Best Chinook Poems
If I were a baby’s breath
I’d be the sigh
that bends the wheat as dawn slips by
a gentle chinook that softly speaks
a river’s pause….. before it breaks
the soulful love itself remakes.
If I were the moment
I'd be the one
star that pierces through the dark
where moons align and two hearts become
a place thoughts dissolve where time suspends
a love too vast for fate to end.
If I were a dream catcher I’d kiss your sleep
with shades of joy too rich to keep
reality more radiant than you'd dare.
and when you wake upon your skin
my breath would rise dew drops within.
If I had an enchanted touch
I’d be the artist
of tides that sculpt the cliffs in full
a warmth that lingers on your breasts
a caress that cradles slow and deep
like roots that drink where my love sleeps.
If I were a sacred covenant
I’d be the mark
that binds your soul where comets arc
not lost to time, nor dimmed by space
but carved in light-faith’s endless place.
forever locked in my loves’ divine celestial lace.
But I am just myself
imperfect true
yes, I am only flesh and bone
no myth no spark no sculpted stone—
but in your arms, I burn, I shine
a zephyrus breath where earth meets sky.
The trip was a riot of color,
It brings a myriad of queries,
Fantastic tales of utter darkness,
Views' visible roots were explored.
Mainsail surges,
pungent froth carried wave tips while,
blast swings moaning openly.
superb mountains,
Convey streams into streaming rivers,
Down slants shrouded in woods.
And the majesty of the stars,
Is confronted every morning,
Under soft white clouds,
is with each foot I set down.
I relish the quiet of the sound,
how each slant embraces,
the still raw bay.
Home to unglaciated cervids,
Gnawing animals and polar bears,
Willow grouse, deer,
Also, the renowned Chinook Salmon.
More genuine than the Arctic flow,
Afar-off state refuted,
In both word and deed,
Anyhow of these ever tender wishes.
Atop mottled strands,
I let my emotions air dry,
Orange tulips were selected,
I regained faith; I can fly.
5Th Place Contest Winner
Written: June 18, 2022
2022 Poetry Marathon Mile 3 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Mark Toney
fo'c·'sle /'fohksel/ noun deriv: forecastle
1. the forward part of a ship below the deck, traditionally used as the crew's living quarters.
2. historical: a raised deck at the front of a ship.
With the equinox illuminating a fortnight of recovery
On pelts spread like Ionian jars left askew,
My flame-keep sparked alight against the doldrums of
Greed. Stagnant and fetid.
My bark beats out a call stretched
Skin-tight over the sea’s virgin core
And sets trust aflame.
Ashes collected into the collated casks and
Corked with animus, Moon Girl pounded on.
Drumming a dirge on the tanner's own flesh.
Pounding the seed of echoing hope.
Pounding the corpus beat of life anew.
Those echoed my own harmony and emptied my ears.
My tunes would now be true and crisp.
My struggle to syncopate the middle eight
Was like on the saltchuck the time before.
Before we crossed the bar,
Breakers chasing, pounding aft of stern.
Now in the glow of the coal oil lamp
Sat The Dane who came to trade.
He mumbled a Chinookian curse and winced.
He sensed my mariner's cred, how I lit my smoke;
Muscle memory and addiction married in my subconscious.
But His eyes would never sense the venomous flow
Of the seabreak distant,
Like hounds baying to the highway of stars
And up to the dunes ran with phosphorescent faces
Fermenting the blackness.
Hell-hounds bounding.
Lungs pounding.
Driving on.
River may lick Disappointment’s shanks
But Drake’s gold remains unfound.
The cavities carved along the capes
Echo an emptied ethos and sapped spirit
Which salal and sage cannot clense.
Walk with me now Sister Ilchee.
Beat your dirge
Along the pock-marked ports of plunder
Laid before the flattened corpse of
Ebbing freedom found.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R8nJSe8Jb0
Dreams are made of fairy dust and gold my mom once said
as she tucked me in real tight and kissed my sleepy head
you will see stars of bright and little angels baking bread
there upon a cloud, a Pegasus with wings of finest thread
Dreams are made for human bodies full of goodness, light
you can get there if you try and wish with all your might
you'll see blueberry moons with eyes that wink so bright
magic swords with pixie dust, that never fear the night
Fairies will rock you in their cradles by their garden nook
while you sleep five winks and create with just one look
up here you can be a butterfly lost in the winds of chinook
reveal most anything, be transparent as an open book
Dreams are made of fairy dust and gold my mom once said
as she tucked me in I fell asleep, with angels in my head.
I walk an already trodden path...
