Here

In these Redwoods

The wind can’t blow

Just kind of stops outside of camp- dumb

I moved away now and

Am uncareful

to not

Isolate

And stay more with animals am an animal

I think things

About people and

Make judgments and don’t care if I do

I think things like

This politically correct thinking you do

Stops

You from saying what you are saying

A bore

To me really and I have become a razor

Lily taught me to not be too precious in my practice

As herbalist, writer or caregiver to the cancer husband who eats

Truckloads of sugar

I will let you die

If that’s what you choose

I simply ran out of time

And energy to

Tell you

Over and over and over again

To wake the fuck up

late tonight some guy followed the singing
and made his way through the dead pine
had a handful of angel, gave me three said I could trade ‘em in for something
if I wanted. I kept them and they show the night medicine
the west medicine, a way to go when the road ends

got this bottle of Jameson the girls left- I’m emptying it out tonight

may look like I’m burning it down
with all those people who come around. But I’m not there
i’m far in that other place with you
you don’t mind my old pickup, or the sour that rises from my chest
on certain nights - i ruin things

        goodbye

heard you say three names last night. I won’t tell who you called out
saw what you worn across your chest

last summer
the winter from hell
devil places

masturbation and cigarettes
i toss some out for you. For Joe, for Lily for Acey for my whore legs

i’m goin home with the boy from carolina and feel dirty
i sink back into the dense smoke in countries where its still legal
i forget my own tongue
toss the family name into the fire pit

i’ll keep going
spotted Horse on Scissor Mountain
hashish and beer in Motel 6 
bus stop at  Snakeback Ridge

 i’ve always told you
 i know dirt
 it knows me

I am sure
I was too drunk
To notice
How wonderful you were

I sat humming
Or drumming

In between the bell pattern and
rattle’s
6×2-rhythm

Somebody skin me
And excuse me
While I vomit

My last five
Exits out of society

Give me grace
Forgive my absence
And confusion

For what is human
And what is it to love?

13 
It is the hour
Of vertigo
And flickering light
That makes you question
Your eyesight
Again

Cataract perhaps
Like the moon at times
Slowly dimming
Softening the world

Fear
Is a small mountain
Which below
Is a vast and endless root system
Of the Four Earth Gods

Which
In prayer
You know to be One

Screaming child
The white snow
Bleeds it’s cold hand
Around the sumac suckers

North Wind commands
Us into next season

Put your head to the Ground

Song During Worm Moon

We are eating meat raw
Close to the bone in everyplace
Where reservations, villages, ally ways
And barrios are desperate and
Haggard

Grandmas set down their Nescafe
Pinching off the dead leaves in their dim
And congested rooms

They have ceased waiting for the letters to come
                                                                the phone to ring

Go ahead husband
Here is your soup

               altar
               smoke
               cupful of seashells
               turned to sand

My back arched just for you
Swan neck illusionist

               golden throat hummingbird
               your pit viper

Drink this
Your holy water
You are the only king here

See the way
You search for my hips at night
Slipping your hands in between my thighs to warm them
                                                                                           they are cold

And not just from winter
You’re a mean bastard but that doesn’t move me
You know where comfort is

Stringent bite of the bitterroot escapes from my mouth
It’s what I do

“You’re too strong,” you say
But you really wouldn’t have it
Any other way

                “… nation is not conquered until
                The hearts of its women are on the ground. …

You fall asleep
Your knees, feet and past vagrancy’s

                Then it is done, no matter how brave it’s warriors,
                nor how strong their weapons.”

