Category Archives: poetry

Rivers of Oregon

Posted on December 12, 2018 | 2 comments

Between the ribs of Oregon’s green and gristle
   rivers do the pulmonary work of short stories
The Rogue river once smashed my wooden
    drift boat into fist sized chunks
The North Umpqua river swirls around hip waders
   caressingly so
Where the sun breaks into pockets
   they land on the tree-lined Tillamook river
The Pudding river seems to have nowhere to go
   until flood season when it doesn’t have to choose
The Little Nestucca joins the Nestucca river
   on its short strut to the sea
Near Sarafin point the Clatskanie river
   picks up the rain from the forest
   and threads into to the Columbia
Near Sisters the Metolius river is where surgeons from Chicago
   come to fly fish in their two hundred dollar river glasses
In the Wallowa mountains the Minam and the Wenaha
   rivers are pristine as old scarecrows
Once I saw the upper Columbia river freeze
   I listened to its blocky grinding talk
   on my way to a funeral in Idaho
Steelhead sometimes come out of the Clackamas
   river like from a foundry
The Klamath river had dams for a while
   but now goes without
Sky barges full of water drop them
   in the Nehalem river
On Eagle creek I saw a river otter
   do a two step shuffle dance
Near its mouth the wilful Deschutes river crosses under highway 84
   obligingly but not without a hint of sadness
At nineteen I nearly drowned in the Rogue river
   on that sleepy hot afternoon
My friends laid me under a madrone tree
   while my insides roiled with adrenalin and stomach acid
I watched the green painted pieces of my drift boat
   wash down the river for days
Some rotating in eddies and others
   riding the rapids like tiny oarsmen

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American Rebel Yellow

Posted on December 8, 2018 | 4 comments

some see the virtue of drowning
faithfully like Jonah
thighs pressed together
in the fin and rib of things
cramped where tongues bloom
muscles tense like November trees
curving downward into moist blades
with just enough left for their desires
to be strapped to the back
still singing loudly
and overhanging like cattle

they do not obey language
like an SOS from
poorly healed stitches
buried in the viscera
only a bonfire of redwood
in the oilfields
can make them look down
can make them feel
the engine entering them
with eyes like elevators
inlaid bent and perverse

all along their bottle capped horizon
wearing their shirts untucked
singing falala songs
to buzz their hard won
southbound lives
they hurry along
hoping to curate
some kind of armature
or refrigeration system
made of steam
and the better kinds
of softwood

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New Grandchild

Posted on December 1, 2018 | 3 comments

Baby Ellie looks like her dad.
Roughed up a bit by birth,
but insistently here
and looking out at the world
with fearless, punch drunk eyes.

Now that I am here with you people,
I’ve yet to make up my mind about, she says,
where is the food? And can a girl
get a little shut eye?

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Midterm Elections in the USA

Posted on October 31, 2018 | 2 comments

Nightly TV two-mouthed
Striped and pointing
In four toned shoes

In Macon in Chattanooga
Sculling in a blitz
Reaching a god-like hand

Hanging microphones
Like mantis arms
Staked up high

Urging unturned
And crucial enough
Or cruciate because

Of Waco’s drive
To warrior hunt
With chopping arms

The two-fingered hands
Blind teeth and pink tongue
Befurred he and she

One suit one leaning skirt
One eyebrow arched
Pushing back bangs

Oh geez two grins
One white star
A wall of TV tiles

Hoops like golden beer cans
Bobbing over yellow marks
A text-stabbed African American

Under five-o stars
Getting ready to vomit
In a grizzled Van Dyke

Pink tie mike
Ready to take on
The birthright slam

Duck walk back
The midterm glares
For news the back row

Says king me with
An eight pointed star
Pin me with herald and shield

Not so safe as we
Always thought this
Lost dog called democracy

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Cultural Patriarchy in Zimbabwe. The Boil on My Butt.  

Posted on October 28, 2018 | 2 comments

Makaitah found her way to one of my poems. She has inspired me to repost her essay about the treatment of women in her native Zimbabwe. Words lead to deeds and her words are as powerful and poetic as any I’ve read recently.

Makaitah Rogue

 

Boy, this discussion gets me all the way heated up! Its rampancy in this little teapot shaped country of mine and spread out like trampoline sheath, makes me seethe.  Growing up in a culture that thrives on the primary power of male dominance is daunting. I have always felt that something was really flawed when they tried to make patriarchal ideologies natural and normal. It just didn’t sit with me, I was simply not having it and when I finally became an adult, I rebelled against this overbearing dictatorial system. The moment I stepped out of its confining boarders, I was branded with a scarlet letter. Behold I was caught in the wrath of an ostracizing and unforgiving society.  I was a raging whore in their eyes. A woman of loose morals, dressed to attract the attention of men, she gets intoxicated with wine and dances provocatively at night…

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Love and Chemo

Posted on October 25, 2018 | 3 comments

a frazzled thief in the burn
she came to me disorganized

and knobbed
and reaching up short

a lost wax casting
a mecca of bones in bright drapery

come and lose this she said
ride the raves the light ball ends

guitars and thin nickel strings
and rumored fathers

in this skinny hour
before noon

only from courtesy
I must keep you dead, she said

as radiation in the mouth and spine
humanized acid; arctic life

a lover knows when to leave
the summit and ledge

thin as one degree of tangent
this brief high nakedness

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Whistleblower

Posted on October 22, 2018 | Leave a comment

count the rinses
the rings the leavings
the unconscious
drip drop drip
of having set off the alarm
pull the shade down
watch the blue light
filter through the creases
watch the current
following the holes
watch the day
arrive in small packets
and granite faces
and breadless ways
snow snow it
does not here
this place does not recall
your jungfrau days
it takes what it wants
and hands you your coffin
with only your hands
and eyes inside

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