“Only later would I learn / about the great-winged vultures the long-gone pharaohs deified. . .” Shooting the Breeze Aloof and aloft, the buzzards circled the farm,and we would shoot at them, to no effect,small guns popping, round after round.Did we know better?
“For each and every one of us, a rainbow is the prize.” Civil Rights was brewing in a Charlotte coffee shop,At an orange juice bar called Tanner’sdown near the main bus stop.Cross of Trade & Tyron where the Cherokee once hunt,Harry Golden cast his shining eye on a way to make his point.
“Someone, sometime / must have made biscuits. . .” It’s a birthday party for an old friend,mentor and I’m staying overnightin an impartial place, decoratedin pinks and gray, bed, sofa,bath, closet of a kitchen.
Poetry
1In fits and starts, Lord, our words workthe other side of language where you lie if you can be said to lie. Mercy uponthe priest who calls on you to nurture and to terrorize him, for you oblige.Mercy upon you, breath’s engine returning what is to what is. Outside, light swarmsand particularizes the snow; tree limbs crack with ice and »
“I wish they’d get tired of tuning and play.” They seem to think they have something to say,those locusts high in your circle of pines.I wish they’d get tired of tuning and play.
“Among the grass tufts / Along a fence: cattle bones. . .” Near Bluffton Mill1 The old house ruinsShine with dust; late day coolnessFrom the pine forest
“My people rolled over twice in a Pontiac one dark night, but survived. . .” Who are your people, she asked, when she heard that I too am from Arkansas. Who are my people?
Poetry
She slips it out of its leatherette case,an immaculate cartridgeshe clenches between the red bow of her lipswhile flicking her butane lighter,sucking deeply until the tipstarts to crackle and glow like a fuse. She snaps the lighter shut and blows smokethrough pursed lips over her shoulder,lifting the Lucky between two rednail fingerslike somebody about to »
“He mounted to the bar with a pistol in his hand and he sent Judge Massie to the Promised Land . . .” He mounted to the barwith a pistol in his handand he sent Judge Massieto the Promised Land
“. . . someone picks up a snapshot and says, just before tossing it to oblivion, ‘My god, who are these quaint people?’” Stiffly posed before the forsythia bush, they wearcoats, ties, and bemused faces, as if their mother’sjust called them from the porch, “You boyshold your shoulders back and stand up straight.”
“But here we are. You with a bow and arrow. Me in a headdress.” The Indian Sports Mascot Meets Noble Savage Indian Mascot: I think of us always as a couple. Noble Savage: Have we ever been together? Are we ever going to be?
“There is a land beyond the lands you know . . .” (After reading Hudson’s “Green Mansions”)There is a land beyond the lands you know,Circled by silver veils of woven rainAnd green,clear sunsets with the moon in towAnd woods and dark savannahs of wild grain.