Uncertain, of future lives that lie ahead
But, in faith I close these earthly Ojibwa eyes
In trill, thus, I hear the old ways in your presence amidst Chinook winds
As harmonic they play across the plains, from sacred astral pipes
Mimicking cricket songs that echo abstract out of the season's last autumn mist
I also hear your fifes in the rustle of the leaves, rising into writhe
And almost see your spirit aura as it accompanies the Algonquian breeze
Ancient ghost of proud, but now lost upon a dying nation tribe
Your music from beyond is narrations of a mystical language nature speaks
Sweeping thrush calls, chirps through weeping willow weeps,
Unto past September sounds, beating down on war drum clouds, of thundering maelstrom claps
And babbling brooks going on and on until narrowing creaky creeks
Alas, whooper wills warning and morning loons mourning, hidden amidst the swaying grass
When I see you, I imagine spectral legends majestic high across horizon's sky
Snowy silhouettes in headdress, drifting in flowing rainbow crowns
And with the night, I see you in my mind dance as the "Will-Ó-the-wisp" just might
Then, my body shivers from the distance, where your flute imitates the cry of the lone coyote's sound
As for all of your Mishomis (grandfather) traditions, I accept there is a greater essence
Kindred I am, son to your spirit and without partition from an Ojibwa eye
And I stand here staunch in cattail marshes, pondering my place in ancestral questions
Now, your answers again begin to play upon the wind, but this time traveling through the November... Whispers on needles of the pine
I walk an already trodden path...
But, each new step before me keeps this culture alive...
Written in honor of my Chippewa family ©2012 Michael G. Smith
THAW AT CROWSNEST PASS
Huge mountains massed and cliffs sheer. It’s March
And endless blue sky cold is held back by the Chinook arch,
Snowy prairies rolling into their thousand-mile realm -
The landscape is gigantic, majestic, orchestrated to overwhelm.
But I stand and watch the lake-ice thaw,
Surprised by the tiny delicate music -
Descant ice - jingling, jangling, tinkling
In delicate accompaniment to the giant symphony.
Ice chunks tangled in slow waves with the wind
Tiny tintinnabulation before total ablation.
There is silence and harmony around the sound,
The small melody of the ice breaking into spring’s chorus.
Note: Crowsnest Pass is the southernmost way through the Rocky Mountains in Canada
Little lady bug by my window how pretty you look
with your fragile wings and sweet tiny polka dots
Fate brought you to me like a great chinook
you landed on my heart, like a Cupid shot !
Ladybug of luck, bring me happiness if you may
If I place you on my finger, may I make a wish
will you grant me a gift before the end of day
will you grant me true love, on a silver dish
Lady fly of beauty where did you come from today
did you stop at every port or only by my house
lady beetle, messenger and harbinger of play
dance upon my palm a little longer while I douse
I've seen you around before but never at my door,
please send me a man that I surely can, adore ?
January 18, 2022
Sponsor Angela Tune
Contest Name Insects
Kananaskis is
four-fifths a line of haiku
Kananaskis is
With spring’s sudden warmth
serial avalanches thunder
one triggers the next
Winter’s snow melting
laughing, leaping, running to
valley far below
Green slopes banded red
dying lodgepole pine, memories
of last year’s Chinook
Golden larch quivers
as the first storm of winter
passes close tonight
As a boy, I came
to know this quiet valley
father's special place
Leaving highway to
where mountains reach to heaven
we drove the stone road
Fishing beaver ponds
dad came on bees, lost his specs
on return just bees
One night as we camp
a timberwolf comes to call
returns to dark night
On the upper lake
clouds mask the solar eclipse
but fish go crazy
One spring’s discovery
drawdown pools, teeming with trout
who won’t touch anything
A five pound rainbow
beached chasing Peter’s lure
red stripe - jealousy
Late autumn, Lake B
big browns cruise downwind beaches
only we know where
A ski resort appears
wonderland needs paved roads
we protest in vain
Twenty years later
returning with my children
to an unknown place
If you slow to look
irate traffic leans on horns
rushing to their lodge
My kids and I fish
a borrow pit now a“lake”
tourists' put and take
To a grizzly bear
roads are barriers wider
than flooding rivers
Kananaskis is
four-fifths a line of haiku
Kananaskis is
MM
All we eat is elk meat, boiled elk, roasted elk, elk jerky
sometimes fried elk if we get bear or whale oil,
oh, and sometimes elk soup,
for four months we've subsisted exclusively on elk
except for occassional dog meat, candlefish or duck,
the elk have become our saviors, and our culinary suffering,
yet it keeps us nourished like some kind of ape predators,
Clark has officially named the massive boulder at the front of the bay
Cape Disappointment on account that its now March 1806
and since November no one has spotted a merchant vessel
nor has any trading post been discovered along the coast in either direction,
frankly its astounding, has the world done gone forgotten that the Columbia exists,
everyone is gettin uppidy as bull frogs
and we've had enough rainy hours here to last ten lifetimes,
to hell with the sailors, we've gotta race to finish
and we ain't gonna get beat by a disappointment or by a sinister suprise,
Load'em up!...
