Sand Creek

1.

Mid-morning drive to Bent’s Fort,

founded in 1833 for the buffalo skin trade with the Cheyenne and Arapaho,

before the Kansas slavery troubles,

and before the Pike’s Peak gold rush obliterated the Plains Indian treaties.

Big friendly adobe stockade:

rooms, livestock, services, liquor storage. Checking out the gift shop,

I find The Massacre at Sand Creek Narrative Voices, 

poem by Bruce Cutler, based on letters of Silas Soule,

who refused to order his men to take part. A Woman

behind the counter gives me a direction sheet to the site: 

County 14 thirty miles to Haswell, then thirty-eight miles Highway 96,

and two miles past Eads to Chivington—

2.

few trailer homes among scattered car and truck guts, 

no public establishments. Finally, the 8-mile Chief 

White Antelope dirt road north to Sand Creek.

Most of the dead were women and children, all scalped.

General William Tecumseh Sherman toured the site in 1866 

and ordered the remains to be gathered up and sent to Washington.

Tried for murder in an army court,

Colonel Chivington would have been court-marshalled, except

his commission had expired by the time he led the attack,

so finally couldn't be prosecuted by the army. No point 

trying him in a civil court, as Governor Evans 

and nearly all the white people in Colorado supported him.

3.

After Governor Evans’s virtual 

sanctification of Indian murder—extermination by any means—

anyone who killed an Indian in Colorado was free from the law,

especially in the south-east, where troops 

armed to fight the confederates went after the Cheyenne and Arapaho,

like crusaders to Jerusalem taking detours to kill Jews.

Terrified childen 

seized, outraged, mutilated—

head-hides with black hair hanging

taken and kept for years 

in closets behind the boots and leather belts—

sewn into tit-bags for gold nuggets.

4.

Two small buildings, weathered picnic tables.

A half-mile path toward a bending line of trees. 

The guide comes out to inform me there are still

remains under the sand,

so I’m forbidden to walk to the site itself.

But from a little hill above Sand Creek

I can see the level areas where the tipis were pitched

on that hospitable ground by the water,

with those five Cheyenne and Arapaho chiefs

who believed they had arranged a peaceful enclave. 

A stretch of green with tire tracks running behind it,

a little mossy earth under the cottonwoods.

Joe Hill, the Skeleton

Working people
don't defend
their rights anymore.

But it won't be long
before they'll get
their old courage back.

Villanelle: The Handkerchief

Remembering my grief,

for want of anything else to think about.
Trying to find relief.

I always play the thief,
with nothing I feel in the pink about.
Remembering my grief.

A fine aperitif
for everything I need a drink about.
Trying to find relief.

Not holding any brief
for what I ever raised a stink about.
Remembering my grief.

A mine or a massif,
a challenge to approach the brink about.
Trying to find relief.

My soul sprung into leaf.
There's nothing more to yawn and blink about.
Remembering my grief.
Trying to find relief.

I, Me, Mine

Yesterday we scrubbed

our small cedar deck with soap
and a bristly brush.

Can’t sit on it
and write,
because the chairs are all off it.

Well, I could walk out
and put a chair back on it.
The birds

keep zooming onto the feeders
on either side of the yard, hanging
from the iron clothesline poles.

OK, I’m sitting on it now,
my summer writing spot.
What do you do with the “I”

in a faux-Asian-form urban
nature poem? You send ‘em off
to buy deck finish.

Love #3

Hey, what's

the difference between my writing
and an old dried out (I’m walking over to make sure)

juniper tree—claw-like leaf fronds,
dusty blue berries—
I mean, my writing’s lines and points,

its syntactic structure, likened to a tree?
Remembering Robert Graves’s tree-letter system
(but I can’t find The White Goddess anywhere);

what I DO find (the first hit when I google
“Robert Graves juniper”):
Literagram #19: Robert Graves’s Symptoms of Love - Juniper Books:

Love is universal migraine
A bright stain on the vision
Blotting out reason.

So what’s the difference?
If you subtract my writing from a juniper tree,
the juniper tree remains.

Haruspications

How to name the gods—the Seeds.

Orange / Feldspar / Dhamma
Yellow / Topaz / Buddha
Amethyst / Sattva.

Then the meditator / I / the sravaka.

Then the china figure—the Goddess—
orange-robed left shoulder raised,
back to the western foothills,

right foot under crook of knee,

shining gold button on blue cap peak,
from day to day
sweeping its ray through the heavens.

1

Meditating china figure.

