit over the years.
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 …
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 …
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.
I drive out of this small town early on a spring morning, and off into the wilderness. Heading down dirt roads on tires worn thin, they stir dust into clouds. Going 50 miles per hour across purple sage valleys, I’m headed for a mountain range of low rising foothills. The road itself doesn’t intrude much. Southern Utah is a piece of the old west, where the brown foothills contrast sharply with blue sky. It is quiet, except for the distant rumbling of commercial jet airplanes, or a few cawing ravens. Living in silence, I have an old-fashioned heart that yearns …
The sun is rising. The dog’s lying in the grass listening to the crickets. The roses are blooming along with daffodils. The wind swings them. My orange cat’s purring on The window sill. Wind whistles through the window screens. The sky is lighting up, burning with warm glowing hues. Just outta bed, I open the wooden door and sit on the porch. Chimes sing. The air is full of fine sediments blown in from the desert.
The land has been swept by winter and summer. It’s tough and faded. It’ll outlast any human era. I once passed an old graveyard, and saw the eroding tombstones. Each individual had dreams, a pumping heart, and a smile. The land will outlive the foolishness of lonely humans.
Rattle in the wind like bones soft and brittle, the corn isn’t ready. The wind loves your fields of dead awful silence. What creeps in your shade? Cornstalks are friends, they laugh, and they cling to Mother Earth, graciously. I sing to you, from a hammock nearby. Just listening to your Leaves. The corn babies are wrapped up in their cocoons, still developing.
Rocks cry under clouds pouring endless sweat on green grass that dies slow in autumn. The rabbit’s life grows cold and meets a fiery end. Young was the sky that stood bold. Shadows again hunt the black leafless night. The sweetness is no more. Here comes he an animal ghost laughing between two unexplainable worlds. It is quick with movement to steal air carrying a joke that a jester couldn’t give. The mystical trees paint the coyote’s soul over a white canvas. He answers quickly to the injured rabbit’s eerie squeals swiftly ending his struggle and pain caused by the …
the mornings here on the desert are still, long, and eternal why is the landscape so barren, and beautiful? stories burn like the never ending past I usually come here story hour when Earth recites her tales just before night when the heat sings sweet I have found no common place because my dream belongs to this sea of rocks, stones, and bushes; endless walls of grabbing beauty and pictures painted on golden faces when I die in my country bed the sleeping hills bury me under their desert trees one day walking across this endless void will be peace …
Shadows creep behind images. Unusual feelings manifest themselves in the strange day. A timbered forest is where black ghost creatures lose themselves in bushes. A sound is made here and then there. The spook is a jestful trickster. Many things speak up from the floor of the ancient earth. It is how the wild animals of this forest find peace to survive. It crawls upon your skin, walks upon your feet. It dangles from wrinkled trees. They have eyes staring at you from nearby. Maybe it is an unknown beast about to jump from the brush!
I pulled my car up to a post marker off the side of the highway, and there hung a dead coyote. Its head was tied to the post with bailing wire His face was covered in blood and his glassy eyes were still open staring at the broken sky. its tongue was hanging out and drizzling. I feel anger and sorrow for this murdered creature. I wanted to untie his body and bury his soul somewhere remote. a secret place where he could rest. The coyote, a friend, but they stuck him on display wasting his life away. They cut …
There’s a feeling deep inside every human being, a tiny suspicion about something that lurks around in reality. It cannot be seen nor heard, because it hides itself. It can visit you with it’s clues! It’s the abnormal shadow in the green trees. It is in those abandoned hills, and in the darkness of an attic. It loves the moonlit night with an eerie presence. It loves to hide at the bottoms of the ocean like the white whale that killed Captain Ahab. It is in Grandma’s old cellar. You can feel it while looking at a crystal waterfall, or …
Today I sleep away in this slumber and awoke to a footstep and then another My campfire was still smoking. The morning light was close but an not quite. The blue haze of the night lurked around my tent. The wind dashed through the trees. Then the clouds under the moonlight slid silently over the mountains. All alone, I had wandered across this countryside, and then rested away in my camp. The fire burned, and danced through the night. I made it very big to keep me from fright. This was a deep cemetery of trees! Very old they were! …
Every now and then, there is a strange silence on that mountain that finds its own way into our little town. Mysterious animals shroud themselves in the forests up there, beneath the cloud scraped skies. Alone and dirty on quiet afternoons, I like to leave the town on foot entering into those trees on the mountain’s edge. The great forest always knows when I am coming. I climb to a hill just below the mountain and sit down on top of it to take a break, letting a little sunshine bathe me. Ever since I was a kid, I’m used …
The uncanny feelings slither through this cavernous vista like the lonely fire that burns within the phantoms and faded shadows that once had casted forth The living trance would once long ago in the ancient times, howl and clamor a deep declaration from the coyotes in the flourishing, rolling hills of eternal rest The emotion of blazing skies would burn the candled nights beneath the green, talking cedars. The clouds shattered by so many ages without a footstep never even faded. Truly the soil, and the blue skies of this ripe sphere was a rest and a haven to give …