In order to integrate my other writings, I've decided to post a notice here when I add to my "Winfield" blog - http://oldfolkie71.blogspot.com/  . I'd add the entire post but it would make no sense unless you see the photograph in question. Please check it out and certainly the rest of Ryan Hodgson-Rigsbee's images of Winfield 2008.  http://www.hodgsonrigsbee.com/

The poems will still show up here as they get delivered.

So - the man on the radio asked
    these stout daughters of Oklahoma -
If you could have cheated on your husband
    with either Elvis or John Wayne
Which would you choose?

Just then, a young black man they all knew
    as "Duke" conveniently walked into
the convenience store amid hoots and hollers.
    'What's goin' on?" he asked
"Don't worry, honey" she said

I picked you. That Elvis was too much
    of a city boy.


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"Pierce the skin,
 and the blood runs through"
   Lucinda Williams


The mark comes from inside, really,
the years of fear, days of glory,
the perfect hand held against a house
of sand and shadow and sacred nights

Bones lay upon skin lays upon bone again
the flower of blood flowing to the point
where it remembers that yes, this is the one
that we searched for, that kept the night awake

That brought us side by side so each can see
the image of the moon where our forearms meet
and where stars are flecks of skin and shards of hair
as the ink passes from my body to yours

And back to mine as it waits for the needle soft
as any rain and pure as morning air, leaving behind
the abrupt and final calculations of what makes us whole
and a map that the serpent uses to bind us together

You take a step and my leg moves, the sky turns
and the serpent dances, the earth turns and the blood spills out
unsure of where to go next, which body to inhabit, which unholy night
to choose as our guardian angel, our prince of peace, our final song

The way is long and our bodies remember.


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There's a flower I found by the side of the road
with a heart of gold and and fierce roots.

Perhaps I caught her just as she was leaning to earth
Looking in difficult soil for a place to rest.

The light showed her delicate profile in such a way
that I leaped out of my skin and into another, more perilous

Body. I brought her the only vase I own, filled it
with songs and a crazy poem or two, I added

Water from another time, water yet to come
and glorious now water from the pure very absolute moment

when I touch her face


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Saturn greets the end of another day I've been given, one you have
only beneath this pine, next to this scraggly oak, this perpetual sky.

In late middle age I pedal my bike to your side, trying to preserve
what days remain,  these summer dusks, this gentle love I've found.

I hold the curtain open, I hope, for all the years apart from you.
My own children are still the parts of us that got scattered, these fine

and magical brothers stand behind the window where your shadow falls.
Every blade of grass around your stone has now been perfectly trimmed

and tossed to the wind.


.

The moon is a ghost, Jupiter is a shadow, the sky
is full with them, the night a warm kiss, the air
a toss of your hair and a breath just taken away.

The nightshades we planted have grabbed the earth
and will not let it go. We mark the places where we live
with songs and crazy water. We sleep while the roots grow.

Summer glides in for a soft landing. The sidewalk holds
our hands together, our steps embrace, our shadows dance.
The sky bears tokens of light and honor, we hold them up

Like mirrors into a past we've just begun to see.
Like some street corner where we stood and wondered which way to go.
Like the scent of a flower that catches you off guard

As you close the gate
as you turn the corner
as you remember why


.

A pink dream wrapped in a feather pillow
loose on a moonlit night, a kiss
with eyes open, with arms crossed, with
past and future fused into riverbanks
where catfish wrestle with mud and moonbeams

Coyote voices swim on the cusp of night,
the eyes close, then open again, the light
behind them a prairie in bloom, a carnival of wind
a river of song, a question of unending balance
and a headstrong thrust into the coming age

For all the time imagined, there is a corresponding
reality, a piece of the dream kept for eternity,
a part of the open-eyed kiss that lives beyond us,
on a late-night train through a strange city
or through open country where our fathers were born

We bring these things to bear when we touch
when we laugh at what we know to be beyond our reach.
The catfish and coyote remain immaculate in their silence.
The prairie holds the dream, the moon, the kiss and the pillow.
We walk along the river above the place where it begins.




.

I was falling in love the day Utah Phillips died.
He the champion of the beauty and strength of this land
She the body of it, the name and the song of it.

I fell in love and out of the sky the Enola Gay
left it's mist on the water, and Joe Hill's paper heart
fluttered in the breeze, still pinned to his prison shirt.

My heart lodged in the window of the Eldrige Hotel and
the startlight on the rails reflected off of Quantrill's folly
leaving the streets of Lawrence to shine with nobility and grace.

I fell in love because love fell all around me,
took some stories and some pain and some laughter
and left me with an old guitar, a greying beard, and more stories

Than we have years to tell. I fell in love because it haunted me,
because it rose up out of a dream and touched my face and woke me
from the notion that I was powerless, that I was alone, that there was no

Union strong enough to hold me. I fell in love when the morning broke
and the stars fell, the light of a thousand flowers, wild and glorious, on her face.
This was the day that Bruce Phillips died. My son and I had seen a vision of him

Just the day before - not quite serious, of course, the twinkle still in his eye.
I ordered his drink, gin on the rocks, with a splash of tears
as his music, all music swirled around me, still in the fog of loss, the pure joy

Of new life. She held me. I gave her the song that I've been writing for years.
Her song. The one I carried like a child. The one he gave me the passion to write.
The one that says "I love you" and also, "Good buddy, goodnight".

 

 

.

just one night, simple and together
all the others in dream only
counting those to come like words
we are just learning to speak



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The werewolf dances in the rain and the moonlight
without a stitch of clothing and a monsterous smile on his face.
"Look out", he says, "for falling furry misconceptions and past
transgressions, it's all part of the plan, the careful deconstruction
of the mask of fear, the pain of loss, the hard gamble on joy
and the laying out of some stuff to wear for the coming day."

"Come here", he says "Let me give you a butterfly kiss on the
soft skin along that long beautiful neck then we'll watch the moon set
and the stars breathe life into the new, blue, summer sky".

"Lie down", he says "You seem as tired as me and our rest together
will be doubled and our arms encircled will hold a multitude of tiny, perfect
rings in the water where our souls so delicately fall".

"Touch me", he says "So my body will know that transformation is real,
that moonlight has more power than we can see, that wonder is our companion,
that music is our master, and that the night sky can be our home,
no matter where we live".



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