early growing up

I was never a kid of the streets (well sort of not, and certainly not in any conventional sense). . . I did grow up, but not in a city; I grew up in the country and a couple of small towns, Windthorst and Archer City, Texas. We had some moments, but we missed the expresses, buses, and trains whispering and whistling by on toward somewhere important and of meanings beyond our comprehension. We barely knew our surroundings, but they were grand enough, and we did not fully grant additional grandeur to other places. They were just mostly over there.

A Zapteo toward love

I dance my heart away
I cannot yet come home.

I stomp and clog for love
I jump toward you and sway away.

I am not always me, but sometimes you.
We dance our hearts away
and cannot yet remain home.

So, we stomp and clog our love
and jump toward whom we love.
You are always you, but sometimes me.

More scribbles

Be true to love and to yourself;
expect nothing more from others
and we will always have companions
on the trails we choose to explore.

Sometimes I ride my trike

My day rockets if I sit astride a riderless fence
or plummets into hormone hell if I fall off a bike.
Some days are treasures, some are endless hell,
I move with the shadow of the moon and a rising sun
or keep my ass on the ground and don't move at all.
Sometimes it is a hard call.
Sometimes I just ride my trike.

Whispers from Lucretius

Neither gods, their angels nor minions
have sky-hooks positioned about our world.
We are not catfish nor their minnows
dodging the press of floating hooks in a swirl.

The twisting water is life reaching out
as naturally as the growth of quartz crystal.
It is something real, eternal, without thought
not booked in dog-eared cave-found epistles.

Expectations and Realities

I expected to become a cantankerous old man,
and was looking forward to sharing some vile.
It's a dilemma, part of me would enjoy the party
but then along came bodily ills to remind my reality.

I did not know much about patience, but I am learning.
This is not a poem. Wait! Shit, the biscuits are burning.

It's Simple Enough

I scribble because I love life and am alive.
If I stop and no longer scribble, I am not alive.

It may be a sad day somewhere
but I will not juke you here
it will not be a sad day everywhere.

Someone will rejoice and sing hallelujah
or toot what a wonderful world on their tuba.

I am not sure where I have been

Sometimes,
choices that we assume we have made
have such direct, consequent results
that divergent paths from today to next year
appear with a clarity that seldom happens
when we intend to plan our futures.

These decisions are such that we have never
entertained them at all -- but if we had
there would not be the clarity that suddenly exists.

We suddenly can respond definitely "yes" or "no."
Two roads in the middle of nowhere both logical,
maybe possible, and we nod and think we think
and choose some wandering path of wonder
and know without a doubt it is the road to heaven.

Probably Trobably colored again.

In my life once or twice
I've realized a moment outside the norm
that was totally in a different course and form.
This kinda shit ain't always nice.

Who the hell are we to grin and smirk
at the universe and its endless quirks.
With my tripled eyes and purpled ears
I can count the darts and dodge the spears.

My brother Art and my friend John

My brother, John, and me smiling, listening
to strangers on a shore, sitting with love
and embarrassment in a bar trying to measure
our yesterdays and tomorrows to sweet music.

Art, a Navy vet, scheduled back to Viet Nam,
and my buddy John, and me, 4-year vets not going back
and all of us talking words, sipping booze, judging ourselves
and discussing our brother's options, Canada or Viet Nam.

We sat listening, talking, flipping cards and poker chips
without much meaning in a world turned topsy-turvy
and heard the strumming of the toughest strings of love
tied directly to all of our hopes for a very troubled world.

Road to Burnt Water, the year before our Marriage

My car is on the entrance ramp to the freeway heading west
that's back toward the direction you are coming from.

Another exit is between Burnt Water (Tó Díílidí in Navajo)
and the Sanders Indian Store.
Go past the exit to the Indian Store
and the Shell station (on your left)
and it's one mile to Burnt Water exit.

Get off the highway and drive as if you were going to go back
the way you've just come -- my car is on that on-ramp.

Some simple directions:

I am 30 miles west of Gallup,
64 miles east of Holbrook,
between Sanders and Houck.
Remember it has been snowing here.

Just to be totally clear if you have questions:

37 miles east of the painted desert
6 miles east of Sanders
3 miles west of Houck.
I hope the weather is okay in Berkeley.

Seeking affinity with Keats

At night when I smell some breath of fear
stalking lobbed-legged as my mounting years,
I seek John Keats to spell again his fears
and then, on even earth, I respect my old age.
Hungered, I breathe the air that was his breath
and I chew the moon sea stars that are his food.
With diet and wan smile, we break a brittle cage.
We keep an open door, but not to ease in death
but smiling welcome such life as passes there.
And once filled with fear, we smile our peace.
Expectations grow, not less, but always more.
Yes, surely death will someday stop to smile.

Clue to my Age

These are some ongoing chores I used to be assigned from about 5 years old to about 14/15 years old (intermittent and emergency chores would take pages):

let the milking cows (1 or 2 depending on the year) out in the morning at dawn and make sure they were back in the barn before nightfall

sometimes milk the cows but that was seldom and easy and usually done by an adult

feed and water the chickens and make sure to try and find all the eggs from yesterday and the bantam eggs were smaller and hard to find (we didn't have box nests until later)

carry out the slop for the hogs (never more than 2-3) and make sure they were fed and had plenty of CLEAN water

go down to the well and draw a couple of buckets of water for the kitchen (and after school repeat the process)

chop the already gathered and sorted logs of wood into kindling for the kitchen stove (mostly after school)

dip the chickens (usually 2-3) whose necks were wrung into heated scalding water and pull all the feathers for kitchen and later eating

after rains to tour up and down our farm road ditches looking for crawfish to grab put in a bucket and bring home for supper

gigging frogs at night in a couple of very small local lakes (we called them tanks) at certain times of the year when the weather allowed

spring gardening was a whole set of chores in itself

canning season after the garden was harvested was a whole new set of chores but it meant we had a cellar full of food for winter into spring