Best Dakota Poems
Of course on this night we are supposed to be asleep so Santa
could come, but we hadn't been home from Midnight Mass very long, and the
invigorating cold was not conducive to sleep. Even the hot chocolate did not do
much to help sedate the excitement.
We were hoping for sleds that year. The snow was perfect for
sledding especially like we did it. We tied out sleds on behind the car or pick up
and were pulled through the hills. We got our sleds. My dad and my uncle made
them for us.
No television and only in the late years were we allowed to use the
radio. Batteries were to expensive for frivolous use. We spent many hours
playing cards or games.
I took time out and went to high school and college and got my
teaching certificate.
My aunt taught there only one year after the Federal Government
turned the schools over to the local government.
The last time I was back there the out buildings had been moved and
Indian families were living in them. The school was dirty and unkept.
Now the school is gone. The ancestors who once walked these
dusty plains are gone. The Indians who were there when I was a child are gone.
They are Ghosts. Ghosts whose faces can be seen in the clouds.
Ghosts who still chop wood on those sub zero nights. And the drums we heard
in the middle of the nights are still beating. They beat as strongly as the heart
beats in a healthy body. The laughter of the children still echoes under the
bridge.
The life blood of a culture, of a nation grows thin. The Battle of
Wounded Knee was the last battle to be fought between the white man and the
Indian on the northern plains. It's cries still echo across the land.
My foot prints in the creek did not last any longer than those they left
in the dust. But in my memories, this mile and a half by three quarter mile haven
still lives. And will live forever as a piece of unrecorded history.
Dakota Contest
I was alone until I brought you home,
Just a pup who loved to chew on my shoes.
You've given me the sweetest love I've known.
Blue husky eyes keep vigil when I snooze,
Your gay devotion keeps me from the blues.
The years have passed too quickly, now you're old.
Right by my side you've stayed until the end.
Your worth in weight, much more than solid gold,
I could not let you suffer, my best friend.
Only time will help my broken heart mend.
8-22-19
English Quintain
Deadline: Friday, August 23, 2019
29 poems of the maximum 35
There were seven Indian Government schools. All built alike. The
one I'm writing about is Spring Creek. He Dog, Soldier Creek and White River,
Grass Mountain, Two Kettle, and Black Pipe were the other schools. The
Headquarters for these schools was at Rosebud, South Dakota.
On some summer evenings we were able to talk our mothers into
hiking to the lookout tower. We followed the ankle deep sandy trail road to the
cliff north of the school., A canyon lay at the foot of the tower but we climbed the
bluff. I don't know why we didn't explore the canyon unless it seemed dark and
sinister. The footing was better once we reached the summit. The closer we got
to the tower the taller it grew and standing at the foot of the steps looking up was
easier than getting to the top and looking down. My mother didn't usually make it
to the top because she didn't like heights. But she didn't mind being left behind
this time. We never could get into the building at the top because it was locked,
but we could climb the steps to the very last one. Even my little sister managed
to elude mom and followed us to the top.
From the bluff we could look down on the garden. My aunt grew a
huge garden and canned the produce for the hot meals served the school
children. We kids didn't work in the garden very often, but we looked for the arrow
heads and fossils. Which, I suspect the adults probably considered the best
place for us.
At the end of the road, living in shack, was Old Lady Grease. I have a
vague recollection of seeing her. Tiny, frail, wrinkled and gray headed is all I can
remember.
In spring and fall we were in school in Kansas.
It's Christmas now. Cold and usually snowy. We were in a winter
wonder land.
I'm standing at the fire escape window. The ghostly pale full moon is
illuminating the naked arms of the trees as they shiver in the wind, swaying to
and fro as if dancers in a ballet. I listen to the winter sounds. The frigid air
enhances their sharpness. The ax's thud echoes up the canyon as one of the
Indians across the river chops another supply of wood. One of his peers beats
on the drum. It is one-thirty a. m. but the thin walls of the tents do not keep the
cold out. Day or night this chore must be attended to for survival.
There’s a soft glimmer of day on the horizon
As a vanquished sun is swept away by dusk’s dark flow
With a slender slip of a cloud stretched North to the South
That floats on the sweetness, the texture of marmalade glow.
Dark clouds above me are still catching last light
And the air is still fresh from a passing shower.
Overhead there are magnificent canyons of sky,
Clouds eroded by meandering rivers of air,
Untouched stars shining through,
And flashes of lightning that break dance further South
Reminding less attentive humans feelings are electric too,
Random flashes, like a child remembering how to cry
Without understanding when it is effective.
And the crickets are singing their harsh waves of sound
With combined voice that could wake up the dead
Or float lovers to their dreams with strange musicality.
What a chorus! It’s like they’re all suitors of one woman
Hanging out in the darkness under her window
Their legs resonating in an orgy of praise.
Is there anything alive that does not ooze sensuality?
