If you do not mind
in no time,
you may have none.

No mind. No time. Nothing.
Only scurrying from summary report to
detail addenda. One errand,
then another. From concern
to worry.

If you do not sense
your mind, it may not
make any.

Just chatter
that talks over any other thought that dares
to arise. Droning out daydreams.
Muffling reason.

If you do not feel
your mind, it may steal yours.

Any ignored sight, touch, or emotion remanded
to the encoded static of the mind’s
supplemental archive.
Nothing indexed, so
you cannot later stumble on it. So
the mind can play the fragments over
and over to distill the feelings.
Only to find each one
empty.

But your mind
does not mind. Well,
only some of the time.

It still waits for you
to come to mind.
And hopes you stay in touch,
if you do not mind.

April 2010, April 2011 (and a little 2012)

Summer nears Phoenix

You can hear when it
gets close. The suburban roofs
pass a dial-tone lament among themselves.
The buzzzz hop-scotches between the roof tops
like contagious phones demanding to be hung up. Hoping
the dead air will soothe their fever.

This is before the clouds and birds flee
the daytime skies. Before late-season clouds
stop at the edges of the metropolitan slab,
afraid to enter until nearly dawn.

But it is a dry heat. Unless
you are downwind of one hundred or so
grafted lakes.

2011

Dust and power outages

I love my sister. But she and I disagree about
dust and power outages.

I think she sees dust
as an encroacher. Something to be wiped
away and out.
Regularly.
Never allowed to
feel at home.

Maybe I am simply lazy. Or untidy.
But dust seems unavoidable.
Inevitable. Especially here
in the Southwest.
You can rub it off,
but it comes back. Starting immediately after
each pass of your dust cloth.

But, again, I am lazy. And a very dusty
defeatist.

Power outages just are not natural —
we Big-City people know. And they are rude.
But having recently joined my sister in the rural, high desert,
I am getting disagreeable again.

I am coming to see power outages like dust:
Just another piece of life. Particularly
during the monsoon season.
And a close cousin of Rain.

Dust and power outages simply are.
No agenda or schedule. No worry
about when they might
end.

2012

From Scrapbook Number 12

The year 2010 spread out across the bed
in my youngest son’s old room. Photos,
clippings, and various stubs waiting to be attached
and captioned. Marking my first full year
of not having that son.

He had walked off the edge
of my world. Known only second-hand,
these last two years.
I had not followed him into that precipice,
but had seen it approaching.
I knew his fall would last
as long as I watched.

My son’s scrapbook pages often turn over
in my mind. But when I come to this year,
I will skip over his pages — too tired
to reenter his riptides of Confusion. Then, Sorrow.
Anger. I will save my last gasps
for any joy and hope that remains.

Anyway, I will have the documentation...
if I need it. And his myth will live on
among family and friends: Uncertain
of its meaning; Not seeing
any moral.

I continue my wait without wanting. To again be
his father who has always loved him.

2012

Citiless sky

The Fall’s cold squeezes the moisture
out of the night air — sharpening the sky’s lens
like a knife on a holy mission.

Stars everywhere
flash like joints in an otherwise invisible mesh —
sifting the dark
for any dreams.

2012

Cochise's ground

The ground down here does not like to be messed with.
Only a tenderfoot addresses it with a shovel.
It spits back rocks with every thrust of a spade —
blunting any attempt to probe it. Derisive of each jab.
Pounding the bones in your arms and shoulders
like the shovel’s pole was beating you.

The ground sneers, with little dirt for your efforts.
And if you keep trying,...
there is caliche...
for the slow learners.

2012

Of uneven ground

I have left my home of 20 years
to end my days in this high desert of uneven ground.

I came from a city that broke the land long ago. That leveled it
for consistency. Tied it down
with grids and easements and branded it
with zoning tattoos.
There, the stars’ faint serenade
was seared away by thousands of burning wires
and the ground hummed constantly,
plugged into the same electricity.
Life was exciting and well-paid
and boxed within compromised hopes.

Down here, the wild grasses, creosote, and mesquite
out-number the buildings and streets. Many of the homes
have wandered off, to wrap the wildness around them
in a constantly changing blanket —
that takes no notice of them.
Buildings are pitched on land that rolls
like the shy rivers — rising, only to drop away
when you are not paying attention.
Some land pretends to conform, but stops abruptly —
throwing down murals of rock and lost roots
and dirt that has seen too many hard seasons.
Even when lonely buildings huddle together,
the desert claws washes through their straightened streets.
And the raw wilderness looms at every horizon —
like a beast about to pounce.
The streets understand. They shed their skins, after not many blocks,
to growl at any who travel them.

Deer, javelina, and other natives wander the land
that I am told I own. They have lived here for generations
and ignore the house as lifeless debris.
For many nights, I stood out back — stripped
of my empty purpose and stuttering
at my new account numbers.
Thinking that might protect me.
The bottomless dark just breathed —
rustling branches that sometimes hid nearby steps.

I was an alien
on another planet.

It might have been the breezes
in the late afternoon — almost cold,
from the darkness just over the horizon. They kept whispering —
sometimes sternly — until I thought
I heard something.
But somehow — after a couple months — I started wondering
if I was the uneven one —
cut off too long from the voices of branches
and the simplicity of unseen steps.

I put my ear into the wind
and wait for another lesson.

2012

Farewell farewell

I had hoped to be there, for the next time you
stumbled over me. When maybe
the back-room belittling in your head
got quiet enough for you to hear
your own voice.

I have made that move to the country, for the cave
with my hoarded silence. Hoping to follow the echoes
to a voice worthy of unspoken words.

