“Tomorrow is Eight Hours Away”

I never crave to close my eyes

Because it means the next day

Will come before I know it,

Before I want it.

Why dream my life away

When I can live it,

When I can absorb it?

But the pillow is so soft,

The sheets are so silky,

And my frigid feet

Need the protection only a flannel blanket can provide.

Tomorrow is eight hours away.

I wish it would take its time arriving.

There is too much to do, say, learn and fix.

Yet I would rather be overwhelmed

By sleep

Than life.

What Works No. 25.


 

“If you go carrying round pictures of Chairman Mao . . .”

 

Some kid came to our bargaining unit,

talked Marx, socialism, lots of bullshit.

We said, listen, man,

we’ll get what we can,

but as for your politics, forget it.

The cold alone

 

 

You are a grinning madness,
standing there in chill moonlight.
Why then so much sadness?

The bottle drained inside a mess,
howling there through sleepless night.
You are a grinning madness.

When these are gone I’ll have some rest,
the cold alone and hidden from sight.
Why then so much sadness?

I must consume drink-drink to dress,
a boy now lowered, cornered in fright.
You are a grinning madness.

Red peaks through the changing crest,
bringing forth the snarled fight.
Why then so much sadness?

You carry off the iron-warm west,
hunting breath lit up as light.
You are a grinning madness.
Why then so much sadness?

Dream on, bourgeois baby 

 

 

By day

the bass player’s

a C.P.A.

 

By morning

the drummer’s

snoring.

 

His nose

is nestled in

her hose,

 

at her calf,

or her shin,

peeled half-

 

way down

her legs, his ten-

sized shoes

 

thrown to the

corner, a playah,

& down he goes.

 

In this town,

4 different bars

host their shows,

 

throw in booze,

tune guitars.

Smiling Mars,

 

The Back-Door,

O’Leary’s, & Ho Ho Ho’s.

& that makes 4.

 

The mixer/

producer/song-writer

was a lawyer.

 

You insist

you’ll let your kids

do this, too,

 

unlike tight 

parents before you,

always right.

 

One guitarist

sells property, stock,

(a capitalist).

 

Unlike you,

he rocks.  They rock.

& you just want to.

 

& his echo,

& his flanger,

each rush to go

 

faster & faster

than his thumb & finger,

& each of them

 

likely knows

more about picking

than he does.

 

This volume

you’re hearing

makes you deaf.

 

You don’t know

a treble from a clef.

You just assume.

 

But I assure you,

at least 1 of you,

in this very venue,

 

swimming in rhythm,

dancing, overcoming blue,

wants to be them.

 

Dance of Tears, Chief Nobody 

 

 

I’m old Indian chief story

plastered on white scattered sheets,

Caucasian paper blowing in yesterday’s winds.

 

I feel white man’s presence

in my blindness-

cross over my ego my borders

urinates over my pride, my boundaries-

I cooperated with him until

death, my blindness.

 

I’m Blackfoot proud, mountain Chief.

 

I roam southern Alberta,

toenails stretch to Montana,

born on Old Man River−

prairie horse’s leftover

buffalo meat in my dreams.

Eighty-seven I lived in a cardboard shack.

My native dress lost, autistic babbling.

I pile up worthless treaties, paper burn white man.

 

Now 94, I prepare myself an ancient pilgrimage,

back to papoose, landscapes turned over.

 

I walk through this death baby steps,

no rush, no fire, nor wind, hair tangled−

earth possessions strapped to my back rawhide−

sun going down, moon going up,

witch hour moonlight.

 

I’m old man slow dying, Chief nobody.

 

An empty bottle of fire-water whiskey

lies on homespun rug,

cut excess from life,

partially smoked homemade cigar-

barely burning,

that dance of tears.

the broken butterfly effect

every time
the front door
slammed hard
which was often
a badly fastened
jesus painting fell
in the living room
revealing a fist hole
in the dry wall

a tragedy worth having

 

it’s a simple beauty

on a sunny day

 

angelic eyes glancing

from across a crowded

room

 

you could tell from her

lipstick she’s a tragedy

worth having

 

buy her a coffee and

watch her take out

a flask

 

those are the ones you

wanted to marry when

you were younger

His hidden heart

 

the best thing his mother-in-law

can say about the bullrider

is the guy sure has a lot of dark hair

that and perfectly straight even teeth

 

but she doesn’t like

the way he treats her daughter—

he expects his new wife to wear

jeans and a barn shirt to fancy parties

 

he doesn’t allow a dress or heels

bitter jealousy stuck in his craw

the way she sways on her

beautiful dancer’s legs

 

driving him crazy

if she smiles at anyone but him

his lack of trust

leaves him chapped with desire

 

so he goads her into housework

straighten his crap—sharp steel

scissored  jumbled and rusting

on the driveway

 

women’s work to clean up

his dog’s shit smeared in the garage

his almost black blue eyes bore into her

with dilated bottomless pupils

 

the mother-in-law

before she was his mother-in law

had a sinking feeling a foreboding

on the day of the wedding

 

the way-over-a-hundred

hottest day that summer

in already stifling early June air

the saddest day of her life

 

as she remembers it

his hollow stare and claw-like hands

the limited vocabulary

to be kind about it

 

his mother-in-law had never seen his grit

his glory days on the circuit

the inborn tenacity and steely gaze

clinging for dear life to the bull’s tilt

 

legs splayed like pliers

the brute force of muscle memory

vice gripped on the heaving bull

with his landed eight second ride

 

she only saw the result—the crabbed rodeo hands—

one arm wrenched clean out of it’s socket

hanging a couple inches lower

on his shoulder

 

he didn’t expect marriage

to be such a hurdle

to be ridiculed

because he didn’t believe in global warming

 

his body wrung out

more like a trample than a spill

and his mind full of words like cunt—

after berating his wife

 

he admits to being a prick

but when she tells him

she’s pregnant again

he asks who’s the father