how I lost respect for someone

I know
your blood boils,
your people suffer,
your beaches stain black,
your cities break bare,
your children cry,
your soil salts phosphorous,
your elders lose shelter,
your bellies shrink hungry,
your smoke
still fumes.

But your finger
points to me
points to Europe
points to Poland
points to those ghosts of me
left to wander in short memory,
left to wallow in forgotten sympathy,
and your finger
points back
and you tell yourself
that you
are in Europe
are in Poland
are like those ghosts of me
and now you
need their sympathy
now that we're done with it.

You know
nothing.

frustrating

The task before me,
so simple
so small.

No reason
I can't win.

For no reason,
I can't begin.

coyote

Very early,
very bright.

Wind cuts
across flat surface,
shards of cold,
broken over desert heat.

With the breeze
comes the dirt,
kicked up from beneath,
caught in the belly
of those whispering devils,
dust storms
wandering slowly,
aimlessly,
above agave.

Fearlessly,
unflinchingly,
the coyote-
left ear bloodied,
right hind leg limping-
steps into the morning torrent,
breathes into the filthy air,
the ailing breath
of his home,
his Sonora.

He has come a long way,
across miles of desert,
barbed wire
stacked seemingly miles high,
and not a drink of water in sight.

The coyote
has suffered-
behind him,
his pack has thinned
over the past several days.

With so few,
the prize
will be feeble-
maybe only enough
for safe passage
back to the point of departure.

But safety
is much to ask for.

The coyote
still tastes the blood
of his prey
on his lips
as well as his own.

The border guard
watches.

His journey
is nearly at an end,
but he is still hungry.

too many people

Spilling over valley walls,
frozen peaks,
city limits,
the unsettled West,
settlers setting down white picket fences
across flat arid fields.

A voice in unison,
ringing out from all corners
of a flat world,
cries out,
"change for me,
change to me".

They move too quickly,
the weight of their destiny
too heavy for me to weather.

A step together,
a march like a freight train,
takes hold over me.

Too many people
kick up too much dust,
fill my lungs
with their votes-
one for each man.

standards

In the national valley,
the wide field,
the stretching lake,
the white obelisk,
the voices echo
from Maryland
to Virginia.

The hour has come,
she says,
standing next to me.

In her eyes,
the realization of childhood imagination.

She raises picket high,
shouting triumph,
"400 years in the making".

All the while,
on her cap,
across her jacket,
that familiar silhouette,
that familiar sobriquet:

"Redskins".

Some things
never change.

silver city to warsaw

I never curse the petrified forests,
frozen stumps,
little gravestones across badlands,
left over.

The air drifting down slowly
from Colorado frost
whispers to me
in a language I've forgotten.

I never visit the old factory skeletons,
barren husks,
smokestacks in hollowed Prussia
empty now.

The ash like a lilting melody
caught in the wind
worlds of me
in the Old Country I've left.

The train runs in time,
and the trail of steam,
thinning up through chimney chute,
blackening the rail below,
stays with me always.

hummingbird

Every hour,
upon hour,
to flutter
my demure wings
ceaselessly,
incessantly,
is all I can do,
is all I can
hope
to do
to be close
to you,
my nectar.
Bloom for me now,
my honeysuckle love,
and let me drink
from your
fertile rivers
for just
a single
minute
more.

washington skyline

Icy breath from the Potomac
swells up the walls of the cathedral;
a cold caress from frozen waters
atop rocky roof,
mile-high spire in the city
overlooking great white frozen plates
floating under the bridge.

The dark is fleeting,
the sun ages away,
remembered from the dawn of the continent,
still living,
still breathing
from below concrete
white cement and black sulfur,
pieces of ash
from burning cigarettes
stealing kisses
from dead leaves
spread across shrinking fields.

Inside,
the warmth will come;
a thermostat
brought from overseas
helps to conquer winter
and to deny the river
its victory.

echo canyon

Painted walls
like lines across palms
in the valley of the arid plateau -
voices echo through the heart of the canyon.

Waves of memory
like waves of ocean
crashing against the Gulf of Mexico,
against sun-drenched
ancient rock,
ever-changing.

The grain of your voice,
rich in its girth,
an embracing warmth -
your words only
faintly recognizable,
losing their form
every time you come to mind.

As summer fades
into the breezy sands,
and the canyon floods
with the waters of age,
only your voice
can be heard,
your words forgotten,
only your voice
washed to the surface.

after the nomads

So this is the consequence
of coming down from the trees,
setting up settlement,
the sedentary choice we made.

This land has no sympathy,
no frail human feelings
for human failings.

We can set iron stakes into the frozen ground
tunnel into earth
and build into sky -
but when the surface melts
under eternal sun,
the flood overtakes all before it;
no discrimination
no judgment.

The classless society.