31

Chapter 99- Directions to the night she got free

(or, the night she escaped her captors, the deer hunter and gunsmith)

Get your gear in order:

the whetting stones for the carbon steel knives

a  good lock for the door

Guinness and Valium

Camels hardbox unfiltered

your bulletproof vest made from

passiflora incarnata and blue ribbon

beer tabs from 1974

a shell casing rattle

your iron boots

the will to live

you must be fluent in the language of alcohol poisoning and black out drunk, a way to reach the unhinged realm    she's gone again

Pack your truck for a solo trip

strap it down using a trucker’s hitch and a pocketful of hopefuls

head west and north, you will have to walk through the vineyards at night during harvest time

month of fire, season of excess, indulgence

évacuation and disorientation

lay on the ground  Right before dawn make your way down the ridge to wash your hair using dew 

you collect from the Lady’s Mantel, polish your crown, wear the red lipstick, let your eyeliner run

weep with both palms on the ground, weep some more  then get up, stuff your mouth using your two hands with late season Muscat grapes, wild boar sausages, vagrancy and damask rose petals
let it all run down your arms, let go of your mind

those with a weak suck at birth should not follow you here

tell them to not wait for you

       
don’t follow    don’t follow     don’t follow    don’t follow

        “        “        “        “

        “        “        “        goodbye

Leave town irresponsibly without a plan

pick up a  topo map along the way and 

follow the dragon veins along the east side of the Sierras

ride the backbone of California

where men are put in their place  Fall in love  Make a big plan Make promises  Fall out of love  Give it all away

seek solitude  Soak in the hot springs then be silent

and watch the sunset  Fall asleep singing 

an invisibility song complete with a flicker feather 

tied in your hair  Wake up in Joshua Tree and sit in the dirt

get down on your belly and collect tiny crystals 

from the anthills, just lay there

make a bundle with them, chaparral and a traveling song, then lineup  365 .45 caliber

hollow point bullets

count them and your blessings then carefully 

sew them into your inseam alongside Ativan

copal and peonia seeds 

lean against huge boulders bigger 

than all of your collective regrets  Leave them there

sip mezcal from a demitasse as you walk out 

and into the Mojave with Owl’s clover blossoms in your hair.

30

The vagrancy of her iambic and the calculus of rhythm

Midnight

Jack Ollie Might

Swiftly loved her

Near and realized

Fingers had 

Something

To say

Volant across the keys

Bone white and black

Autistic in his recollection

Beethoven’s passages, The Köln

Concert, Amos, Johnnie Johnson

Brubeck, Tchaikovsky

All of that

So nectar

It rouses

The masses

In a narcotic way they 

Can’t stop listening

Dangerously inebriated

They use the good china

”You have always been

my raison d’etre”

While

The moon stays

Sturdy in the sky

Daybreak

Edith Piaf pours our coffee today

In tiny Cobalt cups

We too are torch

In the ally way

We chit chat about 

Frida’s lovers

How we can still hear 

Them remark on Diego’s 

Faintly tinged green skin

And how Alejandro 

Was so dearly loved

Noontide

Laughing into a Merengue rhythm

“Hey Vincenza, your lipstick

Smeared his sheets, tangles

Into his days

You better change the Labyrinth

Of your chamber”

We laugh that Camille Claudel

Got the last laugh 

Locking him into

The stone

Twilight

And how those big men

Cautiously entered the olive groves

More harassed than the angels

While the nightingales 

Screamed against the empty camp

That spring night which

Bloomed saffron and wine

Darkened bit by bit

As dawn approached

You now praise 

Sun through cobalt

29

Crow Canyon

for Marek- który jest geologiem, i zawsze będzie geologiem, a nie naukowcem komputerowym.

Hematite and
calcite
skewer me with the brittle 
and soft Rainbow tourmalines of youth 
toxic cobalt around the rim of my tea cup
choke me in your poison

The optic thrill of ulexite
they all tumble from the old cigar boxes
and are here and there
and there

Lava is in my veins
it cools 
burns and varies
i am pulsing Wrapped in seismic poetry
reels and reels of it

My desk is
a garden of fossilized sand dollars
and shells that weigh a ton
from forgotten chaos
unwitnessed calm

Digitize me
this side of the Sierras
a billion mile line
stacked data
for where will we be tomarrow?