Heavy upon me
I heave you, over and off me
Easily as one of the children
While singing a protection song

You do not stir
This house smells like onions, bread
And liver
You sleep easy that way

Redwood lady
My veil above me lady
Hush and hush

Our whispering lady

All around me is Thunder
Coyote I love you
I see you looking away
I do not see you
This is the way

Seeing

Manzanita, Madrone
Capture fire in your branches
Sweep the trail
Clean over the Moon

Stone I am beneath you

I have died before
I am sure of it
Simply expired like the date on a milk carton
Or perhaps on a marriage certificate
It’s like that sometimes
A man or woman’s invisible number is up
Their loved one(s) cease to see them
And simply walk out the door. Easy.
Like magic my time was up. I was gone
There is proof of this-
I would walk down ally ways or dirt roads
In my ghost state to reach a tiny sign that read
“Papayas For Sale-Wednesday Only”
Nobody saw me

I was sure I was an oddity
Who cared for such things anymore? The dead?
No one came to shop that day, bad luck day.
I would buy all eight of them
From the small Oakland, Dakar, Brooklyn,
Paris, Scarborough…wherever
Street vendor stand
Now I don’t give a damn about expiration dates
And understand the importance
Of fermentation

It is February
The season of the forced smiles
Painted lips, tiny handbags and “getting in shape”
People contemplate suicide. The scent of rain
Leather and car upholstery mixed with booze, ganja
And the common perfume drill the nights in further
Regrets crawl out of the black mold

People make promises in February, it is strange
Don’t believe them

chase her through the dead pine
draped in her robe of nettle- pine pitch
she pulls the ceanothus from deep below

“those hips are too beautiful for these back woods” say the boys

they want to unbraid her, breed her

ceanothus bleeds blood red
fortitude
patience
marks this ally
hands like shovels she can coax it’s medicine to the surface

“mary, mary” the boys call to the five winds
they want to mount her from behind
hard
give it her
in ways forbidden
bury it in her
they want to break all the taboos

she wears the war paint to greet
the skinwalkers who lose interest when they meet her
belly to the loam, feral
their eyes leave holes in hollow logs but do not touch her
disappearing quietly back to the shadow places

coyote is laughing at them
somehow he too loves her so much

her red lips are hard to handle
allied to the medicine of the ceanothus
she is too fierce to be woman

perhaps they can bypass her contrary nature
just skim over the little bit of thunder
and reach into her bundle

perhaps

here

in the phoenix ward     i

am locked up like an animal
they want to observe me
to deconstruct the kaleidoscope
see me open my key box

they say i speak with the shadows
i down play it for them

here in chump town u.s.a.
they are too soft
fragile in every way you can imagine
they hurt easily and become frightened at once

you are here again in my peripheral
in my everywhere
the flood tide
on the open road
you ride the tule fog
and are fearless
and come to rest
behind my two eyes
looking out

you are so beautiful
my Familiar

Stained ink on worn leather

Slide down the curvature of symbol

You know how I scribble on anything here, there

My scrawl

A sip

Chug of your dark brew

Inhale of the deep forget         you are my opium

Holler     sometimes screaming

And the angels hear you

Whisper and they still do

Upon the Ground of Gabriel

                                            we float

                                            he will not let us fall

These are the secret words         you read

Nobody knows you keep them

                                        Come

                                        Come here

Come quickly if you can

It rides like citrus bound to rawhide a scent that may fade

Before you taste it

Pull pulling you

Come home

            the

            dark viscera of someplace

                                    fecund soil

                                    be the river

                                    unbound

This River twists

Contorts and confuses the city

You disappeared into the deep crevices of the Dead Pine

Then further, you retreated, coming to rest within the Cedars

I too sink back into the granite within the sea caves at negative tide

This is exile self chosen

From here I speak to you, tell you everything

Come when you can no longer speak
Come when the glands of spirit suffer from malnutrition

I too have hungered

Have fed on the cicada shells

On the letter that never arrived

A mouthful of tule fog

On the perfect nothing

Expired visa

Emptiness

The lost rhythm

Where the Salsa is not fun

Broken swan whistle     hollow

                                     Where not even echoes return

Tell me my Familiar

You know

How I have risen from the Red Delta

From the filth in the rivers, from the undeniable

Echo of the tight alleyways, where I leaned against cement

Unstable many times

too much

I keep laughter in my pocket

And now         your presence this side of the hour has me unhinged

You unbraid me

How can I even lean or buckle

Release the softness you remember so well

Yield

In all this upheaval?