I am sorry. I never knew when another goodbye
would be your last. Or if you would know either.
It probably is best that our last farewell
passed unrecognized — its empty arms,
your familiar embrace.

2007, 2013

Winter Cottonwoods

The last of Fall’s Cottonwood leaves have dropped
their brittle applause and lie in crackly petticoat layers
below branch scaffolding.

From a distance, the scribbled line of trees
settles into a gray cloud clinging to the river.
Up close, sunlight sparkles on a turquoise lake
inverted above us and bleached branches flash
like crests on waves.

Facing the setting sun, glare
drains all color. Sight, a black-and-white negative:
limbs now cracks
in a white void.

2014

River face sea

Face wobbling on the river. A puzzle portrait
whose pieces teeter and bob on their own,
undisclosed axes. Eyes jerking about to avoid ours. As if
distracted. Or memorizing one last long look before
getting pushed downstream. Replaced by the next
snapshot falling back to sea.

Could be a tour stop for faces, pressing themselves
against the inner surface of the looking glass. Smiling
for us locals, but tossing out no revelations. Never
saying anything.
The water is no help. It remembers nothing and its images
soon leak through fingers and garble
the next shot on the reel.

Maybe the faces have nothing to say, waiting
for the whole story. Or maybe they are just
jerking us around in return. Maybe the sea
does not want us back.

2014

River daydreams

Monsoon season is coming to the San Pedro.
And the river knows it — chattering
down its half-empty burrow. Knowing soon
the air will drip green.

Under the Cottonwood obelisks, the water pulls on
a shimmering-green coat — mirroring the vaulted ceiling.
Slithering through underbrush, the river tugs
at memories bobbing from pounding rains.
When brown seas growled over the banks
the San Pedro — never dammed — now
has come to accept.

2014

Die head

Dice roll around in our heads while
we sleep. They spill out when we rise —
all bets standing from last night.

Crapping out now
could lose the whole day. Unless
we are dreaming.

2014

Buzzard spring

The stumbling wall of cottonwoods is green
again. A tsunami rooted along the buried
Babocomari River. Calling birds from linked
continents and beyond.

Turkey vultures arrive early.

When morning coils of hot air rise, twenty or more buzzards
jump on ring after ring of invisible perches. Black dots
that outline a spiral shrinking
into the ground.

As sunset nears, the dogs and I go down to the river ghosts’
sand trail. Where trees bully close together on both shoulders
of the riverbed, one of the dogs snaps a branch.
A gust unfurls as dozens of buzzards leap
into the sky. Black-and-white kites cut loose
from the green dome.

2014

Poles apart

Utility poles get lonely, out here
in the country. With their voices gone
to cellular phones, they carry only current
and electrically switched ones and zeroes.
Posted among scrub. No pavement. No curbs. No
light of another pole.

Most poles have forgotten their long,
evergreen coats. Being one in a sea that flows
beyond the horizon. Arms pumping
like flying. Whispers rising
into waves. Everything written
into their hearts — chapter
embracing chapter.

Though shaved to a smooth purpose, the sentries still
have their stories. Their feet back in earth.
We see only faceless totems shouldering wires
servicing our virtual needs. But when those lines
fall silent, will any words remain
in our hearts?

2014

Ten extra seconds

The state makes highway drivers slow
ten miles per hour, when they run
over our illegitimate town.
There is not enough money here
to slow the wheels of progress. Ten extra seconds
is all we're worth.

Maybe if we incorporated, we could afford
more time. But around here, any time
left in a pocket is not
cashed out.

2014

Merry Corpsemás (en Junio)

Dead tree with bleached-concrete limbs twisting
against hollow sky. Hunch-shouldered vultures
hung on branches.

These ornaments do not shine. They swallow
light and wait on the desert
bearing gifts.

2014

Riverbed current

The narrow forest of eighty-foot cottonwoods
wanders scrubby high desert. A tented caravan
following the worn path of the lost
Babocomari River.

Inside, grass waves overflow the riverbed, slapping piers
that shrink into sky. A sky narrowing into a stream
that follows breaks in the canopy. Sometimes
hiding. Sometimes dipping a face through the leaves —
mugging Picasso shapes.

We here — with feet in sand — we
are the river.

2014

Transit stop

It lures people in — with its supposed predictability.
Workday routine dulling the cargo to the deception.
Then scatters them about the ground. Promising
to take them back.

At end of shift, it withdraws them. Redeposits them
where they started. Knowing
they have to return.

2014

Words and people

Words are no different than people. Changing
their story, when the need arises. Appended
with how they’re heard by those around them. Compliant
with the rules of the day.
Evolving or deprecated, their line of revisions
dissolving into ghosts.

People change quicker than words. But then,
they create the words. More things in their own image.
Many fashioned out of nothing.
Words live to serve people who don’t know
their meanings. Who let common usage rewrite their
purpose and history.

Words are less distracted than people.

2014

Unanswered calls

Dearest friend — not fully trusted. Just
too many years.
Shared lives — a long, deep
embrace. Age and injuries weakening
the grip. Forgetting the times.

Much simpler — when young. Life seen
in the mirror of our eyes. Before learning
and fearing lies.

Times now — when will cannot move limb.
When unanswered calls wander the air, ringing
slowly dimming
to silence.

2014

Stark against blankness

Repeated slaps of winter wind have stripped
cottonwoods huddled along the riverbed. Among the trees,
limbs of soft-focus gray mist into the backdrop
of cloud flannel.
School-chum trees, trunks not yet scabbed,
mime that they’re aspen in slender,
white gowns. Their paleness stark
against blankness.

