Best Stance Poems

God Break Me from My Ridgid Stance

God break me from my ridged stance;
Chance allowing me to escape trance,
I had been in,
Again and again,
And enlightened when You enhance.

Jim Horn...

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Night one on the new river, the campfire is spirited
and the future appears hospitable,
everyone has their rations, everybody is resting their pride
for on an expedition epic to each man and for a republic as well
souls must stand sober to undomesticated circumstance and calamity's call,
Dickson and...

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Christ!
A warparty of 60 Shoshone warriors has just stampeded into the meadow
faces painted red and white for blood and death, all sorts of strange designs,
bows and arrows ready to fly on us, skull breaking cudgels raised up,
the woman runs out to them shouting for mercy,...

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The Nez Perce Indians who lead lean lives on these knolls and river brooks
have a style of soul that sneaks into the songs of the sun
and plays on the prayers in the patience of their dreams,
they have welcomed us as messengers of revival,
like the Shoshone...

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The Great Falls of the northern Plains is actually a chain of five seperate waterfalls
varying in height and majesty extending over 12 miles,
they also confirm that the right river was chosen,
we had hoped that the necessary portage of boats and supplies
would take no more than...

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" Damn you, let go my gun! "
The morning hasn't even yawned yet
and a terrible tussle is in my sight,
Drouillard is wrestling his rifle from the hands of this Indian thief
and the Field brothers are chasing after two others,
to my left I can see the...

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The delegation arrives in a procession of handsome, barbaric lineage
rugged in animal accoutrements and subdued in the presence of the future's skin,
the women, fine in wild beauty are bejeweled in beads, white and blues
that accent their pretty brown bodies like flowered earth
they present Clark and...

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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...

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We briefly meet the Mandan Chief Big White
in the village center where the animals are sacraficed,
couples wed, and disputes are dealt with,
he is a massive, and portly man
and is wearing a headdress that spreads to the floor
with black tipped eagle feathers, gold encrusted eagle heads...

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12 hours of excruciating labor pangs have Sacagawea breathing
into the face of Death,
as she violently shakes her head back and forth, teeth clenched,
sweat boiling and eyes furious
it seems to me that she is detetmined to attack Death itself,
this cannot go on, she must deliver or...

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6 miles up river Arikara are encountered,
they are a people of amenable disposition and are agrarians,
they chuckle with sympathy as we inform them of our grizzly confrontation
and they tell us that disease had forced them to abandon the village down river last year,
many of their...

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The natives believe that the Mississippi River
carries the souls of their ancestors into the water of judgment
wherein they will either enter the Sun's fire of joy
or sit in the ice of the Moon having their feathers counted and examined, 
I suspect that when we, The...

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Suddenly, two Indian boys throw themselves into the water like meteors
swiming towards camp chatty as prarie dogs,
they hail from a Teton encampment of 74 lodges a few miles up river
most of the men are feeling uneasy because of the casual way the Teton
have broached invitation,...

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As the moon and sun share the fabric of a fading song of ancient blues
a ceremony of torch light identity ensues
chieftains in regalia of royal feather headdresses and mantles of warrior mania
approach the flagstaff that Clark and I stand under with a procession
of musicians clad...

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The rivers are racing with a glee of free morning stampede today
carrying the currency of silted centuries and the cool silk of the wind's summer saga,
within my heart I feel the rambunctious rush of wanderlust
this river is tempting us to bleed for treasure, for the...

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