Best Buttes Poems
The air is fresh, mornings crisp and clear
God I do love this time of year
Vibrant colors abound on the trees
Gracefully falling with the breeze
The workday runs from sun to sun
Until the "Bringing in of the crops" is done
I am a lucky man to live this life
Respect of my community and loving wife
Sometimes in life the land yields plenty
The blessings throughout the day are many
As I watch the sunrise to the east
It gives my soul a spiritual feast
For all my friends everywhere
To my Lord a silent prayer
To the north her majesty appears
For all to see beautiful and clear
Forever snowcapped and standing tall
Lady Shasta watches over all
To the south another blessing to see
The Sutter Buttes clouded in mystery
It was the Lord that gave them their birth
The shortest mountain range on earth
The coastal mountains to the west
Offers the sun a place to rest
Followed shortly for all to see
The "Harvest Moon" clear as can be
Then comes a moment that is hard
As I head my "Cat" off to the yard
My final ride of this year
My face accepts a single tear
My heart becomes full of sorrow
I inject myself with poison tomorrow
Thats the price that a junkie must pay
Years after he has changed his way
The reason is very clear to see
I put myself "At risk" to hepatitis C
I can't stop the fear from flooding in
What will it be like to hold a rig again
Through all the loss and all the gain
I reckon that moment will bring me pain
But through the pain I'm able to see
God has his angels covering me
Most Beautiful Christmas Poem 11/25/22 Based on the Messianic Prophecies
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Christmas Rose
The Christmas Rose bursts into bloom
As echoes of midnight’s final chimes resound –
Precious Bloom of Perfect Prophecy inhales a first breath
Of winnowing starlight foretold
The Prince of Heaven steps into our blemished creation
New lungs fill with aromatic fulfillment
With bursting refrains once heard in Eden.
Torrents of roaring grace
Smash narrow portals of garden betrayal
Eras, ages and eons of sneering dominion
Stumble sideways in vertigo
Temptation’s false victory turned upside down
Smug visages fade into imploding arrogance
The missing piece of the human heart
Vibrates again in unison of Emmanuel’s Eternal Beatitude
With the tenor of timeless oblations
Heaven’s trembling preparation of holy delight
Explodes in triumph with the New Genesis
Through the breathless comma of anticipation
Before defeated wraiths of wildness
Gorges shatter, valleys level
Avalanches of obliteration raze
Buttes, crumbling cliffs and ridges of desolation
Midnight’s last stroke of domination
Turns a beastly reign into a flailing whine
Gone the plaintive elegies of exile
Heralds of angels harvest flowers in the desert
Gates into everlasting broad highways open
First Born Mystery in swaddling clothes smiles
In desert blooms of sweet frankincense
With everlasting scents as joy blooms in Eternal Laughter!
Eden’s new age of Exuberant Truth strides into time
Writing beauty’s signature on mountaintops
Leaving incense where insolent decay
Abandons ashes of deluded victory
Sweet scented perfume of grace overpowers putrid
Baby conceived in Anointed Advent, gird in Gloria, arrives!
Afternoon of elephants,
scent of hibiscus
within this fantasy
spawned from television.
They stand in their majesty
meeting head to head,
trunk caressing trunk.
Sisters in a loving pose
while the newest member of the pack
troops under their bellies
weaving between giant legs and toes
that everybody knows
look like buttes in Arizona.
Suddenly, the baby darts away
to run Chaplinesque
with flapping ears and wagging tail
after an intruding crane.
And not too long after, the sisters
move from their awe-inspiring embrace
into a dusty mist.
war rages upon buttes
nature's elements lash out
against lofty peaks
frigid winds and rain
slowly carve out gaping wounds
indiscernibly
deeply scarred faces
erosive testimony
of battered bodies
Tanya Harrington © 07-03-2012
For Mountain Haiku Contest
Last Stroke of Midnight
The last stroke of midnight chimes –
All plans stand at attention, start here,
Perfect prophecy inhales the first breath
Of winnowing starlight foretold
As you draw up to step into your blemished creation
With new lungs filled with crisp fulfillment.
Torrents of roaring grace
Smash narrow portals of garden betrayal
Eras, ages and eons of sneering dominion
Turned sideways
Genesis false victory turned upside down
Smug visages fade into imploding ego
The missing piece of the heart
Readies to vibrate again in unison
With the tenor of timeless oblations
Heaven’s plan of trembling preparation
Explodes with triumph
Through the breathless comma of anticipation
Before the simpering wraiths of wilderness
Gorges prepare to shatter, valleys get ready to level
Avalanches of obliteration make way to raze
Buttes, crumbling cliffs and ridges of desolation
Midnight’s last stroke of domination
Turns a beastly reign into a flailing whine
Eden’s new age strides into time
In beauty’s signature crossing mountaintops
Leaving incense where insolent decay
Leaves ashes of deluded victory
Sweet scented leaves overpower putrid
Advent conceived, gird in reality, released!
