Best Southwestern Poems
born under the sea, an irresistible force
two bodies reluctantly embrace, shunting, shifting, tectonic drifting
alongside the southern Iapetus Ocean
equatorial deep-time child of Laurentia and Avalonia
journey northward, surfacing, submerging
surfing the waves again, a colder Hibernian dalliance
precariously perched on Eurasian plate
old bedrock confused, youthful erosion above the ancient order
darkness entombed around channelled winter light
early New Grange civilisation, the Boyne valley before the blood
river mouth vikings, raiding, assimilating
birth of the coming capital, eastern stronghold, Baile Atha Cliath
chain-mail Norman conquerors castle-building
appointing pious supplicants with sword, cloth, crook and cross
wholly unholy alliances unravel
rival hierarchies sharing ill-gotten earthly reward from overseas
saintliness, brutality, men and women
expanding Christendom, pagan kingdoms adjusting to defeat
Patrick, Brigid, Columba, Columbanus
Irish civilising roman catholic conduits, Dalriata to Lindisfarne
outreaching, a strand of Irish character
yet to encounter future revisionary metaphysical thought
protestant rebellion, mainland overspill
praying elites competing, preying on the island's god-fearing people
avian watchers on Skellig pinnacles
warm ocean currents well-up, catching the southwestern gale
enduring the ill-will of nature and man
supplanting, subjugating, saving souls, the power of might and fear
treachery within or well beyond the pale
fair and dark hair, ginger genetics existing on the edge of life
tossed thin people hanging on, many leaving
scraping blighted ground, returning to the sea, promise of the unknown
Shark, the contortionist cat, is sitting catty-wampus today.
His head is north, paws west, crossed in a weird southwestern way.
Wearing his glitzy tiara and a feathered boa of blue.
He will not take direction, and has a secret kill room, maybe two
He drags these little bitty animals up, and leaves their bodies for me.
Usually headless when I step on them, sometimes in two or three.
He brings snakes, rabbits, squirrels, moles, voles, and other critters too.
Shark, such a prissy haughty character. I am his clean-up crew.
The Lonely Fisherman
He sat on a rowing boat in the fjord he wore a yellow raincoat
and a southwestern cap matching his coat` colour. Fine rain it
was like watching a movie an intellectual one and French.
I couldn’t stand by the window all day, so I sat down reading
a book that was too long a mind-numbing love story.
I read several pages then gave up looked out of the window
the boat was there, and his cap was floating like a life raft for
a mouse I held my breath had he drowned, then the man got
up he had fallen in his boat perhaps slipped on a dead fish,
but other ways looked fine and with an oar caught his cap.
He began rowing to shore tied the boat to the small pier and
walking up the track to my cabin, he carried fish in a plastic
bag I dived behind the sofa when he knocked on my door
I don`t like fish but would end up buying a couple to be polite
and if he was of the talkative kind bore me with endless tales.
Back on the boat, he untied the rope turned and gave me the finger.
A bell-jar, crystalline, as transparent as an aquarium
Vibrant colors burnt umbers tints glass atop the kitchen table.
No elaborate gardening, just gentle misting in the terrarium
Muted pinks, earthy tones, texture soft as Siberian sable
My supercilious ways are overridden by fecund elegance.
Gather around my friends and behold cherished succulents.
These flowery cacti, such profuse perennial poetic ebullience,
with an award worthy, floral southwestern desert essence.
"The Ship of State"
On Ship! New billows sweep thee out
Seaward. What wilt thou? Hold the port, be stout
See'st not thy mast
How rent by stiff Southwestern blast?
Thy side, of rowers how forlorn?