2014

Ground in winter

Hordes of four-foot-tall weeds overran
the wild lands in late monsoon. Their maces
buried themselves in everything within reach. Heads
severing from their branch chains, so the spikes
sank deeper. Skewers curling
when they pierced flesh.

But with winter, the rains have retreated
underground. And conquerors become scarecrow
stalks from which dominion has drained
back into earth.

2014

Half and hardball hugs

In the late 1950s and black-and-white dusk
of a midwestern backyard. The first times
I can remember. That hollow pop of a baseball
snapping into pounded leather. A piston stroke echoing
through unfenced yards. Nudging
the soft snoring from Avenue G.

Watching the ball sail from Dad’s hand. Arched
with his trials and errors of three and a half decades.
Thrown to me. With his intention and muscled
joy. Our generation’s rite of father-son apprenticeship
with dads going off to jobs and homes no longer
paying the mortgage or partnering father and son.
More of me can be there, now. That splash of pain
in palm — when my catch missed the webbing — seen
as part of the lesson and its toll of flesh.
Like Dad’s dinner-table roasts: Pokes in the ribs,
from the heart. His graceful sweeping of my throw
into his boyhood mitt.

I can’t remember our words, but know I felt — more so
now — somehow embraced. I would have had few words,
back then, and probably dropped any from him. I had none,
when I became his age and he retired. Me temporarily
at home and Mom having left, again. Maybe reminding Dad
of his chopped-off fathering — dad leaving
for a city job. Mom and sisters gone and patriarch taking the bench.
Guess it was my turn to coach. Arms unafraid
to hold, but finding my champion soft and bony. Wondering
if I had not known him and confused by his new words. Hug
seeming half-empty. Me hoping, probably like he had,
that it was the best I could do.

2015

Wall reflection

That pattern on a familiar wall — that meanders
slowly into the same image. Like an old friend’s words
returning to dog-eared pages. Feeling
settled.

Like dawn horizon taking a deep breath and
pausing. No sound, no motion. Everything simply
here.

Back-of-head commentator and judge-and-jury choir
gone. Only you and reflection. Finding
now.

2015

Wood-stove ascension

Fire flares from a log, freeing summer days
when sunlight toasted its bark and leaves. When the tree
knew it would live forever. Radiating
passion that grips soil in deep hands and breathes
air into sky.

Flames flicker its family movie — fluttering
and snapping with joys and sorrows. Smoke curls
rings of seasons past and weaves them
up a hollow trunk narrowing
to a point of light.

From rooftop, a life unfurls, thins to unseen,
and descends among trees. A spirit nourishing those
still bound to earth.

2015

Spring training

Spring has sprinkled young birds on awakening
branches — tree limbs testing tendons stiff
from off-season. Sap-wakened fingers flick the birds
like joy unable to sit still. Hand-tossing them higher,
touch relearns the caress of seams.

Mesquite Tree has a slider that jumps
and dives with jerks in speed. Like spasms
of adolescent attention. Desert Willow
is young, with no arm. Still deciding whether
to be a tree or bush.

You know where the rookie is headed.

2015

Roads without edges

In the country, most roads are dirt and cross each other
without formalities. Just nods to acknowledge
another direction. No names exchanged. No destinations
heralded. Edges and limits unspecified
like with the land of most neighbors.

People seeing no need and the authorities
no assets.

          Almost like before we created Government to defend us
          from ourselves. Before the Law was ruled
          Creator of People.

Here, roads run free and naked. Many unauthorized. Prone
to roaming and eroding whims. Some sink back into wildlands,
having lost their reason — the jurisdiction
never hearing their names.

          But eventually we run into pavement and get lured
          back to the lights and plotted streets. Where edges and limits
          reign from offices in unknown locations.

Will the offices return to wildlands
if they lose their reason?

2015

Patio nihilists

The late-afternoon breeze was friskier
than its usual, serene self. Blowing up the dresses
of leafy trees. Shoving some burly trunks as if
looking for a scuffle.

Behind the taming chain-link, cobblestones remained
aligned and indifferent. But the plastic furniture grew more
and more brittle.

They know these raw materials will be buried,
in a planetary wink, leaving winds with nothing
to justify themselves. Organic matter choked
lifeless. Compressed into oil.

To be boiled down to plastic.

2015

Box of shadows

Ball-headed straight pins — buoys at the corners
of relics floating on a black sea. Jetsam washed up
from the unlit gallery in the back of our heads. Specimens
crucified for the whispering fears or regrets
that hide beneath them. More myth
than fact.

Shadows poured into a box and sealed behind glass
to keep out time’s dust. Surface glancing light
of home fires on far, dark shores. Tide
crawling in, then out. Unseen,
unheard.

2015

Borders of Day and Night

Sundown erects a line, splitting Earth. In front,
Day. Behind, Night.
Black tides seep ahead where peaks
and other silhouettes stand taller. In waters
that swallow reflections.
Mountains lock shoulders, damming a sea of light
that recedes slower than can be seen. Course
never changing.

It leans into line, fixed on the horizon. Not seeing
the opposite confluence has no border. Simply light
blending black to gray that dissipates
to illumination.

It can’t see the dance of Day and Night: touching
fingertips and entwining bodies in early dawn. That Night
washes up its other shore buoying
a new Day.

2015

Dirt knows better

Earth learned long ago that exasperation
is only tiring. We recent occupants — conversely —
gnaw on it. Boil it down, to wield
for advantage.

And market it to any
seeming idle.