11-22-22
Contest: Just Before Release
Sponsor: Unseeking Seeker
Across the prairie, driving fast,
a gust of wind, I cannot pass,
I’m transfixed by rippling grass,
stop the car in this empty space,
the blades all move in staggered waves.
Cattle graze nearby, lazily,
to the motion the pay no heed,
though one stares warily at me,
but I’m still caught by the motion
of wind through this tallgrass ocean.
So different from eastern forest,
or baking desert nearly lifeless,
why should I be en rapt by this?
I who have scaled a rocky range,
seen buttes and needles, landforms strange.
Looked at canyons bigger that states,
at glaciers that smash mountains great,
how could flat grassland ever rate?
But whispered motion of stalks long
entrances me…I must gaze on.
Jenna lived in rural Wyoming lands,
where grass rolled over small ridges and buttes,
a small town way out in the cow country,
where the ranchers still throw lassos in loops.
She was driving out to see her boyfriend,
who owned a ten thousand-acre large spread,
he had a big house, riders and a herd,
and was a keeper, all her girlfriends said.
It struck her funny that he'd done so well,
since her man had not been born around here,
they said when we came here eight years ago
he'd shied away from a mustang in fear!
She supposed he must've overcome that,
since now he rode like a weathered cowboy,
he'd bought his own place, made himself a name,
and had brought Jenna no small bit of joy.
He wasn't expecting to see her now,
but she knew that Calvin would understand,
the diner had been sheer hell this morning,
she'd even been groped by a sketchy man.
She needed a break, to hash this all out,
Calvin always had a way to comfort,
and he liked to say that she was his world,
she was sure that he would be there for her.
When she pulled up the whole ranch was quiet,
the hands must have been all out in the hills,
but she saw Calvin's horse at the corral,
had he decided to just hang back and chill?
If that was the case, it was good for her,
she would've hated being here all alone,
so Jenna walked up the big farmer's porch
and noiselessly entered her boyfriend's home.
She was tied, didn't bother to yell,
just padded upstairs to his big bedroom,
the lights were off but a translucent glow
seemed to pierce through the darkness and the gloom.
Inside she saw a bipedal figure
dressed all up in Calvin's battered work duds,
a flat-faced being with a slit for a mouth,
and two huge eyes, both the color of mud.
The skin was smooth, with no human blemish,
a vibrant, bioluminescent green,
and when the figure turned to see Jenna
she loud out a truly terrified scream!
“Jenna, what--”the creature began to say,
speaking the words in Calvin's own voice,
then slumped down and muttered to itself,
“Well I guess no I don't have any choice.”
There before her eyes the green skin shifted,
the figure became Calvin once again,
he frowned and awkwardly looked to his feet...
“Well, I guess I should explain all this then...
CONTINUES IN PART II
Aqueous humor: she said of the buddahs hands that were
placed upon the table. Macula, and marvelous! A specticail
appealing to the eyes. Yards and Yards of lemongrass, and
beautiful bounties of Buddhas hands, the booty and prize of
chorered men willing to citriate a non citrated world.
Her caruncle shall move centered when he is revealed as
the plucking Pizzicato of Rhythm: The Obsidian Lava of
Citrusacion: from Buttes to Salton all shall speak him Great!
The Ciliary Body shall be marveled an adorned, the eye's of
Fools shall want those who want them to idolize them. Cascadia
shall be looked upon from the ages: thus each new beginning
make fools from theory, and facts shall distort there thoughts.
Those who these men wish to appeal shall refuse their want for
them and there women shall adore and love men. Hu-Buddhas'
Hands shall be bought to this world to flourish and shall
dominants the interest of people from era to era!
The Pizzicato Pluck shall began the entrance which
included a rhythm sound of melonic opera, Structural-
Improvements to the Unix Flauxer shall bring anew start to
worded harmony. Women who beleive in (NFP) shall be endearing
Mielle Creco Pelo
and shall wed. Y2 + X , 4 and -4, each improvement 4 2 X= 16.
(Non for Profit-pussy)
Hanging upon high
Past the midnight solstice
The moon stands guard
An unwavering sentry
Against the feral skyline
And crimson Marsala roses
Cloistered as funerary offerings
Flouting at the surrogate dawn
Heavy thunder claps
Echoing ubiquitously
Off the archaic Swamp Oaks
Rattling the houses ire
Down to wood and copper bones
Muting with the soft finality
Altering the midnight song
Of cricket and night owl
And here I hide myself away
Somewhere between the folds
Of winters grasp and nullity
Ignoring the sharp daggers
That prick away at my sanity
Exposing those basic fears
That tendril around my control
Freezing away courage
Holding on to the end of me
Bracing firm against the winds
Looking beyond the blackness
Blanketing before dawns light
I wade about the taciturn cries
Spanning the buttes of insight
Life changes have never irked me
It’s the great voids that lay between
Image of South Africa Cape Town Table provided by Pixabay
Token Steps
Ruling winds the austral buttes naked slopes ...
as vortex smoky rise aloft Zulu's kraal
Clans in circular indlu huts enclosing round
all women famous to craft their beads
while getting set for tomorrows Reed Dance
a trait of Zulu armistice Nguni extends
Bestill, war drums eve chants Shaka's hopes ...