Thine hull, with groaning yards, with rigging torn,
Can ill sustain
The fierce, and ever fiercer main;
Poem by: Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace)
Form:
In the desert
dewdrops are sparkling over cactus thorn
like icy diamonds this Southwestern morn
~*~
warm winds through the Mesquite Trees
the sweet smell of sage lingers in the breeze
~*~
the desert Sun climbs past invisible clouds
the burning sky melts the misty wet shroud
~*~
the mercury is high but the air is dry
somewhere under the tangerine sky
life in Arizona
1858
Southwestern France
Mother Mary appeared 18 times
Young woman Bernadette Soubirous
Announcing: “I am the Immaculate Conception”
Mother Mary helped Bernadette
Discover a hidden spring of grotto
That Spring was soon to become
Fountain of faith, hope
Healing for millions of pilgrims
Lourdes, truly a place of healing
Church recognizes 66 miraculous cures there
Thousands more have been reported
Lourdes a place they found peace
In coming to understand
Accept Eternal God’s will for them
To all who are sick in body and spirit
The Lord brings hope
Comfort through Our Lady of Lourdes
The Universe is contained
Not in a unlimited vast space
But in the street in front of my yard
My universe is magnificent
Blackholes in stomachs and cyclones of tortillas with mantiquilla
Salsa so spicy, young ladies so feisty flirting with men over fences
Watching Sunsets over mountains and waiting for the street lamps to
Switch and brighten the night
Little kids running around dripping ice cold
Cream to heal the cracks
Wounds and aches of the barrio
I say I’ll never leave
But if I did then it’ll be to devote back
To the bones that made me hustle
Struggle, all in the care of a family
Brothers and Sisters, Fathers and Mothers
I thank thee
This hip-hop, won’t stop, running though my veins
I could sway to the music of the streets all night
With the window open and letting
Southwestern air soak into my skin
To the beauty within
We shall win, all the games
That matter because it is my culture
Basketball, scraped knees
Barbeques and tamales
Profusions of colliding emotions
Broken hearts and soothed souls
All over my nana’s best bowl of Menudo
I could laugh to tears about memories
I learned more sitting outside listening to the wind
Rustling though the leaves
Then in a classroom outside of the streets and blocks
I keep my own, I learn
Listening to the Nana’s speak softly
Feeling the soul of my people wash over
Feeding me with stories, life, intensity
Hopes and dreams
That are passed onto generations
The courage to strive and become
Our own makers
Here I stand, ready to give
To what was given to me
Kaolin ceramics shelved for display
A framed mirror suggests a window into time
Fortifications in a continuum surround this fortress
Inside a Southwestern style is secured
Bulldozing nature for architectural delight
Rich in warm tones and textures of stucco
Baroque oval portals lead into substructures
Endearing pine stripped.....stained to perfection
Strategically placed beamed ceilings finesse
Whitewashed antlers hang above a fireplace
Not a hunters home but a setting of one once known
A water well stands with an antique pump
As an unyeilding sun drenches the broken claylike ground
Genuinely revealing a life long past
In Beautiful New Mexico a Southwestern home is found
~This was inspired by Brian….and his Cameo piece~I hadn't used or seen the
word KAOLIN in some time...and it reminded me of the west....hence, I used the
word first and went from there~
The moon, a glowing yellow hammock lying low and lazy in a cold southwestern November sky beckons me to sleep. I watch as my breath rises behind me. The cold keeps me awake. A crisp clarity, a sharp focus as everything has turned to glass. I hear the cut of my skates digging into the ice, pushing sliding me forward to a distant frozen pale pink horizon. I settle into the rhythm of my movement, timing my breathing with the thrust of each leg as I glide. Much drought this summer, rainfall and floods were late, but it is an exceptionally early deep long freeze this year and it came on so fast. So I strapped on my skates and set out. I keep an eye on the liquid below, looking for those unlucky enough to have been caught in the flood before the freeze over. I carry a small ax and torch in my pack to free their rigid bodies and pull a sled to carry them home. Most are thankful that I’ve recovered their loved ones and will pay me with food, or whatever they have for my efforts. Some offer for me to stay with them awhile, out of the cold. I may take them up on their offer and warm by a fire, but their senseless chatter drives me insane. I prefer the emptiness and silence of the ice fields.
None other state can stake the claim
That Texas has to worldwide fame
No where else would ever be the same
It’s people are the proudest, yet
The truest hearts you can bet
Life is as good as it can get
I have slept under the Gulf shore sky
Climbed the western mountains high
Watched magnificent eagles fly
Traveled from the high west plain
Where the farmers pray for rain
This fierce pride will never wane
To the east’s lush forest green
And all of the Texas in between
Greatest land you’ve ever seen
Where the blackland belt’s rich loam
Meets the cross-timbers grassy dome
No other place will ever be my home
Viewed the hill country’s incredible beauty
Where Ft. Hood’s soldiers do their duty
Lovely waterfalls tumbling so fluty
Possom Kingdom or Lake Fork’s wake
Tawakoni or Toledo Bend for goodness sake
From Lake Texoma to Amistead Lake
The mighty Red, Trinity and Sabine
Rio Grande, Colorado, the Brazos Queen
Rivers run muddy or pure and clean
Down in the southwestern desert and Big Bend
Llano Estacado, the Edward’s Plateau, friend
Marfa’s lights, El Capitan, scenic beauty without end
From Texarkana down to big D
Cowtown to El Paso, you will see
Why Texas means so much to me
Because every Texan seems to know
No matter where it is they go
It is Texas that they love so
Form:
Hot sun...Burning Earth...Molded from Red clay,Covered with Callichie,Cooked Hard
in the Sun. Strong with thought...yet, woman screams and not heard...Lonely, like the
mountain covered in snow...Hot Sun...Touch me and make me new.
