El Dorado Winds

Dancing figures swirl above the sands as the moon winks her silvery eye among the doting clouds. The night is full of Mayan magic. A figure of varying concentric circles is propped evocatively against a Joshua tree, feeling the enticement of his prickly spines.

She remembers leaving footprints on the bank after sitting in the rock spring, basking in golden shafts of sunlight all summer long, watching that man with the hungry eyes. He was looking for gold, yet didn’t consider her offering more than Mexican hospitality.

Family outcast, Esmeralda is the queen of these badlands where only stick cattle grow.
Blowing gusts from America carry songs and messages to her from that Promised Land.
She sleeps atop the very treasures the pale man sacrificed his family to search for.

The south wind is named Mariah; they are lovers in time now. No man understands the comfort that the wastelands offer those that linger in their hidden recesses. No man understands why there was a tornado in Kansas on the day that Judy Garland died.

A Pallor of the Soul

Sing joy harmonic
As worms draw near.
Shallow wells sustain
Both cloudbursts and apathy.

Imagine the brush chosen to
Color your birthday canvas,
As Boomer heat-vision
Sears the new unknowns.

The smothering DNA sacks
Meander across the universe,
Gray stars bereft of twinkle,
Gaze barrenly, like trees in November.

Stay inside, watch reruns, and
Listen for air traffic while
Indian boys haunt parking lots,
Playing ball way past dark
(with the heads
of metrosexuals)

Fifty Fifty

If you feel that modern art is dead,
Go visit the Tate Museum.

If you feel essential music is dead,
See Garbage in a converted Church.

If you feel modern literature is dead,
Get to know Stu Redman and Nick Andros.

If you feel that movies have lost their edge,
Watch Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight.

If you feel anything at all but real hunger,
Be thankful you aren't in Africa's death hug.

If you feel lonely, you are still alive,
Enjoy beating Captain Trip's time bell 4 another year.

Indians

Some fought, many died.
Some yelled, many cried.
Some stayed, many went.
Some killed, many killed.

Never sued a neighbor,
Never had road rage,
Never defiled the land,
Never defiled their race.

Will they be in Heaven?
Will they be in Hell?
Will they have Nirvana?
Will Geronimo be Sainted?

Forget butchers.
Forget massacres.
Forget Father.
Forget Mother.

Mayonnaise Sandwich

When its really hot out,
And something cool
To eat sounds so good,
I remember what you liked.

I fix a mayonnaise sandwich,
Eat it, wishing you were here
To eat one with me, and talk
About another week gone by.

It now tastes sweet and bitter,
I doubt I'd think of having it
To eat were it not for those
Happy, happy memories of you.

No steaks, ales, or fancy treats,
Required a place in the meals
To eat, when you craved rest,
Snack on the porch after dark.

Drive-In Dog

Wander over the ungrassed acres where
Things are parked facing white square.
Picture beamed from low bunker house as
Food lines meander when dark reawakens.

So many good things to have to eat.
Sometimes get petted or spoken at kindly.
Not many mean men like other places,
Many walk sideways and laugh and fall.

Singing, crying emanate in turns,
Especially from the back row right side,
Where night light yellow bulb is dim.
Hedgerow shadow deepens night's void.

Sleep when sunrise yawns over tall pine trees,
Everyone gone, vast empty wasteland all tilts
To whitish bare square, pale in the glow of day,
Marked T.L. + B.M. bottom corner, red spray.