RHINO

 

5.2013 REWORK:

You were on the morning plane and now

here too. In your tall jeans mostly walking

with swaying hips that still have not quite

forgotten his gait.

Our dreadlocked and tatted barkeep’s been divined

here just for these Missoula clans. Full of loud

bragging to Tall-Jeans and the rest of us of how

she surprises her home-diners and more genteel

over-night guests with the use of her pistols.

Her boots scuff from behind the bar in 4-day wrinkled

jeans. Pulling pints and chatting me up as if I

regularly squatted here just to watch her weave

Bloody Mary whirligigs for those with higher expectations.

My calendar returns me to the Rhino and Calamity Jane; still

throwing words and beer around just as Jeans and some

guy dismount their stools and glide away. Jane keeps

up the pace for me and a few grizzled drinkers

staring at the bar taps, frozen by their own personal Medusa.

A caterpillar’s lush life in the Rhino’s wooden

cocoon, where everyone waits on change

of some kind in

Big Sky Country.

   Original

You were on the plane and now here too tall
and mostly walking in your jeans with hips
that are still not done with him yet.

a dred-locked and tatted barkeep has been divined
here to the clans here in Missoula loud bragging to
tall Jeans and her friend how she surprises future
diners and genteel over-night guests with her guns.

Boots scuffing behind the bar in 4 day wrinkled jeans she pulls pints
and weaves Bloody Mary whirly-gigs for those with
higher expectations. She chats me as if I regularly sat here.

Me and November found Calamity Jane still throwing
words and beer at jeans and maybe the same guy
atop their stools performing for a few grizzled drinkers
staring at the bar taps frozen by their personal Medusa.

Caterpillar lush-life in the Rhino cocoon
as everyone waits on change of some kind
in Big Sky Country



12.24.2011

ASSORTED CLERIHEW'S

 Noted-You all and others have now fallen away to lick your wounds
 

Consider Newt Gingrich
whose past reads as one large glitch
unethical speaker and spurner of spouse's
we pray you're never elected to any of Washington's houses.

2.4.2012


Herman Cain
Was thrown out of the game
He revealed he paid with financial assistance
for years of groping and unwelcome persistence.

12.23.2011


Dearest Michelle Bachman
Surely the President smiles when you mock him
You seem so sincere while the camera's are on
Such a shame what you spout is so factually wrong.

12.24.2011

Oh Sarah Palin
As a maverick your failin'
You travel by bus and on Fox you talk trash
You won't run for office cuz you love the cizash

12.28.2011

Governor Rick Perry
Your impersonation of "W" is scarey
If we noted the wisdom you shared in the debate
It would read like a small and very blank slate.

12.26.2011

Winter's Jilt

  naked maple trees
dream of their many feathered
  summertime lovers

12.20.2011

SEEKERS

 
  December lights
guide many homeward
 yet again

12.20.2011

LIVINGSTON MT.

  whited pond-
geese waddle on your
  marbled water

12.1.2011

TISSUE PAPER

  smaller kisses-
the empty gift boxes
  are neatly kept

12.13.201

SUMMIT

 

  whitened peaks
my father gazes towards
  another

12.1.2011

TAP TAP

  woodpecker
I do not know
  your code

11.30.2011

Cool and Dark

Words for Miles

I

    his cool horn
left space betwixt notes
  miles blows my mind

-------

II

   cool and dark
miles left some notes
 unblown

11.29.2011

COHO

Under Construction

1

  ashen embers-
the august return to
  natal streams


11

  bidden kings-
your august return to
  milted streams


11.28.2011

ZIG ZAG

Zig Zag

Zig Zag really doesn't much,

it is pretty much straight through
as it lolls and waits on or digs out

from the winters toll

squat moss cabins tucked in with

 pallet wood smoke along this wet track

 of spent cinders and the spray

from endless brown snow melt,

hunkered down like porched wet dogs.

 a once celebrated brief reward

when you were mudded and done

with this pass up Barlow's hewn track.