Red tilaka. Gold cap button pointed
south (sravaka—me—gazing always west).

Yellow Topaz Buddha scattered north.
Amethyst Sattva on belly,
Purple tip to the red right big toenail.
Orange Feldspar Dhamma the outlier, but well
within the compass fold
of the Goddess’s orange robe.

2

Amethyst Sattva on belly, slithering—
Purple crystal point toward the sravaka.
Topaz Buddha fronting—
Yellow shrouded ghost-woman.
Red right big toenail toward the Orange rock.
Ray from gold cap button splitting
Purple and Yellow (as the Goddess drops her chin).
Feldspar bulwark on the prairie.

3

Sravaka on Child elbows,
groin to the mat, big toes touching,
Bottom of the Goddess’s left foot due east,
toward the sravaka,
gold cap-button ray zooming past their right ear.
Purple by red right big toenail.
Yellow by right knee.
Milk in the topaz.
Sheer Orange butte facing.
And all the weary dogies.

4

Topaz a greenish-Yellow globule hanging
by Orange sheer rock face,
below the Goddess’s right shoulder.
Cap-button ray pricking the air.
Purple on knees and elbows
pointing at the sravaka
on knees and elbows.

5

Goddess gazing south-east
over the round earth,
Yellow advancing
along the curve of her view,
Purple pointing south-west
toward the Sangre de Cristo range.
Orange-robed left shoulder turned
toward Orange cliff face east.
The whole outfit New Mexico bound.
And sravaka in their spirit Boat,
feet and hands high.

6

Purple point by left knee,
Orange by upturned left foot,
together pacing the Goddess’s round platform
like chariot wheels
or testicles.
Yellow in front, but leaning back.
Cap button ray piercing the sky south-east,
at parsecs intersecting a ray
from the sravaka’s left middle finger.
Upraised arms a Sun Bowl.

7

Purple proboscis nosing west
toward Yellow Topaz Buddha
at the red right big toenail.
Orange afield toward Pike’s Peak—
sheer face to the rear.
Wagons toward Zion.
Adam sravaka’s right inner thigh
a pigeon roost.

8

All Seeds advancing in a triangle:
Orange in the vanguard,
Purple nose scudding northeast, opposite

shrouded ghost Buddha—
all beneath those lidded eyes.
Boats on the current,
advancing toward an event
that cannot be avoided or foreknown.

9

Purple driving to the Royal Gorge
deep in the Goddess’s shadow.
Yellow nudging her right knee.
Cap button ray slicing through Aquarius.
Orange bulwark facing
the red right big toenail
and the red tilaka spot between her eyes.

10

Mid-morning sun lighting the Goddess’s left side.
Left hand, left cheek, left eyelid,

(head turned) upper nostril.
Right foot lit up.
Red right big toenail indicating Topaz,
Amethyst point probing,
sheer Feldspar cliff facing
east. Already
the sun has shifted,
and the Seeds themselves are glowing.

God Knows

So frazzled today, wondering about transformation!

Frazzled because I’m not sure I belong in this clique.

Transformation from nervous and discontented
to satified and joyful?

Transformation from fatally compromised
to indemnified?

The original story tells of our banishment—
cast out of Paradise to live by our wits,

feeling terrible about ourselves
all the time!

If it takes God’s death and rebirth to get us
to stop beating ourselves up, so be it!

Jesus took away our sins AND we don't have to worry
we'll be scheduled into the all-white gym class!

God knows just how I come.
I'll choose my seat and sit down.

Dark Days Without You

We did our due doo-doo and settled the score.

We brought all our friends along for the ride.
But it feels weird, now I’m not seeing you anymore.

This is different from how I felt before,
when, I guess, you were sort of my ace on the side,
before we did our due doo-doo and settled the score—

settled it good, Love, and left my heart sore,
thinking of you as another’s bride.
Sure feels weird, not to be seeing you anymore!

Not wanting to be reminded of all the gore
we spilled when our patience was tried
and we did our due doo-doo and settled the score;

still, without you, Love, life’s a sad bore.
The nights are darker now, the sun gives less light,
and it feels weird, now I’m not seeing you anymore.

You’re someone I simply can’t help but adore.
Not saying it’s wrong, but it can never be right.
We did our due doo-doo and settled the score,
but it feels weird, now I’m not seeing you anymore.

Resist the Dumpling Diddle!

As much as possible,

my son John,
resist the dumpling diddle!

Do the Australian crawl
with your socks on,
as much as possible!

Go into free-fall,
like a 500-lb bomb,
but hold the dumpling diddle!