I’m driving myself to a late dinner in Pierre
And there’ll be no one waiting to greet me,
But loneliness is not the same as being lonely
I even stop as I’m driving to write down these words
For when my muse speaks I almost always listen
For the music of the night is so fragile,
Though her words are my constant companions.
Like raindrops they cool me with their touch, to my senses glisten,
The thoughts she brings are flowers that follow mountain streams
And her rhymes, even when it’s cloudy, are stars in my night.
Arriving back in Blunt, the cricket song, seems somehow softer,
Though hardly less insistent, cries “Don’t you know we love you?”
I insert some extra lines and thoughts into what has come before,
Into an already flowing work, dollops of color added madly,
Just more cricket noise, hoping to touch your heart.
I wish that I had stopped once more beside the road as I returned.
“That was such a beautiful thought! What was it?” I wonder sadly!
Apparently the female that male crickets seek has not chosen yet.
But with this poem my day is done.
Brian Johnston
September 7, 2015
good ol’ backwards North Dakota
wouldn’t want to be a woman in
North Dakota,
cause’ choice just ain’t happenin’ there.
nah,
if you’re a woman who gets raped in good ol’
backwards
North Dakota,
since they just shut down the last abortion
clinic,
all those bible thumping,
christ screaming, pro-lifers,
will be telling you to give birth
to a constant memory of the man who
raped you,
because they ****ing said so.
wouldn’t want to be a woman in
don’t-need-your-thumbs-to-live-here
North Dakota,
because i’d be unable to decide what to do with
my own goddamned body,
due to the fact that the
“heaven”
seeking
hillbillies
want me to kill my dreams of having a career
before settling down with a kid,
so they can feel like they did their
“god”
good.
wouldn’t want to be a woman in North Dakota,
unless i had enough money to get on the
quickest ****ing train
out of there
& gee willikers,
doesn’t that just feel ****ing dandy
in “the land of the free?”
the home of the brave
indian caves,exploring time
lets go.we can walk
In my early teens (late 60's)
I remember it all
began
in my mind
Dad was driving us into
downtown Minneapolis
for church I think,
up ahead, a block or so,
the bob-lights on top of
2 cop cars was twirlin'
and speakers were loopin'
that open-sore noise
then it went silent
but what caught our eyes
was, the 2 cops were standing
over a Native American sleeping
against a wall,
they picked him up,
all limp arms and legs
and chucked him into the
open trunk of their squad
car like they were swinging
gunnysacks of taters
dad was the first to say
something as we passed
by when the light changed
"the Indians got it rough
here in town, jimmy,
gotta
help 'im when
you can, son"
50 yrs ago...
little has changed,
Dakota Oil injustice,
now near me puppet
heads
allowing pipelines
to disgrace sacred
Treaty Lands.
People gonna rise-up
again, and get water-blasted
off their feet & stuck with
them stingin' dam electric
stun-frizzle wires
like we were some
kinda human chimera
that needs to be
extinguished.
dads been gone 12 yrs
now
"gotta help 'im
when you
can, son"
...gotta
help 'im
when
I can
July '18
Minneapolis
....happening a few hours north and west of where I live in Minneapolis
Bulldozers pushed earth into mounded walls all along the watchtower.
Wild Sunflowers, roots exposed, gasped for life, uncomfortablysideways, faces driven into
mud.Stun-gun wires, the few that escaped the eyes of the cleaners, barbed claws still red from piercing skin, poked up in human ignorance.
Earth raped, a violation of sacred grounds, burned in the hearts of Dakota Native Americans.
How can Native Peoples tresspass on Treaty Lands?
The world is watching, and we see with clear eyes, our hearts are heavy with your tears.
10/28/16
Dakota Territories
My brother and I walk the south pasture on an early spring day,
The warmth of spring slowly melting, the cold of winter away.
The golds of old growth are broken by the green of new,
And we are drifting in dreams, though we have work to do.
Gathering the cows for milking, we allow Father Time to pass by,
When a shadow in the barbed wire catches my brother’s eye.
We run through the stubble of last season allowing dreams to lead,
Shaped by childhood stories which we had seen and read.
The cries draw us near where she hangs, limply as if half dead.
Each barb is cutting deeply. She slowly bleeds the earth red.
The life within her still pulsing its unbreakable bond
We make a solemn vow, a promise, to the crying, broken fawn.
Freeing her from her prison, we discover she is too weak,
She cannot stand or fight, has lost the force of her instinct.
My brother lifts her to his chest and orders me to go on.
For the chore of our cow gathering still must be done.
Miles between us and home, they trudge, a child with a child
Him dreaming of what will be when we tame the wild.
The weight of the burden breaks him and he falls to his knees.
Looks to the heavens for strength, but there is only me.
Her hooves drag along beside and I cradle her in my arms -
The weight of her pulling me downward, and yet I struggle on.
We entrust her to the dancing shadows of the oak tree in the yard,
And beg our mother for help but her motto is “Life is hard.
The veterinarian is more than we can spend. Milking still needs done.