2021 May 29
At six o’clock the road turned bare
as we rode through Tennessee.
From Nashville to Memphis is a long,
dark stretch of gray and brown trees
and fields where no one ever walks or works.
I’ve often wondered who owns those empty spaces.
The rains kicked up and splattered the windshield
with drops as big as plums, ten seconds at a time,
then dry a while before starting all over again.
For hours and miles, nothing changed
past Memphis, Little Rock, and Fort Smith,
until the sun came up somewhere the other
side of Oklahoma City.
Clear dawn revealed the dead-end of Autumn,
but hot as Summer. The enfolding hills
of home had unfolded into horizons
all the way to the curved edge of the Earth.
The fields were golden stubble and brown
and gray and white from no rain
at this dead-end since August.
These are fields where people work,
but do not walk, because there is nowhere to go,
as far as the eye could see, nowhere to go.
In that unfolded expanse,
there were sometimes brown gashes
where older rains had surprised the ground
with knife-edged, alkaline drops
and left miniature grand canyons
of momentary interest to whiz by.
Finally, we arrived home,
a place with roots deep in the Amarillo soil.
The family was gathered there,
faces of people who knew about horses
and no rain, the sharp spikes of cactus
and mesquite pounded into the surface
of that thirsty soil. Their roots went
deep enough to find a little harsh water
to nourish the music of parched conversation
over an informal Thanksgiving dinner.
Later we weaved through the cactus and mesquite
to a line of low buttes rising a hundred feet to
flat tops where we could see across
the quiet, dusty plain.A distant silver train
caught the sun, and rolled silently beneath us
in that Autumn heat.
A jackrabbit skipped across our path
like a stone on still water, and
some tired bird of prey from nowhere sailed by,
going nowhere.
The heat of that dusty day
bled into a tired Amarillo night,
so we threw off the unnecessary coverings
left in preparation for a cold dead end of
Autumn that had not yet arrived.
Vol Lindsey
11/98
Another Day’s Rhyme
I’ve seen majestic mountains on a celestial plain,
beautiful valleys with waving fields of grain.
I have marked buttes of red rock scraping the clear blue sky,
a view of the Grand Canyon that brought a tear to my eye.
I’ve seen the desert in New Mexico covered in snow,
the salt flats of Utah, and felt the cool breeze blow.
I have witnessed God’s beauty, naturally first hand,
and seen his many wonders that cover this great land.
I’ve discovered the true form of art with colors so bright,
and stars far away in the darkness of night.
We are surrounded by beauty and touched by true love.
None of this would be here, without help from above.
I’ve heard beautiful words that made me smile.
We each get our turn for just a short while.
Appreciate these gifts and enjoy your time.
I’m thankful for all and another day’s rhyme.
Amazing views of undulating colorful sandstone hill
on the slopes of Coyote Buttes of United States' Arizona
Nature's artist uses soft smooth painting quill
gifted by the Supreme God on earth's plates a vivid corona
Date: 14th July 2016
Contest Sponsored by: Broken Wings
in One Stanza - One Only - Poetry Contest
Ridden Hard, Put Up Wet
Worn down landscape
Ridden hard and put up wet over eons of time.
Buttes interspersed with ravines and wadis,
Vast irregular symmetry.
Clumps of purple blue green sage
To have been seen by the riders of olden times.
Clusters scattered randomly.
A patchwork without design
Covering endlessly to the horizon
Intermingled with beef and horse.
The buttes come in irregular waves of shapes and sizes.
Conical breasts sprung up in ridges,
Or sometimes alone at the sky line.
Isolated flat tops
Or long Capetown table mountains;
African ant hill shapes,
Crenulated with skirts of vertical old rivulet stripes.
The overstory of bare hard scrabble thin land
Draped to the side of the ravines
Exposing the layers of understory limestone below.
Sentinel wood line posts, strong with wire, guard the narrow highway
That rolls with the landscape.
Occasional cotton wood ribbons
Crosses the roadway over the sign ‘Dry Run Creek’ which still remains dry until the rain comes.
All this
Served under the banner of blue sky
Shredded with a mare’s tail wisp of clouds
7/13/2020
Cheap ale pools in a Styrofoam cup.
She’s barefoot in gravel,
anklet flashing beneath the floodlamps.
Pickup window ajar, radio blaring
“Friends in Low Places.”
Her jeans slung low,
hips marbled violet on the porch-swing,
ash winnowing across her thighs
from last night’s guttering fire.
I watch the buttes flatten at gloaming,
a silo blinking red—
a wound stitched into the earth.
She speaks of leaving at firstlight.
I say nothing,
fingers tracing the stubs of dead cigarettes
between her knuckles.
Coyotes keen beyond the barbed-wire.
The stars loom Pendulous
We do not lift our gaze.