Ebb and flow
move the seas crazy
the big pull and release
hear it echo and reverberate
as they are hitting her upper crust with a big hammer
watch the charts go off

Cables across the oceanic floor
where’s that pocket of gold?
Great Mother
if only she could stand
says my youngest
she would touch the moon
swallow air vessels
tell stories of forgotten sacrifice

But for now they’ll grip the granite
trying to reach the top
trace it’s veins
peer into the quartz
it terminates a hundred times over
looking carefully
a ghost here 
and there and there
a cooling 
a heat
a collision
the plates drift
We are here for such a short time

28

Jackson

said you 

your lithe hands 
so genteel 
too graceful 
why 
so callus 
do you 
have you 
work 
like the big men 
I will 
have to I 
leave you 
at the byway 
and leave me 
empty 
so 
…so long 
has 
been your road 
globe beautiful 
you you be 
I wend 
and sing 
the echo way 
lost 
clambering 
and am 
the great went 
to you  
my 
globe beauty 
in suntime 
and rain

27

Land like a Feather

Redwood lady 
My veil above me lady
Hush and hush
Our whispering lady

All around me is Thunder
Coyote I love you
I see you looking away
I do not see you
This is the way

Seeing

Manzanita, Madrone
Capture fire in your branches
Sweep the trail
Clean over the Moon

Stone I am beneath you 

26

Ngoma at Funeral time

(for Tata André)

going to the bathing place 
sweeping, braiding and washing
she tries to regain herself

she cannot sleep 
she cannot weep 

she can feel the Congo's stern hand 
cover her mouth

25

Rum and Tobacco

how many shores
can one
arrive and depart from
perhaps we leave a root

a critical part of ourselves there
in that village or barrio
where that one perfect mango ripened

where we danced and ate
lied and told truths 
with our open and closed mouths
with our entire bodies

a place
where those batás were pulled
tight tighter
they were twins from the same tree
that had been struck by Lightening

later 
when they were whored
Shango struck down that big Ras
chopping off his crown with his ose

Riru ebo ni i gne ni
airu ki gbe eyan

24

Switchback- Riding the Bright Night, an Ode to PTSD

with might holy 
hold and grip her belly
protecting
like a life or contraband within
shudder and tremble
in the damp night
twitch and shiver
like the darkwet
hide of the equine
tight

muscle of the mind
that little chaos
and no washboard
can push it under
can you get with that
get with this
you want an acronym*
you wanna try this
you wanna 
you wanna
break this down
she wants to break it down too
like a hookah
or a syringe 
or a gun
handle it

inured to the coal dark
and the sentinels have bowed out
there will be no negotiations
it is always drastic
nights like this
come down like a cleaver
before stainless steel was ever made

*PTSD

23

Lucky Bastard

They all knew I was born
Of thunder
And a river that splits
In two
And knew too
That the arch
Of my brow
Could send them cottonwoods asway
Hearts*
That’s what the child
In me named them
And they shake
In the moon of my birth
Lucky Bastard
My Sweet Love knows me
Lucky Bastard
I know him too
A sailor’s mouth
From my father
My mother of mudstone and shale
So I shrug at the plates colliding
And ride the mountain
Without fear
Lucky Bastards
My sweet love knows me
Lucky Bastard
I know him too

* Populus deltoides

22

Aimé

Rue Royale by way of Pointe-Noire DRC

1

Yes I know you from the
Shadows of Mekambo
And the small smell of 
Palm oil rubbed into the masks

Yet my khush balm leaves you
Copper mouthed, tumult of 
Sensations, Thunder Side of the Camp

2

Cleaning out the fountain 
In the courtyard of that place
We had on Rue Royale 

Water lilies and papyrus had 
Over took it and I tore the roots apart
Lifting out the magnolia petals that
Fell in summer, dipping in the still water

