Best Apaches Poems

A quote from "90 North" by Randall Jarrell:
"I see at last that all the knowledge
I wrung from darkness -- that the darkness flung me --
is worthless as ignorance:  nothing comes from nothing,
The darkness from the darkness.  Pain comes from the darkness.
And we call...

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Dedicated to a fine poet on soup, Lin Lane
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I shook hands with my brother and bade him farewell
Then set off on my journey away from this hell
Mexico I’d head for and buy a small farm
Meanwhile back in town the guards raised the alarm.

A posse they...

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©1996 RICO LEFFANTA


                                          ...

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Beautiful summer day. You know you're gonna die
that's why you know no joy.
Obsessed with self, there is no answer
unless religion, tv, stories, sports matter.
So what if nothing rhymes and I don't
bring my life into an expressible state
or fight purposelessness, anomie. No one writes.
Running the gauntlet...

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In Ulzana's Raid,
the Native- and European-American concepts of property ownership
      and rights
are incompatible and irresolvable. McIntosh
had no illusions about that. He said hating Apaches for killing whites
is like hating the desert for having no water.
I suspect the movie's not a...

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Dear Friends , Last year end , while reading about the Red Indian Tribes of America , I got 
inspired to write this simple poem about the 
Dream Catcher ! Hope you like it .

THE DREAM CATCHER : A RED INDIAN LEGEND !
  ...

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Mounted on a bare backed palomino
fighting for the right to live in peace,
leader of the warrior Apaches
stood an indian chief called Cochise.

Six feet tall with long black hair
honest, brave and wise,
and as with all the Nations chiefs
their words were never lies.

He made a pact with...

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RESPECT YOUR FREEDOM

I glance through my verandah window,
Birds flying over my head freely.
I imagined myself floating like them,
In pain complicated, reminiscence shown deeply.

The afternoon breeze breeds an aroma,
Like fresh cologne of summer ivies.
Unlike bad odors always ventilating thru my nostrils.
All I see is beauty of...

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Despite my complaints there was some merit
In being sent away to my uncles farm
Summers of drudgery, begun with play
First night the pungent grass under the due
Excited me. A clean day to explore!
The cattle, oldest friends from last summer
Swank and Shep who still obeyed our commands!
Might...

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Walking up a sandy draw-
Out in the desert land...
An oddity is what I saw,
Have buried in the sand.

“Saddlebags!” is what I thought,
“Dried up, and nearly gone.”
I wondered how they came to be,
Here in the sage and stone.

I dug them up, but underneath,
I caught a glimpse...

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Life is like being a soldier. Follow a strict regime Wake up - go to war
Little sleep. Lots of fear but not hiding. Everyday we can die. Hope for peace tomorrow
Like some soldiers we can go crazy with the stress and the trauma about life....

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Did you think for a moment,
anxious prodigal would ever forget?
Do you regret, as I, hereditary stubbornness?

Inconsequentially,
My favorite childhood memory

Starched, bleached, hourglasses internal playmate,
Two unsung heros, far from home, adventure underway.
Indigo Comanche, flecked in dawns final burning breath. 
Looking upon a pristine canvas, we’ll be the...

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...Todd was surprised by his stern eyes,
he seemed serious about it.
Todd said, “There’s a town two days on,
my horse can take double a bit.

“But I don’t know about this ‘debt,’
I just did what any would do,
Besides that, you’re an Indian,
don’t have much in common with...

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Todd was riding in the desert,
through Arizona’s red-brown waste,
out chasing down word of silver,
it was 1878.

He had nothing to go back to,
never had fit in well back east,
he’d left for Denver eight years back,
found nothing gold beneath those peaks.

He had been wandering since then,
finding work...

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brother buffaloes wait for us on the plain
we give thanks to our father sky
Apaches will eat well tonight
the hunt begins...

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