Resist it at the mall!
Resist it in your home!
As much as possible!

You’ll receive the call
to be Queen of the Prom
if you curb your dumpling diddle.

OK, you dropped the ball
when your greedy thumb
pulled out a dumpling diddle,
as big as possible!

Greetings and Goodbye, Catullus 101

Through many nations and over many seas I’ve arrived

for your sad funeral rites, brother,
to give you the final gift of death
and vainly address your ashes
since it be that fortune has removed from me yourself.

Oh, poor unhappy brother, snatched from me!
Now, however, so that ancestral precedent and custom
may be fulfilled, as a sad funeral gift,
accept a brother’s amply-flowing tears,
and here, in perpetuum, brother, greetings! and goodbye.

Villanelle: Plato Banishing the Poets

If you’re a poet, are you entitled to be read?

If your pecker’s hard, can you demand a blowjob?
I banish all ye poets, Plato said.

Not letting poets in my state! he said,
I don’t care how loud they moan and sob.
Poets are not entitled to be read.

The poets sneak in where real angels tread.
They make a big show of just doing their job,
but I’m banishing their asses, Plato said.

Though it’s not as if a poet’s paid real bread
for ranting and impersonating God—
a poet who feels entitled to be read—

that poet’ll crow so as to wake up the dead,
then they’ll grab every heart that they can steal and rob—
mother-fucking poets! Plato said.

Not on my watch! said Plato’s philosopher-
king (whose given name was Jóe-Bob).
If you’re a poet, are you entitled to be read?
Get out of here, ye poets! Plato said.

The Skeleton's Fancy

What did I like
about my life? Something that belonged
to me alone?

No, whatever that was
ceased to be
when I was dead.

What I liked
must have been something
I shared with everyone.

So, what I liked
about my life
remains.

Your Voice

To sing understandably, 

you have to get
your tongue and teeth into it.

But singing is first of all breath.
Relax your core. Air falls in
to the space you make.

Now sing out. Air rings your bones –
streaming past tongue, teeth, lips –
tapping out the words.

Everyone breathes the same air.
While you’re here, the air sings
with your voice.

Dec 2011

The Happiest Days of All

            Those were the happiest days of all, Maud,

            Gathering the shells from the shore.

I hate the stories I tell myself

about my childhood and youth. You’re right to ask, Love—
why do I tell them?

Why is everything in the past so grim?—
the Ludlow Massacre;
all the cruel abuse that went on in families.

The present too. Incredibly,
our country is succumbing to something like
1930’s-style xenophobic fascism.

Dwelling on it will ruin the final years of our lives.

But there’ve been happy times too.
Why don’t I let myself remember those?

We remember the snowy evening, I came to your doorwith my guitar and a two-litre bottle of Zinand never left, except to get my clothes and things.

We sang “The Little Orphan Girl”—
the Jean Richie version we both knew.
That sealed it.

Time passed. We had our daughters.
Our year in Berkeley, strolling
the Bamboo way

by Vista school, the Dog Poop way down Albany Hill,
and the Exercise way by the Bart tracks.
Happy days!

Now, much nearer end than beginning, Love, fearing
to lose our happiness along the way, we decide, without reason,
our future days will be happier still!

Doing Unto Others

To start with, what a place to be born!—Salt Lake City, Utah. 

But two of my father’s brothers
became Mormons, oddly enough.

Not my father—he was a decided atheist,
in spite of which he had me baptized Catholic,
and I started school in a Catholic first grade in Pueblo, Colorado.

I cherished my little blue
Catechism book,
but the wind blew it in the lake.

OK, it gets happier. In those days of the 1950’s,
kids would come to school for Halloween with blacked faces,
wearing hobo bandanas.

Every third science-fair entry
was an articulated cat
skeleton.

A peevish, resentful
self-righteousness hung over the land,
everyone dispossessed of something and pissed off,

blaming the Mexicans or Communists
(the natives had already been extirminated,
the ex-slaves mostly in inner-city slums like the 1930’s Polish Jews);

choosing assured righteousness to escape being cast into the fire.
Why this compulsion to punish ouselves?—
as in a Jack Chick comic: Soul in Hell:

Won’t Jesus love me here?  Satan:
NO! You've made your choice.
Now you’re forever separated from LOVE.

Ultimately, it must be fear of abandonment—
compulsion to repeat: we force ourselves to experience
what we most fear.

Then we protect ourselves by projecting—no problem
doing unto others
what we viciously do unto ourselves!