UNCLE ERNEST
If Uncle Ernie
had not gone off to war before I was four
If he had not loved movies, or sat
in that seat in that theatre when on leave
Where the bomb came through the roof
and through the floor
and killed a few
and then blew up
and killed some more
He’d have been here handsome and bright
helping my father with the ranchers load
and telling stories to my delight
Marrying and making me
cousins in the night
JOHN DEERE
After a poetry reading down in Texas
a couple of smart successful executive types
who seemed to like what they came to hear
are buying me a long necked beer
While searching for a common thread
that between us there might be
we discover that it’s none other
than a John Deere model ‘D’
So we talk about the good old days
all growing up and farming wheat
and that old slow two cylinder’s
whump whump heartbeat
All marveling and remembering how
you could stand on one all day
and still be fresh and ready
to go out all night and play
We agreed at the time we weren’t sure why
although I think I’ve got it figured now
and because of the kind of a guy I am
I’ll gladly tell you now
You see
A little while back I run across a group
advertising a marvelous breakthrough
a mind improvement program
teaching something completely new
If you give them a few hundred dollars
and about the best part of a year
they will take you from Beta to Alpha
relaxed as any guru and wise as any seer
So I buy all of their expensive gear
put those tiny speakers in each ear
and darned if I don’t hear
The sound of an old
John Deere
STONE HAMMERS
In my house
two stone hammers
picked from the ancient land
where Cree and Blackfoot fought and died
Beside the deep ruts of the Red River carts
showing yet through a hundred years of grass
Mounted police on the Fort Walsh trail
to stop the whisky and move the rail
Stony silent bookends now
with many more stories to tell
than the pages they hold between them
DEGREES OF SEPARATION
C.A. tells me the other day
about his genuine cowboy father
who worked Wild Bill’s “Wild West” show
And if I shake C.A.’s hand and I often do
I’m only one away from Buffalo Bill
and Sitting Bull makes two
And then there’s Black Elk and Crazy Horse
and a whole passel of Little Big Horn Sioux
And shaking the hand of the Queen Mom
and loving her lots and holding on some
I was only one away from Churchill
and every crowned head for a hundred years
and Lady Di too, don’t that bring some tears
And I also hug Greta now and then
who worked for Hammarsjold at the U.N.
Yesterday I had a rum with Eric
who lived with the Yanamami
and natives of a Southern sea
All those amazing thousands
and I still haven’t counted past three
anyone here want to shake hands with me
IMAGO LOVE
And there shall come forth
a new way to love
And the turtle
shall lie down with the lion
And the claw
shall be in the closet
and the shell upon the shelf
And the wound
of the child will lead them
home to the promised land
EGGSHELLS NEED LOVE TOO
Lately I’ve been feeling so empty
and more fragile than ever before
Everything that I believed in is gone
Desperate I turn
my jagged edges to the world
Step on me
with sensitive feet you will be sorry
with lumbering boots, I will be crushed
MOTHERIN UP
Sometimes you lose a cow
sometimes you lose a calf
You wrap the orphan
in the dead calf’s skin
and the mother takes her in like kin
Gold enough there for a country song
It’s a hurtin song – you can sing along
About true love died and true love gone
and foolin yourself just long enough
to keep on keepin on
THE LIZARD
The lizard’s curled up
at the back of the brain
And the lizard’s
a cold blooded cuss
And whenever the heat
gets turned up too much
the lizard kicks up a fuss
DEATH OF A THERAPIST (FOR JOAN)
“God in his mercy lend her grace”
Alfred Lord Tennyson
The Lady of Shalot
Even the camel
eater of straw
Cannot always reach
the one on his back
If we had been able to see
if she had been able to ask
Who would not have taken
a handful
to add to their lighter task