I don’t dare crumble now

This is vertigo

And if you look

Very closely you will see me- head tilted         listening

Looking very closely at the visible invisible beings         shadow         dream

We are also

What we have lost

As we stumble into grace

Scarlet Star

Heyoka His Medicine

She is wearing

A headdress of matchsticks

Robe of dog skins

Her small feet and are toughened to the bad bones

As she walks across the backs of men with her

Black lonesome thoughts

On roads too tough to hoe

She is counting small bills in the shade

Because there is still a small pride

Washing her hands thoroughly in the dirt

She counts her money and will hold her head up

And no one will no she came from trash

Because she keeps her nails clean

White of eyes clear

        west wind

        indifferent

        blooms in the night

        unlucky then lucky

There are swallows in the sky here

She is unbraiding her hair, which drags in the gully

And wherever she passes the wood will not catch

I am done for
Seeing this beauty you are

Heard your lullaby
In a pebble

And caught your wild eyes

In the autumn maple
Leaves
Upon the loam

How
Could I ever lean
Or buckle

Except to sink into the lichen
And feel you

Where have you been
All this time
It’s late
Smoke rises

Up

I have never been pretty
Something you would want
To look at for long

In market places, trading posts and bazaars
I have made old men cough, children squint
And their aunties made them wear
Their clothes inside out and backwards
After I touched their eggs and cork bottles

I got sick once and they called
For the blind healer

They will remember none of this
Only my harsh tongue
And how I wouldn’t love them
And think thoughts they think correct

They lower their voices
And give me drugs
Not close enough to opium
To make me forget
To extinguish me

I laugh for a long time
They come undone

As I drift off they are still
Trying to book passage
Into the bruised and cracked mind
They want to chart this
Become geologists of madness

I laugh the grapes from the vine
I laugh
And sound like cigarettes and whiskey
I am hoarse
I dream of horses

Riding fast
Fast, not looking behind me
I can see them with the eye
On the back of my head

i once was somebodies pretty

wore neroi and rose absolute. season of pearls and cashmere, cinnamon in the brandy

crumbling under his touch, fingers between my legs I quivered

                                                                      wanted more

sweeter than honey spun baklava

i believed

the sun went down in october

by late winter i was a heathen

the winds howled, sounded like war

i could relate

now I walk the streets of china town

and try to kick the mean reds

the ocean pulls back and it is too far to wade in the water

i sit on granite and line up bullwhip, circular stones, waterlogged feather for a flag

                                                                                                       my home

i forget my tongues, tossing the family name into the fire pit-moving on

forked lightening

there is sacrifice in the ferns

where lacking wings i crawl

he wanted to meet the whore in me then make her disappear me disappear

                                                                                           good bye

til I am at the kitchen table looking at grocery ads

no wonder i will leave you

driving

through

where she thought it would be different

this place is mud and boy cum. i arch my back

and show a kind of way

in in the end it’s a going away song. i shrug it off try to care

waters lilies in the fountain on rue royale

the cutlass buried in the bush

beer tabs into a chain   i tried to crawl into the fold of a dry leaf, tried to disappear, failed

swaying on the porch i swing to my own song, in time with the clank of the old screen door

i have traced the grains in the wood. the porch is old

i move with this pack of dogs and hide the pills from him

Valentine Nebraska, 125 mile from Pine Ridge
Asa’s kitchen floor- Winter 1990

Holy Mother bored at the Formica table
You have the broad wingspan of the turkey vulture
And some imagine you as the beautiful red tail hawk
Forgive them they are confused
Righteous one, my love jewel, smoothed river stone
Endless six-pack of Guinness, Fels Naphtha soap
Left dripping in the kitchen still wet
I have been scrubbed raw for my filthy and unclean ways
Bless Me