It waits for you amid the trees with a tow truck

and a bright Dairy Queen, and at 40 miles per hour,

slowly it goes by quick on this last leg of the mighty trail.

11.28.2011

SUPPERTIME

Just some fun with a song I love
(Alternate lyrics and sung to the tune of Summertime ,George Gershwin)


Supppertime, and the eatin' is greasy
Fish are cooking, we got okra to fry.
Gravy's rich, and the cornbread is risin'
Clean plates baby, who's ready for pie?


One of these evenings, your going back for seconds
Gonna be so full, you'll just want to die.
But till then darlin', there's nothing can stop you
from dreamin' of heaven , where everything's fried.

(Repeat first verse)

11.27.2011

THE CUTTING FLOOR

 

The bugle sounds to crash of limb and fast
hoof snorts with wary eye after these lost hunted
minutes run panting before the hounds
with one last darkened breath.

In-between seconds fall prey, framed then snipped,
knotted tight into strings barely thought.
Uncured without mumbling their quick-pruned fate they wordless
lay waiting for the cut and fade to black.


This lot hangs gamey fast on kitchen hooks.
But will not last the night, fast rot this Cadaver
gathered of skipped and fleeting unborn moments
Deemed unworthy of my tarried,lingered browse.


I gnaw these pendulate bones of time, numbers trapped
in my escapement. The same why's and how's and when
I gladly overstep the b-side and also-ran.
Those irritating seconds of sand between my toes 
daily preened to the quick.

On to the meat, the muscle and
the marrowed bone, the savor my mouth is set for.
Nair will this growing sinewed basin of nail scratched
flesh ever shadow my memories.

 Trawled with careful nets I hurried seine my catch. Schools
of seconds amid each passing sun, sentenced
to the bottom muck spilt from times loose pocket seams, falling
down. Unspent minutes never ticking into my spaded grave
Laughing pangs me futile as the merciless gleaner
sups, for these missing bits bland all that fills my plate
I wish for those salty absent grains of the slower pace.


11.22.2011

CHARLIE

    his muzzle found me
bleeding warm dark goodbye tears
  soon all was silent.

11.11.2011

MAGGIE

  no tail to wag
our bobtail greets us with her
  ever dancing hips

11.11.2011

Defrocked

  colored trees
fall from their pulpits to
  rainbows below

11.11.2011

Springing

  flowers bud-
bursting with dreamt
  deja vu

11.11.2011

FENIX

  in the lean desert
of cactus sharp coyote eyes
 -rabbits dare not move

11.14.2011

Empire Lost

Nevada Texas loafs on Center Street

where Empire once stood,

on this black hot prairie that too few

bother to ever really plow.

Its old barns contently shedding layers

of their corrugated skins are consoled

by herds of silent rusting cars

and a dead lawn mower or two.

Muted houses lie breathless

with their plywood windowed eyes,

blinded from the glare of summer’s absolution,

dying just a little more every day.

Like slumbering frogs in a simmered pot of slow decay.

I lay back on trodden flat-blade grass in yards

of Grand Canyon cracks pleading for pardon

or faith-healed geologic repeal from the

ever blaring golden sun. This familiar sod

is no kin to my now distant home rye grass.

St Augustine turf whispers prayers for rain,

rare these late fall days. Even thunder

holds its breath till springtime comes again to call.

The evening breeze slakes the days last hours

enough to rouse the sleeping crickets to metered song. 

The black skied country night spills over me,

alive with the milky wash of stars that the cities

 hide from view. One by one each bashfully shows

their face as my eyes adjust to their stage.

I have missed you all so very much.

So here I sit, front row, center

in my sister’s kneaded garden of stubborn onions

and okra, with their leaf-bent heads stewing

in the east Texas gumbo silently hoping

to see the lost days of Empire once again.

 

11.5.2011