Where your bone wishes had coiled 
And cleaved to it’s coolness in the humidity

While every one in the Quarter slept
Behind the filigree wrought iron, like the 
Dead in the oldest of the Parishes

3

Top Hat called from Blood River
Rounding up the animals and galvanize

But there was too much vagrancy 
In your promises and dreams
And you failed to be the great 
Voyant, sad solider, broken cart

Yet,
Not everyone knew how the Great 
Bamboo cut like razor blades
No on can take that from you
In this way you were somehow
Pardoned

4

Down the street with chicory
And binets, your laughter lagged
With Tucker and Brossard
When my slightest glance
Unfrocked you

O, how you longed for the
Cicada and Dutch Wax
And knew secretly why the 
Blacksmiths are so special

21

Black Sparrow

in heated chaos 

in brightest clarity 

winter's fold 

black sparrow 

split the sky 

you are 

the long shadow man 

come Come close

let us whisper this 

passion 

flood tide

you possess Eye of the sky painter 

silent 

suave lover 

red the mescal 

quick as the beaded whip 

invisible 

your medicine is strong 

it tops the rattle 

we are 

slave and free 

our open mouths bring the smell of rain 

i cannot cannot 

can 

reach the clouds and touch you 

ride this 

in translation this gets lost 

leave it 

we make love in this way 

and sing a song we have never sang before 

then are silent with the moon 

strange leaves falling 

scent the night floor

20

Cage Bloom

This is for you
Who has been gone a long time
Your whereabouts and what you did are unimportant

Me
I have been here
Within, but not hidden, among the Fern and Redwoods

How I love you in a way beyond measure

Boy of Sunshine
Boy of our Barrio
Boy of our Flatlands, Deep Sticks and Cold Rivers
Boy at the Mouth of the Bay
You are the Black Salmon Running
Some whisper and say you will not make it 
I know you will

Eye of laughter
Eye of many miles
Misunderstood
Boy of Good Heart
Who became a Man

You loved me in Rain Time you loved me in Sun Time
For this I will always remember

19

Strange breed II- Fern Born

that Mississippi ride/claw
of that Choctaw's grip
her medicine had him whipped

arched and bent
like her cypress
pole to the water

ease into the saw
of the whine of the fiddle

blues harp tangled to the
tap and jingle
powdered sleep

flash of the thunder into Red Bayou
High John sits at the top of the temple

18

Rest Easy Under the Dead Pine

there is no map
to that place
of big sun and cut shadows

follow the edge of the palmate leaf
i am the red ant carrying

here where God and his eye
the heat Lightening

where 
in my rage
a second… just

i was
became The nonbeliever

17

Monte Bella House

white muslin blowing in the gallery
sea breeze before noon
the inché swings on her neck
as she sweeps and mops out
papa heard the pipe sometime, late in the night, “water come,”
filling buckets, five, six,-sometimes he fills the barrel too
water hitting cement in between
but he is fast, the buckets scrape the floor
as he slides them back, heavy A water song
back in the iron bed under the coverlet
his feet cold, he tries to warm himself against her
he doesn’t like it when she gives him her back
even if she is asleep
there used to be, “BLESS THIS HOUSE” and heavy
laced curtains in the joining room before Oya came and
swept it all clean. Tearing it to pieces
now yards of muslin hang over the louvers in the gallery
they are light and like to catch the wind
like a child’s pinwheel and they blow wild as sails
new lapas in the joining room, kitchen, and bedrooms
she sings in her rocker, “ma ma ngo ngo, ma ma ngo ngo...”
her kalimba sounding like sweet water
trickling over pebbles

16

Ashton Tallghost Appeals to St. Barbara, St. Theresa

San Fernando, Trinidad West Indies 2001

a fist 
a heart 
a jeweled yam 
the black aubergine offering

Here is my battle axe

your dreams run into hers
mouth moving so fast
yet like an unusual water Loa 
you dredge through the swamps
hardly lifting your feet
arms paralyzed
unable to rise
it is the million mile night