I live in a rose-tinted town
bowing mainly to White Western skies
bleached of blue blooded color
but also of dire Eastern dawns
with smoky red skies,
warning farmers and gardeners
taking and giving nutritional cover
under bad-blooded weather
on our way to further apart.
I live in a NorthEastern place
replete with geriatric grace
yet less mindful of holistic medicines
less conscious through holy meditations
less green ecoschool wholesome
with cooperative administrations
of home
and families
and neighborhoods
as wholesome 7-Generation multihoods.
I live in a public space
directed by private embrace
toward trusting love of all four dimensions
all eight lifetime resurrections
From infant to WinWin child,
child to WinLose pre-teen,
pubescent to late adolescent,
where U.S. culture seems LeftBrain stuck
between delayed adolescents and too young adults,
young adults toward mature WinWin multiculturists,
voters listening to WiseElder leaders,
WiseElder leaders
longing to conjoin CoMessiahs
and Bodhisattva PeaceWarriors
and PolyCulturing Yogis
and MultiCulturing EarthScientists
and PolyPhonically inclined EarthArtists
and PolyPathic EarthEducators
and EarthFirst Mentors.
Researchers and Designers
of full-octaved trust,
if for no positively healthy reason,
to avoid hatreds of anti-trust
and ambivalent angers
seeking secular mistrust
and equivalent fears
finding infinite misery
pathologies.
I live in a rose-scented town
where three polluted rivers conjoin
worshipped by LastNative gamblers
reweaving our vapid ritual bows
within all four fractal revolving directions.
I live in a rose-fading town
aging while watching southwestern drought,
at risk of growing Eastern coastal
as Northern blizzards of chaos
compete with Southern hurricanes and tornadoes
of flooding tsunamic competing complexity.
I live in a rose memory town
filled with ghosts of LeftBrain dominant climatic pathology
rising up to restore RightBrain with Left
peace from within,
settling down to withstand
capital punishments
ego-justified retributions
without rose-tinted restorative glasses.
MORNING STAR
Morning’s minion dancing on the dawn
Tiny Terpsichore, trembling fay :
To her uncertain smile I am drawn -
Shy Venus, goddess of the early day,
Shimmering along the far horizon
As the sky lightens and the vault glorious
Glows brighter, till the sun has risen
And entered the dramatic chorus.
. . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . .
NOTE
The planet Venus is not a star, but is so bright that
the ancients called it Morning Star or Evening Star.
This poem shows it as a "morning star". It is currently
(February 2012) seen in the evening in the southwestern
sky, just to the right of another bright spot, Jupiter.
he wrote non- sufficeint love
in Spain.
he hide their for months while
his wife searched for him.
she found him their
and retreived him to stay at their home
in southwestern america.
they grow tomatoes and sold them to stores all over the country.
the song was losted for months, but when found
someone in the feilds said it was a boo-who love song that
caused people to cheat and consort. it was then said to be the works of
el diablo, the music of the devil. we asked a preist in the city if these words were the works of Satan he told them they were the works of men, but the intentions of the song was to illustrate the doings of an unfaithful woamn, one who whenched her men, and then became pregant, so that see could inherint their wealth. In the song the song, got all the riches, the bitches, and the knowledge of
concored ***'s. these words ofended some but, musicains have sung this song for years so the church could understand men wanting to hear the song. well the group released the song on their album, and it topped the charts, a group of woman, anwsered the song.. with " lazzia ***, a song about a group of wonderers who tricked women for money. this started the verses issue we have here today. we conserve referance to the teaching of either, and site the beleif in peace and unity !