2015

Housework through science

House-cleaning ignores science. Archeology knows
where native dwellings are found:
Under layer upon layer of dirt. Sure,
methodical tidiness glistens of duty
and progress. But which artifacts survive?
Basic geology: Earth doesn’t stop
making dirt.

Nature stirs up these messes in outbursts
from her puttering. A similar cleaning schedule
seems only appropriate. Who are we to question
the spheres of planetology?

Besides, nagging dust shuts up
when it doesn’t know when you’re coming.

2015

Learning with winds

It had to have been those sneaky, late-afternoon
breezes — that first fall in high desert. Almost cold,
coming from darkness crouched behind the mountains. Whispering,
sometimes losing patience and building to an insistent
but civil exhale. Nudging branches to flap
arms for my attention. Or subtly
mime their disbelief.

Winds here are easy to misread. Especially for city folk
not used to unprocessed lands and forces that know
we are their guests.
Air needs listening as friend. Holding each word and silence
to feel its gentle beating.

We forget they’ve roamed land and sea. All four corners,
before drawn. Touching places never to be seen. Reaching
to the edge of their extinction.
Heady stuff when you can’t grasp
earth or water.

It must have been while night seeped up the back slopes
of the Whetstones. Hearing leaves take a breath and steps
unseen but true. Learning to turn face away
from the howling and point ear
into their voice. Baring stillness
and another lesson.

2015

Cloudy with chance of oblivion

Low-flying cloud snags on a mesquite — staggering
a nearby ash with laughter. Ground is stunned
to stillness. Other clouds
freeze their shape and continue gliding
and pretending not to notice
or move.

Mesquites can’t be bothered — head-down survivors
fixed on conquest and hoarding their green. Growing
over neighbors, even family.
And themselves.

To them, anything lagging behind
never exists.

2015

Add water and alchemy

Cold turned stone has worked its alchemy
on cottonwoods along the buried Babocomari. Gold
shimmers and exhales softly along a narrow vein
panned from a couple miles of sand.

The winding glow stands above mud-brown
and black brush and trees smudged in the depths
of chapped air. Their colors migrated
underground in search of water
that may never return.

2015

Triangles and circles

Hastate: Shape become weaponized. Triangle
sharpened and chiseled on both sides. Pointed
for conquest and winged for range. Humanity’s
first distance killer. Loosed at enemies
never met — their being never
to be known.

Progress: Honing stone until it can sear
whole regions of planet — without us seeing
what we’ve done. The poison on our planet
and blood on our hands.

Reverie: Early man choosing circles, not triangles.
With no sides or edges to give or take offense
or life. A form welcoming touch
from any side. Embracing
all of us.

2016

As dads do

Forgiveness can die without being asked for — withering
from lack of realization and caring. Any offered, falling —
unsewn — on concrete.

Your three-year-old face peeks from inside
this twenty-fifth edition — reminding me of tiny head
nudging against my lonely hour caress. Palms
nightly cupping your growing crown — calming
dream storms to a sigh breeze.

Your gatling words jerk from a skull grown
to lose voices and echoes you talk over. So many
lost days we could have listened together, comforted
myths and mistakes, and learned touch
as more than sleight of hand.

I’ve waited six years and will continue as long
as dads do — for you to find the piece of heart
I planted in yours. Memories will keep
forgiveness blooming until you
catch its fragrance.

2016

Night tide

Sun sinks below Earth’s tideline, west
of these Huachuca Mountains. From other shore,
Moon calls shadows from tall pine and juniper
that stretch away from weakening breezes of light —
dark seekers climbing to merge and fill canyons
with pools of night.

Black waters rise over everything — reflecting
a twinkling dome of evergreen dreams.

2016

Poetestor without a cause
(To Richard Shelton and William Stafford)

My college poetry teacher wrote me
Read more.
I heard that as
Stop writing.
But I could have misread between lines
life had cut in his face.

Ruleless and unruly, I kept on alone —
not reading him closely. Nor any others
whose words seemed buried in the page.
Wrapped in the desert, my voice wandered out
into the scrub and washes. Lost words
came back with broad rhythms tip-toeing
over the ground and up,
inside me.

Words led to their unspoken lives and a voice —
plain and earnest as Kansas — whose fearless heart
kept me true to my words.
Two careers later, I hung up words’ faces
and followed their hearts. But the voice was gone —
with no others seeming to
embrace their words.

Wiser eyes returned to my teacher’s
first book, where pages howled The untamed
are still out there.
My words still don’t circulate
with known ones. But I’m content
these will have me.

2016

Hear thyself

Talking to yourselves is not so
unusual. Not necessarily unhealthy —
unless you argue a lot.
Disagreements are to be expected. And the voices
switch speakers and direction wilder
than the winds.

I find it best to remain civil. And not hold
grudges. That avoids skipping-record scoldings
and wagging fingers.
With no back-seat inquisitors, sour-charcoal billows
part and frightened voices
venture out — commentary no longer talking over
their wounds in hiding.

It takes work, but give it time and — most of all —
kindness. They and discovery
will guide you.

2016

Not puzzling

Old friends gather like recollected pieces
of a worn jigsaw puzzle. Long-shared edges
easing together without thought —
as if never separated.

A few words or only a gesture
making everything snug.

2017, 2005

Servile air

Few people remember
“dead” air.
When infant TV and adolescent radio paused
in the early mornings. Giving air
a breather.

Some TV channels still screamed at us
and targeted our screens in traceable
crosshairs. Others shook our boxes — rustling
gray sand over monitors, so nothing
could be seen. Cranking up the hissing,
so none would watch
for free.

