The Christmas Indian

The Christmas Indian is coming

He has hitched his rattlesnakes to his sleigh:

One Spot, Twister, Stub Tail and the rest.

And they slide through the desert night.

Boys and girls know him,

Love him, fear him,

his songs, his tricks

his truths, his lies.

He knows them from the rocks of their hearts

to the minds of their souls;

knows their fears,

holds them inside.

He will give to them;

Take from them their thoughts and breaths.

He is kind/cruel.

He is coming.

The Unknown Way

Follow the Great Dog
Drink of the waters of Baljuna
Come of good company.
The moon is full south of Kherlan
and it walks its way to the steppes
to meet the sun.


And be at peace
at peace with the hills
that wind west
with the valleys that sink
beneath the edge of the earth
with all of the tents before you.


Enter them slowly.
A feast has been prepared
in each,
A song has been sung,
in each,
A scribe will offer you the pen of truth.

And what will you write?
And if you write
who will read it?
And if it is read
who will know?

It is in knowing
we find the seed of the mustard
that waits before the rain
that waits before the sun
that waits until the ground
has aged with a million deaths,
And then it knows.

Tuzigoot

“Going to Tuzigoot?”

Yes, I want its name.

“But there are many names.”

And I want to taste them all;

Eat frosted trees

Tell the foolish that Jesus is Lord

That there is diesel camping five miles ahead,

Breakfast awaits

And gods in the rear view mirror

Are closer than they appear.

I have seen the metal pipes stacked beside the road

And Krazy Kyote Tours,

Cheap today, cheap tomorrow, gets you there in half the time.

Have seen the deer ahead for 35 miles

Watching me, waiting

And the fabricated housing factory

Home.

Going to Tuzigoot?

No, I am there.

Old Time Religion

Camp meetin' tonight.

And grab Bill and Sarah

and Jeremiah and Jo

and catch the Lord's word and go

higher as the preacher spouts

and we in eternal damnation

await our turn.

Lord, have mercy,

on my Little Jo

and what are you doing

an hour from now?

Should we walk alone tonight in the forest?

There is so much of the Lord there.

He is trampling out the underbrush

and deep in my sin-blind soul

I know the stars are in the sky

and the moon shines brightly,

just a mile from here,

Oooh, dear,

camp meetin' tonight.

Preachin' and gospel tonight.

Our sinners' tongues will reach for heaven

and my Adam's apple will bob

for the salvation of a great bass note.

We will go higher and higher

but later than the preacher.

He goes to bed early

and does not know about this spot.

Can he know the Lord blessed it?

The Lord wanders often through the trees,

makes the quiet water flow.

Is the Lord with you sister?

Do you feel his eyes upon your brow?

Oh, nearer than near, nearer than God.

Sister, I did not know the Lord

moved in such ways.

Colorado Journey

What a hoot!

North Colorado's forty ugly miles;

a rolling belly of plain,

freckled with towns so small,

it's not worth the ink

to print their names, then rising to nipples of earth

pointed to the sky's moist mouth.

Fuzzy trees clutch the earth,

hiding from the west wind.

A scenic point:

rocks stacked like dinosaur dung,

await removal.

Me, in Wyoming?

A gas.

There's nothing but that sky,

657 Black Angus cattle

and a rider outlined against the mountains.

The miles are like a nagging melody

on the way to Cheyenne.

Over the Rockies,

clouds hang like phantom peaks

How high they are

only the wind knows.

As they drift,

snow threatens.

I am miles from the safety of a gas station

or even an official Colorado rest stop.

I can make Nebraska by night

if the weather holds.

In the distance,

the rider raises his hat.

I am a lone rider also

and raise my hat to the wind.

No snow shall stop my journey.

Thanksgiving

Let’s go fucking!
Just like grandma used to do
In the thimming, weesel morning
with the moving ricking thud
and the clip clip clop clop clup clup
of the horses’ slash brown hoof stomp;

Past the last dried fields
And the acorn downed trees
Just right at old man Weston’s
And straight through Smithtown
All the way, all the way.
all the way home.

My Lady of the E Train

Here, between the posters

shouting education for the blind

and Jack Daniels whiskey

you are a huddled winter's coat,

eyes trapped between a black ski cap

and bright red scarf

like a Moorish maiden

who would dart away in a crowded market.