“You will be uprooted if you leave,”
Bell had said, but still you went

the Batas 
1,2,3 from them countryras in Saint George
you have been cursed for whoring them
and are now pleading

“Wrap me in the flags
Palm oil and rum
6
333
9
float me in the bowl with the marigolds and blue

St. Barbara help me
St. Theresa go easy
St. Barbara help me,”

delirious
you see patterns though the mosquito net
that bodie is climbing the walls, Spanish thyme
pressing into your pillow, bakers dust on your palms

“Here is a coffee, and some biscuits for ya Star,”

painting the iron bed yellow, then green
the new coverlet 
it is never clean enough
sleeping with the fan
cooking dog food
walking that hill

“St. Barbara
St. Barbara
Who Rules This Place
I am choking on your thunderbolt,”

and when you awaken
you move like a dead man

he is mad they say
a conju on his head

they see you feed it by the three way
1
2
3
a new plate
it is Wednesday

15

Holy Bayou

He fashioned her from the jut
Of the Cypress knee
Of a strange Medicine did he mold her
But arthritic like her mother’s
Silhouettes She was not
Only ancient and green
As the Spanish moss
Heavy with it

Powder of the white shell
Powder you safe with it
Mark of the innocent
Mask of the Holy
May your head be cool
First Medicine

Scatter
With the egret
And they turn to tend their young
Scatter
Into the sun
and warmth

Leave it
To those
Swamp natured ones

chicca-chicca-chicca

"The cottonmouth
And alligator are
My Brothers”

Belly of the coons
Screech owl
Water moccasins
Welcome her
Pole to the bayou
Hyacinth moving
And it leaves no tracks

Powder of the cascarilla
Dust you safe
with it
Womb of the
Bayou
Shoot of the falling star
and two eyes ease out
shining
then descend
Her Brothers in
The night
pole into Holy Bayou
push on
push on
pirogue deep into the
Manchac

14

time is marked and remembered by flora and fauna and powerful events not a calendar with days checked off. today eye read the message from the land that speaks of the birth of my youngest child. agapanthus in bloom, the wane of hypericum, buckeye in bloom,  first swim in the river and the last ceremonial fire until next year. this is what remains and will always remain when our edges fade and we watch the calendars evanesce from existence. this is our winter count. we carry it in our visceral and astral bodies. 

13

Deeply Mary

chase her through the dead pine
draped in her robe of nettle- pine pitch 
she pulls the ceanothus from deep below

“those hips are too beautiful for these back woods” say the boys, they want to unbraid her, breed her

ceanothus bleeds blood red
fortitude
patience 
marks this ally
hands like shovels she can coax it’s medicine to the surface

“mary, mary” the boys call to the five winds
they want to mount her from behind
hard
give it her
in ways forbidden
bury it in her
they want to break all the taboos

she wears the war paint to greet
the skinwalkers who lose interest when they meet her
belly to the loam, feral 
their eyes leave holes in hollow logs but do not touch her
disappearing quietly back to the shadow places

coyote is laughing at them
somehow he too loves her so much

her red lips are hard to handle
allied to the medicine of the ceanothus
she is too fierce to be woman

perhaps they can bypass her contrary nature
just skim over the little bit of thunder
and reach into her bundle

perhaps

12

Blue Water Boy

pinion
juniper
our cousin- copal
the bead between my teethe

we are smoke on the dried river
tins cans there now
huff town u.s.a
a shame
a hidden something 
tossed warrior

a go away girl
a not so long girl
a there, not there girl

interstate 8 drives us straight into the pacific
118° delirious heat
our hair is on fire in my old Ford pickup
saguaro cactus, Grandfather
can i stay?
sleep in your purple world
do i have to go?

juniper carrying boy
blue water boy
smiling too much boy

comes along for the ride
to fall in 
to fall out of love

be the jackrabbit
be the small fox
your corn pollen has washed away the shadow ones
i am sure of it

feel Good
feel God

listen 

who knows you

when there is sand in the river

calamus

osha

paccoon

calls us back home

going going

 we are the hidden streams