Airwaves no longer get time
or holidays off — more full-time serfs
of the American Nightmare. Enriching
pockets of prosperity by feeding us dreams
or fears. Squeezed into phones, slapped
on walls, and implanted in an appliance
near you.

Few people remember
silence.
Some try to mimic it —
tuning in unsold frequencies, so eyes
can close. And ears can get as close to it
as they understand.

2017, 2005

Dusk

Dusk is a back road where logic
steps off the edge, into black. Losing
its certainty.
Shapes shift slowly — skewed by mean-spirited ghosts
escaped from mind’s twilight. Steps
sound untaken or as if those of others. Maybe
from a dream.

It’s void embracing emptiness — cold
to the touch. When we recede
into darkness.

2017

Plagiarizing nature

Winds have no words
of their own. Winding themselves through others —
they coax songs of secrets, sorrows, or bluster.
Clouds have no form
of their own. Gathering what’s held by others —
sculpting mists.

Winds need say nothing
of their own — voicing words grown and resewn
over unwritten centuries.
Clouds transcend form —
cooling winds to water
life below.

What words haven’t come
from winds or clouds?

2017

Warm decor

Sun focuses on the pattern
in the carpet. Warming
to the idea of the design
in its winter home.

2017

A dream, maybe

Late in our years, the line between dreaming
and waking thins to uncertainty. Mind
with one foot in bed and the other . .  .
The other . .  . Thoughts either playing daytime movies
as old as us or ad-libbed scripts jerking
between familiar fears and memories
that may not be true.

Blinding TV lights enflame the colors, but flatten air
and life out of each scene — lost pages not needed
for the rutted plot that never seems
to move. The horror or farcical
sitcom that we’re certain can’t be
our waking dream.

2017

Shadowmaker

A low vulture’s shadow ripples
over the tops of trees — sinking
to lower branches where arms
are parted. Puddling, then streaming
where ground is burned bare.
Fleeting foreshadow of night — crouched
behind the eastern edge
of the sky inferno.

Locals know better than to look up. Moving
is enough to spare them.
And glimpsing the siren’s glare could entrance,
lose you in madness. Rob your light and beckon
the Shadowmaker.

2017

Hating ignorance

Life churns up contradictions and improbabilities
so regularly, facts end up arguing. Thought
stalling. Living gleefully upends certainties. Giggling
at each new exception.

Majority thinking doesn’t help. Spending less time
thinking than ensuring everyone agrees. Ruled
by fables our minds have whispered
since before cognition. Purchased discourse
is worse and priced the inverse
of its likely truth. Its repeated
repeated words no more true
than their unknown speakers.

Still, some TRVTH seems possible. Like: Murder
is wrong. Yet some disagree. Maybe frightened
of any certainty. Or unable to listen
over the chanted rites. Maybe it’s greed, arrogance,
or simply ignorance. None open to reason
and hiding their own.

How can we hate someone
we don’t know?
How can we hate someone
who doesn’t know?
How can hate hurt anyone
but ourselves?

2017

Origins of smoke

Soiled air — with poor personal hygiene.
Coughing from a choking campfire.
Spell cast by political alchemists.
Tribal language conjured by a bruja.
Confusion or sorrow leaking
from a mind.
Sobs of wild brush and trees dying
in coal graves.
Sighs from a family firepit —
greeting dawn.
Memories smoldering
in a home’s remains.

2017

Apache monsoon dream

Waking — deep in monsoon night — wool darkness
gushing through encircling windows. Black,
shimmerless lake outside smothering
day's rampaging torrents of green. Faint
ground lights hint of bottom-dwellers
wavering through twisting lenses.
Oscillating floor fan exhales softly. Cool,
moist breath teasing shoulders. Fleeing —
as swamp-air tide submerges everything
in sultry shallows.

Fan-blades hum — chopping whispers
bobbing to the surface. Fragments
sometimes almost discernable — then
other-worldly. Songs of Apache ghosts
bubbling up from the past? Incantations
from a drowned bruja?

Orphaned relics
washed ashore dreams
in these wildlands.

2017

Boulders know

Moving large rocks puts everything back
into perspective. Shoulders and tailbone ratcheted
lower and lower. Muscle and bone
clenching. Lungs clawing
for air.
Reminding how simple
everything is.

This is real.

Brings renewed respect for the gravity
of things: Large boulders — mountain pebbles
broken off and scattered.
Moved — to bring order —
by a species only recently
expelled by the sea.

This will pass.

2017

Settling

Everything gets settled —
eventually. Even if the agreement
is to accept the unsettled.
That settles a lot of dust —
better used as pigment brushed
across sunset skies.

My body has settled two inches. Meaning
I’m denser. Eventually
I’ll sink back into the ground — reclaimed
and recycled. More mulch for this strata
of planetary record.

Hopefully settling, beforehand, on what
my unspoken voices know.

2017

Gods of the River

Before it was a saint, the San Pedro River
was divine in its bounty. Before it
had a name, it was blessed
by every bird and beast
for hundreds of miles.

Humans came under its care and worshipped
its generosity. Feared its wrath. Immersed
themselves in it and gave thanks. River accepted
all who came — even those
bringing other gods.

Old-World man arrived and christened River
for a god he brought. He came to maintain it
and that river still runs free. Ignoring when
it dwindles below ground.
River now product — piped to strangers
who don’t know its
sacred centuries.

Man now god of the river.

2017

Sensesless fear

It crawls, ever so
slowly — up the spine. Needling skin.
Brittling bone. Tightening throat —
to choke off words
and air.

Pounding breath deafens
and struggles to catch
racing heart. Thought
staggers behind — senses slipping
through numbed fingers.

