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.

The Gospel of Royale

Birthed and painted blue
talk about setting the tone for life.
Without favor, without feather.

Redeemed through sign painting
blessed at this hands.
Illed in the soul, sick in the mind.

Not just any archangel
Not what we expected
He shines through the lowly.

I think I am Rimbaud

I can give a pithy and smallish answer,
and I will.

I have a color palette like no other,
vast enough to blurry a Frenchman's mind.

The taciturn in me writes itself,
your effusiveness ills me.

My Rabbi, My Man

Great thickets of field mice,
good teachers misson us through it.

You wear that pulpit well,
my man of long beards.

What I want to say about you is short but important,
You lead me and I'll follow.

Willoughby

Wood chopping cured our broken bones,
Ox blood spilt on our feet,
Fields of briar and failure,
failure and failure.

I'd still run through it all to end up old with you.

And You Shall Be Named Judah

Lioness I am,
gold french chains all around.

I fashioned a granite stomach,
hard as the pinkest of nails.

Chalky bones reinforced,
with the enamel of Oya's eyes.

I will ride the river to the islands of Spain,
to find her, to find me, to break this badness.

Whitish Black Coffee On First Street

If you only told me then
how her life affects me now.

I'd have painted feathers on my purse long ago,
I would have saved every polyester button up,
every clip on ear costume.

I am sorry, Virginia.
Your legend lives in every part of my every day.

Fried Birthday Cake and God is Good; or The Thing We Are Not To Name

Let's take the low way,

Edmund Fitzgerald depths.

Eagles, baby deer, rifles cocked, lions den, cracked and black branches.

All these tell me to wait before walking.

The Professors Wife

What she really left was his ego.

I would've left that self-epitheting fool too.

With a son, a product too tall for anyones good.

His harmonica screams look at me.

Look at my educated accent,

Look at my worn out boots,

Look at my book reading.

Look at my wife walking out the door.

Jim Crow for Sherrif

I wonder if Mr. Rice was proud,

pleased he danced on the hearts of "freedmen,"

proud he set the first example for Nuremberg,

pleased he danced on the hearts of the hungry.

I feel the Great Migration in my bones,

I see the left over campaigns of the Crow,

I hurt for the children of God that helped raise us all.

Two cheers for the Poor Peoples Campaign,
Twelve hundred sorries for all the bloody Sundays.

The Sidewalks Finally Gave

Indiana feels foreign
you know, like we've never lived here before.
And the hearts of these men weigh on my own.

We wonder how we love them more than their birthrights,
their wrongs, too many to count.
Crying only when no one is looking.

Made in his imagine,
and we'll fuck it up always.
Made in his likeness,
and we'll kick the unconditional to the curb.

Circled Up Hawk Feathers and Many Accidents In As Many Days

Here is what:

I wanted to lay in that circle of feathers,
with no blood flow,
with inability to move my limbs,
with a shovel to remove the remaining,
with an ischaimia that refuses to let me wake.

Without your accidents bloodying my own.

Dead Baby Deer Good Friday.

Curled up like a brand new fucking baby.

Happy pre-resurrection. Little cadejo.
I'm sure you were the white one.
You had to be.

Those long longs,
I meant legs but this is better.
You looked fallow.

Gilded,
wooden,
figurine.

You have to know I'd carry you to the New Forest if I could.

Try As You May, Blue Collar Childhood

Through and through and through,
and we're nestled in.

Bridge Welding led him to Banjo Playing,
with a meanness like no other,
like a kitchen, a lion coup, a string-breaking symphony
of yardsales and free box hearts.

The Olive Hill Tom T. Hall,
the Eureka Mike Patton,
and the Roswell John Denver.

Backporch Carolina,
Queencity and darling men,
5 strings and no slaves,
Jubilee until the mint cows leave home.