The Youngest Death (A Calm Presence)

I sit among the music and think (about these things):
I hugged your aunt,
Your grandmother laughed.
Meanwhile you are laying feet away,
not looking like you (my scowl lasted all day).
Young, sweet, sarcastic (I missed it).

To the woods (young buffalo).
Between snow covered trees (sad as ever, than ever known).
Put the gun to your head (to the side),
and you are gone.
I am the most sorry,
I didn't see it (among your two sentences).

Post holiday,
your head is that fragile.
I hope for the most calm for you (David).

Byzantine Boy

In his simplicity

without arms.

Ironwood heart

beat in his step.

There is no rise

no fall.

Man of siege

of the sweetest kind.

A leather bound suda full of life-giving words.

Let the Miserable Man Go

He dropped knives down both sides

Of his neck and then wrists.

The train finally lended him a hand,

God-damn smile and all.

Gentleman of the Rails

Old pappy tree, old willow,

it makes me feel small.

You got to get wise,

you got to get a saint,

you got to say amen.

And give me my god damned medal.

I'm devout or devoted,

I'm on my knees more days than nights,

that counts.

It all counts.

Tally my marks and open the sky.

If you are looking to be legendary,

you are anything but a legend.

Every Man Has His Limits

Every man has his Kingdom,
his River Canyon,
his Deer Valley,
his Temporal Reign.

Icons of the canonized,
painted, blessed and hung.

God damn us that mock the limits.
God bless us that mock the limitless.

Czar of the Tannery

Here. And the flags blow every which way.
Smoked buckskin burns the nose and feet.
Scrape, heat, Oak and Mangrove.

Tannin, dye, dark honey, die.

The Warring Forks of Shame

A love for the outcast
laced in the least of.

No need for wit or wire
just a shared glass of horchata.

His ease cures the shame
heals the landlocked.