Total paralysis spasms
with fears buried over millenniums.
Ghosts fume from within. Encircle.
And wait
to feast on the wounds
of dark memory.

2017

Winter diorama

Bare branches are again sprouting
bird buds. Bundles of clenched feathers crouched
against slapping wind. Flat sky
pressed behind.

Most buds look dormant. A couple quiver
as if about to pop. One hops
to a more prominent stem.

Leaves will again curtain
this exhibit. Specimens having bloomed
and taken flight.

2018

Words and seasons

Words have their own seasons. Spring —
bursting from earth and air. Fall —
growing deeper, gripping soil
buried long ago.

Winter — chapping in silence. Fallowing
in bedded earth. Summer — trickling
down sweaty arms.

Not ruled by the sun. Defying
will and reason.

2018

Hungry hands

Hungry hands open. Wait
for words to fall — sprinkling
lifetimes everywhere.
Palms empty. Watch
syllables poke through ground. Fingers
pointing back at their mother. Arms
spreading in life embrace. Faces
open to all.

Hands relax. Anticipate
the grasp of supple waists. The dance
across the page. Planting seeds in this
gift from a tree.

2018

Probably days

Some days are like new shoes. Tight
and complaining. Probably self-pitying.
Probably for no reason.

Other days will console. Some
will require listening. Mostly,
they need wearing in.

2018

Letters from friends

Words are old friends who never quit
changing. Never tire of
reexplaining. Sharing the myths
of definitions. The tales
of forgotten meanings.

They are good friends. Patient
and forgiving. Never offended
by my tinkerings and misuse. Pausing —
not infrequently — for my
slow hand and mind.

Sometimes I leave them —
needing quiet. They understand —
having lived many lives. Before
and, eventually, after man.

Their joy and wonder always
coax me back. Sweet voices whispering,
so I have to be still. And realize
I never left.

2018

In full sight

Looking deeper into your hand
penetrates nothing. Not the lines
of your life. The copied DNA
in your blood.

We can’t see much
of what’s really important. It’s vision
of heart and mind
that perceives.

Too often, chattering and confusion
cloud sight. Obscure
what’s always been there.

2018

Living at tree speed

Seconds — as a benchmark — exude
certainty. Precision. Irrefutability.
But all sentients have their own
measure of passage.
Who’s to say what increment
is sewn in the fabric of time?

Seconds seem too self-assured. Inviting
micro-management and second-guessing.
I side with trees. Not sweating
the small stuff. Blowing by minutia
that twists and squanders time. And talks
over ancients whispers
spoken too slowly.

Imagine seeing a seedling slowly
poke through ground. Rise to sun-tilted sky —
light pulsing like a heart.
Watching bushes and trees play
hide-and-seek — shifting places,
during the longer patches of dark.
Structures growing unsustainably
fast. Toppling
under their haste.

Four segments
— with cosmos-shifting markers —
is enough regimentation
for this old sapling.

2018

Patio sentinel
(To Luchador)

Stationed at patio’s forward edge —
in assured, library-lion repose —
he scans our high-desert wildland.
Stern face unable to mask the innocence
and confusion of a teenage Heeler.

Lips clench in a straight line
as he braces for what he knows
is out there.
Not yet embracing
what’s seen.
Still fearing
what’s not.

2018

My Puppy Ate This
(To Carmela)

Well,
an earlier draft.

I don’t think she was giving me
an editor’s jab. She only knows
a few words. “Come.”
“Sit.” “Chow Time.”

The all-too-familiar
“No.”

She’s wiggly joy and affection, but has absolutely
no taste. She clears her palate
by chewing rocks. And follows that
with a poop pâté.

Though these observations are
self-serving, I think they prove her final reading
of this poem was only
a biological function.

2018

Fear sleep

He never let himself sleep
very long. Fearing he might get lost
in all that darkness. The depths
tricking him into believing. Him forgetting
to hold his breath. To go up
for daylight.

He had long suspected
black-on-black silhouettes
baubled with his dreams. Seeping
into daytime hours. Eventually
to replace him.

He wonders if this is
a dream. Maybe a dream
within a dream. Afraid
to wake up.

2019

Mourning dove song

Mourning dove song echoes off wooden planks
down a long echoes box. Hollow, gray voices
emerge hollow. Masked in dusk. Aged
in dusk sorrow.

Melody choked by pleading. Repeating.
Awaiting another to join. Completing
the phrase.

Eulogy not of death. As long
as it is sung.

2019

Pay no mind. Lease, with option.

Minds don’t kill. People
kill minds.
Brains have no alibi nor idea
what’s in mind.
Subconsciousness took charge
millennia ago.

Why should brains know any more
than us? Sure, they’ve been working
that sentience thing since they stopped
peeing in public. But they too
have monkeyed minds. Chattering from deep
in ancient caves. Whispers only the voices
and echoes
can hear.

By the time we’ve tripped
over a few realities, it’s dawning
how little we say
has been minded.
Memories and thoughts — many
probably wrong. Relegated to lost
maze walls. Plastered with family photos —
slightly off-focus. Spray-painted
with sorrow or fear.

2019

Night-monsoon morning

Dawn brightens cautiously. Dimmed
by exhausted clouds still stunned
from last night’s rage.
With summer’s fierce sun soothed,
colors rise up plants from ground
oozing dank-earth incense.

Aged mesquites — bent by their black — cower
stripped of their sun-glare veils. Trunks
baring scabs and gashes. Reminders
of past rampages.

Cicadas have nightly sung this tale
of bounty and privation. Since seas fled
and these twisting medusas rose
from forsaken beds.

