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poetry

Pine Cones

It could be that morning rain
drops covering a brave bird
chirping in the walnut tree
next door are reason enough
to celebrate a closeness felt.

Thunder and light and passing time
are nothing if not minstrels
dancing before a king and all
the paupers count themselves
fortunate to pause their duties
and glimpse into the great hall
where even royalty bows to song.

It could be that sand and surf
and mountain pines trailing
toward happiness are the strings
plucked by the lucky few
who crave awareness, peace
found in pine cones fallen.

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Guest Poet: Dorothy Alexander

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We are happy to welcome Dorothy Alexander to the site. Dorothy Alexander, lawyer turned poet, finds material for her poems most often in the ordinary life and history of rural western Oklahoma where she was born and reared. She takes inspiration from the agrarian literary tradition and the populist political movements that began in the 1890’s in the rural United States. She writes primarily in the narrative form, what she sometimes calls “narcissistic narrative.” Author of four poetry collections and a number of non-fiction short works, she owns Village Books Press, Cheyenne, Oklahoma, a micro poetry press.

RED MOON POWWOW
Along the Washita, July 2006

Tribal drums tremble the night air.
Dog Soldiers stomp a fancy dance,
turkey feathers bob and weave,
Converse All Stars and Nike Hi-Tops
slap rhythm on the packed earth.

The whole Cheyenne nation sits on folding
chairs, eating Frito chili pies and fry bread.
Spotted Bird’s widow, Christine Star,
daughter of old Finger Nail and Martha Swallow,
waits for the Give-Away to begin, rechecking her list

naming those she will honor with baskets stuffed
with bags of Yukon’s Best corn meal and flour,
Domino sugar, made-in-China junk from Wal-Mart.
Plus one fine Pendleton blanket and a carton
of unfiltered Camels for the Keeper of the Sacred Arrows.

Imogene Old Crow paces back and forth, her shadow
dancing in firelight, carrying on a serious cell phone
conversation, Blue-Tooth clipped to her raven hair.
She listens to the sacred drums with one ear,
the profane world with the other one.

HOMELAND SECURITY FAILURE
Along the Washita, July 1540

Isabella’s emissary rides through the waving
prairie grasses of the heartland, his blue Castilian
eyes scanning the horizon for seven golden cities.

He rides the endless plains breathing the dust
of buffalo, dreaming of wealth, of glory,
of returning triumphantly to his monarch.

He rides and rides, saddle sores pock his Spanish
butt, and cruelty fuels his aristocratic ambitions.

Wherever he goes citizen warriors trail
the conquistador column, silent as breath,
waiting, planning the right moment,
the split second when flint tipped shafts will
spill Old World blood in New World dust.

The right moment never comes.
Foreigners continue their relentless march
until every citizen is slain or subdued,
and all the roadside historic markers
chronicle the triumph of terrorism.

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Guest poet, Larry D. Thomas

Larry D. Thomas lives in Alpine, Texas, with his wife, Lisa, and two Long-haired Chihuahuas, Pecos and Pinyon. He spends his days listening to the winds of the Great Chihuahuan Desert, and writing poetry. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters and the 2008 Texas Poet Laureate, he has published eighteen collections of poetry, most recently A Murder of Crows (Virtual Artists Collective 2011) and The Red, Candle-lit Darkness (El Grito del Lobo Press 2011).

His Hard Art
in memory of Hart Crane

chose him and made him so facile
in the musical juggling of words
he could only speak in verse.

With his scalpel of perception,
in dissecting evil,
he stumbled upon the bones

of Lucifer, the Angel of Light.
It drowned him like a thrashing kitten
in the black well of consciousness,

leaving him the claw of his pen
to climb his way out, opening
his eyes wide and crazing them

with glimmer. But the sheen of oil
spilled on the sea in the sun
was enough to kill him.

Voices

Late at night, in the candle-lit
stillness of the sanctuary,
far beneath the steep,
slated pitch of a roof
so high a sky looms blue
beneath it, she genuflects.

She and she alone
knows they’re all still there,
each and every one,
penetrating her crystalline heart
like lasers ricocheting
ad infinitum

off stained glass, stone and oak,
each prayer prayed
and each hymn sung
for hundreds of years,
whooshing through her soul
like swallows.

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CrookedCreek

We could not fully appreciate
the clear water in Sansing Hallow.
We were only boys
but even then we felt something,
we listened to the voices
whispering through the trees.
We obeyed, followed the water

on Saturday mornings in cut-offs,
tee-shirts and cheap shoes.
We slipped through cool water
that soothed briar cuts
casting yellow beetle spins
into the current — down
among the rocks.

Years later we began to realize
the length of the creek, to understand
its value despite those who abused it,
those who took her for granted.
We fought for the creek,
crying with her wounds, marveling
at her resiliance.

There is something pitifully human
the way we fail to honor heaven
so close to home, the way
we look the other way,
afraid to speak out
refusing to change —
unworthy of her shores.

Steam pillowing through the hills
rising from frosty meadows
in November — late Autumn sun
brightens the morning,
seeps through leafless timber
leaving nothing hidden —
nothing at all.

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Guest Poet, Sandra Soli

From time to time we intend to publish poetry from guests. My first guest is Sandra Soli, from Edmond, Oklahoma, whose 2007 book WHAT TREES KNOW, received the Oklahoma Book Award for poetry. Her two entries follow:

Implications of Hawk

A certainty of rabbits
makes him fly.

He claims the wind
for himself.

None of us are innocent.

 

 

Saturday in the Wichitas

A rock not climbed before
waits for my boot
pendent with implication

secret as water
from the body or ferns
touching skin to skin.

The rock names me:
Look. Daylights they test
the music of stones,
reading these places we save.

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