Asleep in the Valley

Sleeping Wolf

Snows drifted, swirling 
With winter's breath
Piling against the trunks
Of ancient birches
And gathering 
In the black-tipped
Sandy coat
Of a sleeping wolf.

Star streamed eyes dreamed
Behind his lids
A slash of black
Either side
Of his dark 
Glistening nose.
His body curled in a crescent. 

Never have I seen 
A wolf 
So detached from his truth
Resting in winter's cruel hold.

He
At any moment
May awaken
And regain his vicious nature.

I stepped softly
The snow parting 
Against the shaft of my boots.

Time was of no consequence.
Light dulled and faded to dusk.

I reached out and touched 
The beast
The animal
The creature

Like an Indian Warrior

Counting Coup
And discovered him to be 
Like me.

Asleep 
In the valley of dreams
In the embrace of snows. 

 

Spider-Bit

I got spider-bit.
She tagged me
Close to a vein.
Her venom nearly
Went to my heart
But stopped short.

Her poison was enough

To complicate matters
And leave a talisman
Reminding me 
How close I came
To sorrow.

She left a bloody blister

That I regularly attack
With the blade
Of a knife I secret
At my bedside.

For a time my blood

Will flow.

Crimson will stream my flesh
To be staunched
By pressure and bandage.

I’ve been spider-bit before.

They all left
A souvenir
Of their silent visitations
But my knife only slices
The one most recent.
All others remain scars.

If you think

I am referring merely to an  
Inconsequential
Spider bite…

....Well
Dear Reader….

...You have never
Loved a woman.

I Don't Remember

What’s that you’re telling me?
That you and I were close?
That comes as a surprise, girl
It can’t be as you suppose.

I don’t remember loving you.
I can’t remember why
Though you said I told you once
I’d love you till I die.

You don’t seem too familiar.
I don’t recall your face.
If you were someone I loved once
I’d run to your embrace.

I’m really very sorry, girl
I don’t recall your name.
If I did I'd sure tell you.
Now, isn’t that a shame?

You must have me confused
With one who looks like me.
If I were the man who loved you
I’d remember, don’t you see?

I really must be going now.
I have lots of things to do.
There are some folks that I must see
But I don’t remember you.

A Reasonable Death

I did not know him
A stranger to me
Yet a brother.
Now he lies
An empty vessel
Poured out
Upon the cave floor
Of Abdullam.

The scent of gunfire
And blood
Come to me
Stinging the air
More with sorrow
Than acrid powder.

We are beyond
Searching reason.
We know the reason.
The question rather
Is how we go gently
Into the silence
Of the earth
Happy to die
For so powerful
A compulsion.

Tomorrow
Or the day after that
The muzzle may point toward me.
I hope to
Smile at eternity
In a way
That brings skeptics
To puzzle
Over such
A reasonable death.

I Wish I'd Said That # 12....

A fact is not a truth until you love it.

~ Shelby Dade Foote 

Champion Hill

Where cannonballs flew

Dragonflies flit

Above thick, green-standing water.
Where American boys
Were dismembered and died
Now ancient trees have fallen
Toppling the ground
The way their corpses did
More than a century and a half past.

I am not certain

What I came to see.
Perhaps I was seeking
A rend in the fabric of time
To glimpse the obscene carnage
And hear the fading echoes
Of dying men.
In retrospect
I would have felt
Pungent shame and
Puerile embarrassment.
The death of any man
Especially in war
Is a very private thing
Though it be on the most public forum.

All I saw

Was a lonely
Broken asphalt road
Bracketed by telephone poles
And trees
All smothered
In Spanish Moss.

All I heard
Was playing children
In the yards of double-wides
Set far off the road
Accompanied by cicadas
And barking yard dogs. 

No one but I remembered

That this seemingly innocent geography
Was guilty as hell
Or that, with little effort
One might unearth war’s accoutrements
Including human remains.

I came to see Champion Hill

But discovered
No champions
No hill.

I came 
A voyeur
And returned
A penitent.

Getting Older by the Day

Today is my birthday. As a young child I watched this day approach with all the anticipation of awaiting a circus train. But as a much older man, the day is a curiosity; a thing at which to wonder. I think I will celebrate by getting my long-ish hair shorn closer to my scalp. Perhaps then I will be less attractive to the blade of the young bucks, seeking a trophy for their lodge poles....oops. Wrong century.

James

By the Memory and by the Minute

By the Memory and by the Minute

Darkness mocks me

Stares back into my
Wide open eyes.

The hell with digital clocks
Is they
Flash time precisely
Unlike the grace of
Sweep second hands.

So I dance
With my demons

By the memory and

By the minute
Wondering endlessly
At the why's
And where-of's
Of this too-brief
Life.

Had I stood

A half inch to the left
Those bullets
Would have killed me.

Had I have been 

A bit more kind
She would have stayed.

Had I stopped

For coffee
Or had I not
Taken that call
Pivotal elements of my life
Would not have

Happened.

Life is the construct

Of choices made

In a single second.

I tease
At life’s frayed edges
Unraveling the moments
In the dark.

The void stares back at me

And I know...

Sleep is paper
Memory fuel
And time fire.