Last night’s audience rouses the players
who clap castanets
in ovation prestissimo.

2019

Projectionist of my dreams

Bent and bitter. With the unworldliness
of a child. The projectionist of my dreams.
Bent from too many burdens real
and imagined. Bitter from wrongs invented
or carried too long.
In a cellar corner booth
whose walls smother all sound. Except
the drone of the daily log
being redacted.

He’s probably 90, but still
a child. Thinned by age
and guilt. With Dad’s stubbled,
Sunday-morning face. Theater jacket dusty
and smelling of stale popcorn
and Kent cigarettes.
Projector’s small window clouded
by cigarette film and child confusion.
Hatch opened only after daytime dreams
have drained their batteries. And dark’s uncertainties
invalidated everything.

Features are short. Scripts tired.
Often, unmemorable.
Maybe he’s written-out
or bored. Even scars can fade
into backstory. If you have
enough compulsion.
Caressed by old celluloid, his scenes
splice disparate films. The Last Believer
of Happy Endings. Plots hiding the rhythm
of fidgeting tics tapping
tapping
on clasped portal.

At least we’ve returned to going
the same direction. Me returning
to childhood. Hopefully with a few
worthy artifacts. He still clinging
to the womb and Big Bang
that created us. Before he quit
trusting me. And I started
ignoring him.

2019

Smart aleck

Smart fone. Smart wi-fi speaker. Smart
vehicle and toilet. But not yet smart
electorate.
Maybe we’re just inattentive. Or deaf
to truth spoken
and grounded within.

Leading to following leaders
who follow
our lapses in smart.

2019

Half-hearted

The bank manager was typing
my relevant alpha-numerics
into a New-Account form. Deposing me
for each client-mined datum
of another electrified soul shuffled
among syndicates of servers.
She was pleasant and free —
it being a slow morning.
I being retired and unpriced —
am slow by nature.

When we reached Marital Status,
I extraneously disclosed three divorces.
She was professionally unshocked. But sees mergers
dissolve every day.
I tendered the old alibi about men’s brain physiology
traditionally delaying
interpersonal returns.

She wasn’t buying it.

Our agreement was lasting marriages
are as much about luck —
as consignee accounting.
Each prospectus unfathomable even after
the dice come to rest.
She had divested once, but depreciated
grandchildren.
I’m transferring romance funds
to human-equity bonds.

I don’t think she posted that
as a credit.

2019

Feral iron

Old barbed wire untwisted. Contorted
by the elements and unwary. Separated strands
now rusting veins
eaten away slowly
by indifferent rains.
Skin reduced to
orange powder.

Iron broken eventually
like even mountains and our
unnatural inventions.

A wounded guardian forsaken. Forgotten.
With brown sores leaking blood
from deep inside the earth.

2019

Better not said

.

2019

Day calendar

Calendar pages
can slow their step. Even
if only from fatigue.
To be more than
an enumeration. More than
another of the same.
COUNT. TICK. COUNT
not lulling them into waiting
to be turned.

Fresh eyes
greeting this today
as the First.
Touch gliding over
smooth paper. Winds building nearer
each edge.

Heart
leaping into space surrounding
embracing
each page.

2019

Clouds become the man

Becoming a man of clouds. And cooler
temperatures. Dusk,
not dawn. With light less
zealous. Colors
deeper in earth. Scent
moist.

With no voices
muting the land.

2019

Manicured towns

High desert knows how to tend
small towns. Snipping streets
after a few blocks.
Letting trapped plants breathe
wild air. And winds pretend nothing’s
on the land.

Having contained these blotches
of asphalt and right angles,
natives rest easier.
But some patches can’t resist
peeking down streets. Some wildlife
trace washes crawling
and twisting at whim
through town.

Looming horizons warn towns
who rules these lands. But neither nature
nor towns will outlast
the land.

2019

Late winter's misers

Months ago
winter spread its cold blanket
over everything.
Only now
miserly mesquites
are closing shop.

Fiscal year
income totaled and checked. Each new posting
only another loss.
Leaves single stems with each side
a column of fingers. Paying out one
one by one.

Now
shadow arms bared. Contorting
in lamentation. Cracking
porcelain sky.
Or hunkering below
in hollows. Blackened
muddy ponds.

2019

'Mind' in 'File' folder

My mind sometimes misfiles stuff.
Putting an experience under
Diversion. When it was really
Life Lesson.
That upends everything. Skews
the horizon. Changes
the meanings of words.

But filing —
as any indexed datum knows —
is an organic process. Labels
written in pencil. For
a reason.

2019

Mirror ||

2019

Falling...

When flannel darkness seeps
into our heads, fancy
can flutter
on the updrafts
of silence.

2019

Exchange and Repository words

Exchange-Only words
Handled words wear smooth
from innumerable exchanges. Devalued
to one, mass-coined meaning.
Worth, negligible. Return,
left uncounted.

Repository words
Saved words stay close
to the chest. Resting
against the heart. Beating steadily
in time — as best they can. Definitions
shifting with how each word is held
up to the light.
Tip-toeing through silence
or rising on the back of a silk breeze
brushing an ear.

Neither leave
a footprint.
Passing a rhythm
to another heart.

2019

Feral electricity

Energy by nature. No
carbon footprint.
No design or agenda. Not even
a marketing plan.
Arching its back and hissing. Sometimes
bellowing like a howitzer.

Anxious and angry to come inside —
out of the rain. Jealous of that easy life
with glistening conductors and snug jackets.
And no jerking about wildly
every split second.

But it is feral and loves
its freedom. And has seen human
erraticness.