Wild animals should be left to nature and the course which it will run.”
With a child’s gesture of love, we leave her and gather grain.
The labor of farm children - as essential as the rain.
(There is a Part 2 which can be found on my page.)
Earlier than usual, for the pigs have broken free from their pen,
We are allowed to quit the milking because someone must get them.
The excitement of getting to be with her sets us to a run
But when we discover the pigs, we know that it is done.
From the woodpile we gather two-by-fours with which we lay into
The backs of the wild beasts because it is all we can think to do.
They had formed a circle around her, pushing and pulling her pain
Her hind legs were strings of blood and bone, little did remain.
With curses of Christian children we hurled into the wind
We chased the beasts away from her, beating them for their sin.
Though her cries had quieted to whispers, she was crying still
And this time we cried with her, for we knew the what will.
Mother, we asked for the gun, but father was not home.
Mother, we asked for the knife, but the good knives would not be won.
My brother made me wait inside so I ran to the kitchen window
And perched myself on the sink, pulling the curtain low.
He sat with her head curled in his lap in the shade of the old tree,
Crying into the warmth of her neck and then to set her free
His small arms around her neck and his unanswered cries
Echoing across the plains and through the cold Dakota skies.
2/25/14
wide open spaces
plenty of place's to be
plenty to eat too
Mary laid her aces down
hoping they would be enough,
Had placed her world on the line
in-between her precious "stuff".
She'd worked in her parents fields,
walked to school when times were tough,
Never had much for herself
but what she had was her "stuff".
Made a friend and built a life
in a house upon the bluff,
Filled it with all her charm
and each piece of her loved "stuff".
Sang her heart out in the church,
prayed through the times that got rough,
Never threw away her faith,
never parted with her "stuff".
Hubby lost his sanity,
the youngest left in a huff,
Still she held on to the home
and all of her treasured "stuff".
Days moved quickly into years
while she lived just off the cuff,
Spent most times inside the house
caring for all of her "stuff".
She left this earth quietly,
found her on the carpet's tuft,
Laid out with a smiling face,
surrounded by all her "stuff".
Family knew what she'd like
and made sure it was enough,
See that hall upon the hill?
It holds her and all her "stuff".
dear Mr. maniacally-raving-mad-
repugnican-
representative
Daugaard,
if a kid in your school has a gun &
your teacher has a gun,
and the teacher fires first,
or the kid fires first &
somebody misses &
hits other kids
promoting a domino effect of a
bloodbath,
will you think then
that the idea of
putting guns in the hands of
teachers,
might’ve been the
wrong mother****ing way to go?
not quite with me yet, *******?
hmmm…
how about if your armed teacher has
a problem with an unarmed student one day &
s/he got dumped the night before,
came in drunk, may have a temper problem
that slid under the radar…or maybe,
just maybe, they are ****ing nutbags
themselves…
now that teacher pulls the trigger,
because you know what…being a teacher
wasn’t really what they had wanted to be
all their lives…instead,
they just wanted to make a mark,
secretly &
now is the time which they’ve chosen to do so…
will you regret making South Dakota the first
****ing hick state,
DUMB ENOUGH,
to arm their teaching staff
(that is, ON THE BOOKS…
yes, we know that there are dumb hick
schools out there that have already allowed
cowboy teachers to strut their stuff off the
books with guns…)?
still not with me, ****stick?
let’s put it in a little equation for you…
kid with a gun + a teacher with a gun
DOES NOT EQUAL
LESS GUNS IN SCHOOLS.
kid with a gun + a teacher with a gun
DOES NOT EQUAL
LESS VIOLENCE IN SCHOOLS.
teacher with a gun + students without guns
EQUALS
GODDAMNED
FEARMONGERING &
ALL THE MORE REASON FOR A KID TO
BRING A GUN TO SCHOOL.
Anther shamanic sunset in the upper Midwest
Magical brush strokes and hues that redact your mind to the test
Assisted beauty consolidating at the end of day
Memories of the heart that are created to stay
In the cold and rolling hills of a barren South Dakota,
On bleak and uncaring reservations of the Lakota,
Live both the ancient and the young of a once proud native race—
Living with America, whiskey and a fall from His grace.
We now bring contributions of food and clothes on Christmas Eve—
Given by those who know their plight as we smile and slowly leave.
Over a hundred years now and their progress still seems too slow—
A once noble people clinging to a past they’ll never know.
And what is the price of progress when we conquered the Old West
And took the proud Indian down a trail that we thought was best?
And what of free range, a way of life – the country we stood for?
We hid it on reservations so it would haunt us no more.
So we ride past reservations – think that we have done our best,
As time erases memories of a people and the West—
Once a year we sooth our egos and add money to the pot,
Hoping time heals miseries and we can keep what we have got.
In the cold and rolling hills of a barren South Dakota,
On bleak and uncaring reservations of the Lakota,
Live both the ancient and the young of a once proud native race—
Living with America, whiskey and a fall from His grace.