We do not dart here:

stacked like cartons of detergent bottles.

Your eyes avoid mine;

how do you know,

I am not child molester

or stock broker?

In my pinstripe blue,

I am like the others,

man, filled with gasping breath

and desire..

You wish to be known

as artist, friend

not simply by

the body's quick panic.

I have the indifferent leer

of a million others

who would caress your face

and pass on unknowing.

Guilty.

I have lusted;

I have sought less

than your truest self.

Yet, beneath all this is the certainty

that the chance meeting of our eyes

can produce miracles.

Thoughts While Waiting in a Gasoline Line

Curse Mr. Ford's four-wheeled contraption.

I drive it;

then it drives me

to the gasoline station

to the gasoline station

and...

to the gasoline station.

It drives me also to the repair shop

to the muffler shop, to the transmission shop,

where I am in the hands of the repairmen,

angry gods, who dazzle me with blazing repair bills

and the destruction of starters, manifolds,

carburetors, great whatyouraters and small thingalators;

things with powerful names and expensive parts

which will not let me drive again.

And I must sign the authorized bill

on the authorized dotted line

and pay with the properly authorized, no-bounce check

or cash only, because the shop does not take checks

or I will be in eternal plastic debt,

which I still am, for I will drive again

to be driven again

to the gasoline station.

There, many men, like me, are waiting

in vehicles, like mine,

and they are drive again to lines

which are like the lines today

and we will curse Mr. Ford and Mr. Chrysler

and Mr. Plymouth and their four-wheeled contraptions

another day.

The Road to Fishing Creek

Down in Falling Rock,

heading for Fishing Creek,

we are traveling at the speed of history.

Its pace is in men's breaths

and hardening bones

and lengthening limbs

as we start in the morning

and in the evening, we are white-haired

and large-knuckled.

Our joints rebel against the morning's cold air,

as cold and damp as the streams;

rock-filled, fish-laden,

fresh with frothy falls

as they tumble the long, but quick road

from Falling Rock

to Fishing Creek.

Back to Nature or I won't give up my seat on the bus to a whooping crane.

Everywhere is the singing of the expected

and the glories of the assumed.

And I revel in them:

in elevators, central heat

and in-the-ground swimming pools.

I do not share my father's pride

in snow-stumbling walks to school.

I defy character-building forays

into the woods to carve out winter heat

with an ax.

My natural element is polyurethane

as I rest in my electronic ark

appliances about me,

two of every kind.

Noble savage?

Rousseau?

Hell, no. I won't go.

Newark Airport

Here at the baggage claim,

I am a traveler without a world.

Where are my friends?

Does no one love me? (Am I alone?)

Or, am I lost at a crossroads

and only my map shows this destination?

I walk frantically from information booth

to pay telephone.

Who is going my direction?

Who can help me balance

three brown suitcases and a typewriter?

Has New Jersey died?

Up and down America

the radio babbles how Newark was lost,

slipped into a rift of time

and is gone forever.

The curious come to the edges of the earth,

gawking at the chasm,

where the dirty waters lap into the void.

Who is going my way?

Who will be my friend?

Hail a taxi?

Search for my lost hat?

I am stranded on a technological isle

while an omniscient voice prophesies,

"Piedmont Airlines, paging Satan.

Meet your party at the ticket counter."

A bus rumbles by.

I see a horned-figure

driving twenty five souls to hell

on the group plan.

The voice rings out again:

"All passengers, buses to heaven on the right.

Please have your tickets ready."

I rush to the ticket counter,

last dollars clutched in my hand.

The attendant laughs,

not Heaven,

the bus to Hoboken.

I sit disconsolately on a white, plastic chair

in an uncharged land

where strange tribes abound:

ravenous porters, headhunting chauffeurs,

wild-eyed cocktail lounge bartenders.

As hour comes, an hour goes.

I am alone.

Who will be my friend?

I ignore the continuing loudspeaker

I will be alone and unafraid;

not quailing at the squawking baggage belt

or startled by the voices

like dying animals

whose tortured cries

test my resolve.

The alarms are not for me.

I am here.

This is where I am going.