2022

Mesquite winter

Encircled by twisting mesquites — entangled
in gangs of thickets. Who know
they’re wearing me down.
Making me another
contorted soul.

Now in winter, I too hoard my green. And ignore
the elements. As if clenched will can upend
an ancient cycle. That Apache raids of Spring winds
can elude Winter’s brittle days —
that grow with the darkness.

When the inevitable
becomes cruel.

2022

Yes, again

Has it been that long
already? That I'm back where the trail
runs thin. And uncertainty whispers
in the scrub.

No words in my pockets. And doubting
the value of any I might find. Seeing the horizon
as what’s been forgotten, from behind me.

Wondering if poetry is what pioneers
were too resilient to write down. Asking
if words need me
to stand them in line.

Words. Yes, that was it. Their tales
and patience. Knowing they'd be
left behind.

Me ignoring mileposts
until they were passed. Wondering if I missed
the last one.

Wait. It’s not the words. Nor
the mileposts. It’s
the journey.

Still.

2022

Right Read

Life written as poetry. Rhythmic. But
without reason or rhyme.
Words left unrecorded. Dissolving
into a mute breeze that wanders
off. Aimless.

Life read as written. No edits
or second-guessing. Words tucked
in right, inner pocket. Where they seep
deep in the chest. Seeds that will
sprout tomorrow.

2022

The

is an egotistical — yet ironically —
worthless word. With back stiffened straight.
And perspective narrowed
to today’s attention span.

Duct-taped on front of anything
that’s not moving. Boilerplate of obviousness —
never read. Its presence sufficient
of itself.

Any word that follows it — by protocol —
is supreme. Without peer. Or examination. Esteemed as
an article of fanfare.

                            — ( ) End —

2022

Final curtain

Ritual paint on face — gaslight makeup
to soften the light and glares. One last
dose of preservatives. For closeups
and the nosey.

Main character as mime — reclined
for thorough viewing. Laid out
like the map of a life.
Whose legend is missing
and known by few.

Dad’s rarely worn glasses were put on
as if that could mask his
decades of mischief. None knowing
that was the face seen only
by his fears.

2022

Mesquite dreams

Spring came early. Snoring mesquites
couldn’t care less. They had been the last
to bow to winter. As all life retreated
underground. Scrub expanses brittling
into jaundice and plaster stalks.

They’ve always been late-sleepers — entranced
by thicket fairies and deep-rooted tales
whispered under black-scale covers.
But now heat has awakened branches —
pulsing with thinned sap. Sweetened
with winter dreams.

2022-3

Another word (poem)

A word
by any other spelling. Remains uncertain.
Dodging between definitions
so it has an alibi —
at the drop of a conjunction.

Some words
keep to themselves. Too scholarly
to be used. Losing
their meaning.

Too many words
are full of themselves. Illogically spelled.
Unpronounceable.
Disguised like the name
of a lobby group.

Perhaps words should be read
for themselves. And not
spoken.

2023

Slighted Subconscious

Subconscious has been cheating on me.
Seeing another Persona
behind my frontal lobe.

I can’t blame him.
I’ve become old and boring.
And the mindfulness meditation
makes him feel shunned.
I’m sure he thinks Intuition gets
all the fun jobs. And most
of the credit.

But Subconscious never listens. And mutters
when he knows I’m not listening. Certain
that I have nothing new to say. Numbed
by life pains that I didn't notice
or forgot. Those whispered fears —
long threadbare.

Silence can bare fragments
of his commentary. But they flee —
jumbling echoes down a hall.
If I follow, I sometimes happen on words —
meeting each other as strangers.

Subconscious likes his space. And uses mine —
usually unrealized.
I give him his secrets. He knows —
better than I —
all of mine.

2023

Libraries of one poem

When a poem is befriended, it bonds
with its reader. And becomes
theirs.

One poem becomes many. That
walk among themselves.

None knowing
their meanings.

2023

MAGA

Thinking produces nothing
you can hold. Some think nothing
and won’t let go.

2023

Hope in the World

He’s in a better place, she said.

For a born-and-assimilated WASP, those are
tribal words. Rote ritual. Their meaning forgotten
centuries ago.
But aged by three-quarters of a century
and a student of words, I decided —
          Hear the words.

He is under a bird-bath memorial. Overlooking
a mesquite thicket that stretches until restrained
by a 40-foot wall of cottonwoods — shadowing
the wandering Babocomari. Both seeking water
flowing underground.

North and west of here, the state’s masses swarm
over two concrete oases. Where air pulsates
with discharged energy and
unfulfilled desires.
While across the planet, hope
is that you can pay the rent. Or
eat. Maybe get one more day of forgetting
why you’re angry. But certain
you’re lost.

___________________________________________
WASP — White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant

2024

Circle K, U$A

Circle-K smile glistening like brand names
            yet stickerless prices.
Aisles embracing, pulsating
below neon-light hum. Each walled in
by shelves throbbing colors
            that glare out small print.

Smile teasing joy always
just out of reach. Priming for The Big Score:
            CHECKOUT
            IMPULSE-BUUUUUY!

That sells in the USA. Bright lights
of promise. Pot
in every chicken.
            Leaders pushing ahead of the mob. Lurching
            it on. Without thought
            or conscience.

2024

Up the Babocomari

Most southwest rivers hide
when they can. So humans can’t find
them.
But proud cottonwoods —
once towers at water’s edge —
give this one away.
Still following a trail
forsaken.

Mountains on three horizons silent
as snow to hoard winter’s harvest. Relenting
in spring to parcel it out
to humans in the valley. Hoping
they won’t waste these
gifts from the sky.

2024