Since coming out of the Rocky Mountains
like a migrating pack of wolves pursuing the scent of a bloodied den
I've been spending more time away from the river's rigors
providing fresh meats for the mission that we leave hanging along designated banks,
for the first time I feel liberated from the fear of failure
winter can no longer hurts us,
the great mysteries of the continental crossing have been revealed
through their savagery and splendor
the tribes have been touched with a new spirit of survival
animals ferocious and exotic have been tasted and classified
we have learned what these landscapes can lend to farming legions,
the mountains no longer menace us, we know how to travel their pain,
as my horse feeds on the grass of unowned soil
I reflect on my moments of intemperance with the natives
when I thrashed a Chinook thief into bleeding shame,
the order I gave to burn their village to silent ash when my dog and saddle were stolen
fortunately that was not necessary because I got them back,
the time I was meanly mocked by a Nez Perce Indian for eating dog meat
and threatened to split his skull with my tomahawk if he ever insulted me again,
J.A.B.
So, this is where butterflies go to die.
Atop this burning ochre beach.
Amidst the palomino stones, party streamers, and chinook bones.
They folded up their powdery dreams.
Awaiting the pallbearer's tide.
Toting emerald caskets, silver-lined.
So, this is where butterflies go to die.
Fort Clatsop is up and true,
50 feet square, with a smokehouse, pallisades, barracks and two gateways
furnished from the aromatic and reliable wood of the great Fir trees,
we keep busy by scraping elk hides for clothes, making moccasins, hunting
and boiling sea water in kettles to manufacture a nutritious salt,
the Clatsop Indians are not the onery thieves that the Chinook are,
in fact, they are merry hustlers with fine things to trade,
the Clatsop chief, Coboway was in fort today, smoking and learning how we leather stitch
when I began negotiating for his sea otter robe,
a fur of extraordinary waterproof warmth and deep colored beauty
several layers ringed, overlapping one another like roof tiles
with a thin elk hide underneath
the length of a knee cloak with the incandescence of morning mountains
snowy whites, granite greys and cool browns,
I believe that is why Clark and I are contending for it,
that rare robe reminds us of the Rockies, the rugged majesty,
Coboway isn't being simple though, actually he's being a prick about it,
refusing all sorts of neat and valuable things
and then Sacagawea comes into the room shakin her meaty hips around
and the chief comes to life and says he'll trade for her beaded belt,
Clark looks at me like hey, not fair
because he knows I can get Janey, Sacagawea's American name,
to give it up for my blue velvet coat that she just purrs for,
J.A.B.
A Little Boy’s gun with a barometric trigger,
showed a Fat Man how to
blot out an Empire’s rising sun.
Proliferation’s need pushed
Sellafield and Kyshtym to trip chasing Manhattan.
Twenty two years later and just
three miles south of Middleton,
failed safe assurances lied again and signed
Pripyat’s some thousands years lease that left
eighteen billion rubles around one elephant’s foot.
Fukushima’s seven year menses – Pacific stained –
west coast tide pool colors an invasive green
as Chinook escapements fill five year graves.
Intractable cesium hangovers bleed MOX cocktails
Nostrils blowing bubbles over damned lips
fused to the tit of a beast we can’t tame.
-----------------------------------------------------
Contest: Remembering What You Want to Forget
Sponsor: Kim Rodrigues
Date: 09.04.18
No lies to the heart she says only
ties will do to the lonely, To
make a union of two hearts that makes
a reunion of a feeling called love.
So lets rejoice and throw
the doves to the wind
and look to the pictures in the sky.
Now we can kick off our shoe's
and take off our golden wings
and send off in a chinook wind.
so now you can tell
no lies as we are tied
into one,Our reunion has just begun
The old red barn seems to grow up through the dust and brown
Along the vague dirt road that mars the sage.....
The rhythm played by rain for wait of seeds, still echoes here
Erect and proud, it stands somber as the purple shadows that surround the hills
A faint whistling song is heard within these derelict arms
A song of faith....a song of sweat...a song of contentment and tears
Someone fitted the beams, and squared window panes, ....and built a life
Hope and pride filled to the rafters, as it overlooked rolling fields plowed, tilled and furrowed
Now weathered gray, it creaks and groans under dark prairie skies
It leans inches more with each Chinook wind that sweeps and sways the grain
Where now only wind whistles through the eves, and stiff grasses grow
And bats and mice find a place to live, and white stars shine down on loneliness
Abandoned and forsaken, while gaunt hills stand silently by
Day after day, under the prairie sky, this monument that is left alone to die
A
chinook
silently
melts the lying
snow