Holy Mother bored at the Formica Table
Bless those, who are born sacred with slanted eyes
Children of the 7th direction
Funny noses, flattened philtrum, innocent, they wander
And fail to comprehend the virtues and simple geography
They have be pickled in their First Medicine
Their bag of waters broke and 7,000 bottles of vodka
Spilled into the universe
Bless them and give them endless supplies
Of band aides, ace bandages, and glasses
Canes and Seeing Eye Dogs, a compass, maps
For they forever stumble through life
Seeking that which has cursed them
Whisper strong medicine in their ear- better late than never
For they are taken advantage of
Protect them

Holy Mother bored at the Formica Table
I have loved one who named me in secret
And love him still and hide it because
He is also enemy
Bless him; he works the strange magic
Making snakes ride with clouds, and gathers the waste
He feels the Skinwalkers seek him out
And tries in vain to be invisible
You Roadman-
Sing your protection songs for the consecutive nights
But do not have the frail take in the Peyote

Coyotes’ ass is by the watchtower
And I have been that sucker born a minute at a time
Heave me off the anthills I am one bead lost
And belong in no rattle
Make me a believer
But
Do not praise me
Do not be frightened
For I am knocked out in the gutter somewhere
Between Mina and Folsom
Completely hammered, handfuls of barbiturates
Still I stand, but hear me, I want to drift off at times
Leave you a note on the bedside
Crawling I am looking for you Trillium ovatum
Mescal, Cage Bloom, I navigate side winders to reach you
I am following the carefully laid trial,railroad tracks
The hot trickling semen, breast milk the rare honey
That leads to you, Prima Mobile, Necessary One

Holy Mother bored at the Formica Table
Guide us all back to the Way
Great one I see you always in the calyx
Fox in the chicken coup, the landslide
Your cold hand reaches out of the potholes muddy
You stop us in our tracks on our way to mischief
The wolves have come back in abundance
And complete the prophecies
You are found in the scrawl of our children’s hand made
Valentines, which we will keep forever
Dog-eared, you are the writings of Marquis de Sade hidden
Under everyone’s blankets
Suave lover you are the masturbation at midday
Sustenance when we think all is lost
The thick roux in the summer compost
You feed all living things
Help us now

Holy Mother bored on the Formica table have a drink
My coffee is blessed with hangovers
Of the intertribal bickering
You cover me in heat
My address is 20 blankets and there is no passport
Don’t bother with Hudson Bay those days are long gone
Trade me into another genus

I seek you in the unmoving buds of the February cherry tree
Stolen
A storm is on its way
To blow it all away, sweet words - secrets
Bad uncle uncle likes this. Praise him, watch over him
In his yellow piss stained overalls
He keeps shiny coins, candy, dollar bills, and horsy rides
That knee of his leads straight to hell
Bless him, Bless his hard on
At the Family gathering

Bless those who have turned a blind eye
Bless those whose anger does not wane

Holy Mother bored at the Formica table
Lightening has gathered the Soldiers
Thunder brings us backwards
I enter and exit the impossible glittering lights of cities
They are foreign, bless me and bless my hair
Shiny that is indifferent to Ikto
Bless my whore legs, my skinned knees, and the spot
Where like a ridge to hell my collarbone points to my belly
To my secret longings
Bless all women who fear the warm orange glow
Of beautiful places
Where husbands meet perfectly manicured lovers
A solitary diamond in each ear, they laugh,
This is fun

Bless our sweat of prayer
Bless us for we are the father and mother, the wife
Sister and child
Our lodge pole spines have
Crumbled and erected themselves
We can rebuild the brick shithouse
Bless us we have become very hard

Holy mother bored at the Formica table
Here is the holy cup, tequila, red label
And sterno in a demitasse
Nyquil and Listerine in shots,
We are enclosed in the shed sniffing paint
We seek you out
And know that this is not the path to Empyrean

Bless the over burdened men
1234567 help them keep track of all things
They must not forget
Help women not blame him for it all, hold man in comfort
For they are tired in ways women cannot understand
Holy mother bored at the Formica table
Your psalms are on our bellies, written in all tongues
I find you, the arched branch in winter
You are the late apple, the last season
Forgotten fruit, my lucky charm my bad language at airports
I cuss you and praise you
My ritual
I want to forget
Remember you always