Mesas Poems

14-4-2024

My family spoke two languages
I’m not the same
Results came in still thankless
Feels weird to be diagnosed anxious
Results so plain
I’m still hiding under several blankets
I ain’t sleeping
Then several days went
The same waste stays
Can’t clean when I’m chained by the anklets
Godsent prayers came in graceless
Repetitious technique chased off my basis
I’m jealous of the mares who run the Mesas
Too free to worry if we’re Serbian or Croatians

Expelled air 
Pollution of the body left me breathless 
I’m no better 
Than shoot us in the feet 
Allusion of me to embarrass the lesser 
That’s no lesson

Symphony of Winter

Symphony of Winter 
David J Walker

These are the days to
Stand alone 
Bundled against the cold of 
The South Plains winds 
As the first winter storm
Sets in

At the edge of the 
Eastern Mesas 
Overlooking the canyons 
Created by an 
Ancient trek of time

capped in white and
Growing deeper by 
The hour 
Becoming more beautiful
In solitude 

The silence is the
Symphony of winter

Stair To Heaven

Stair to Heaven

A spiral stair comes in pieces. 
About one thousand to be sure. 
It is a very large box indeed, 
and weighs about 400 pounds. 

Do not tell the man accidentally;
to put it in the wrong place. 
You will be sorry.

Pulled out and counted, 
seven shades of black, 
shiny and beautiful. 
The entrance off the bedroom, 
of a place called;
The Tree House. 

It is a crazy home, 
with five or maybe six different levels.
Few can say, and few have said. 
All the many windows lookout, 
on to the mesas of the high mountains, 
the rolling hills in the distance, 
and the wild desert there beyond. 

Soon the circle will be complete,
minutes turned into hours, 
turned into days, 
but worth every one. 
Walking out now from the door, 
looking out onto historic yesterday, 
a formal invitation is given. 
Come, see the stars...
and call them by name. 
Dance all night on the roof. 

The coyotes will howl, 
the party will go...
way past dawn.

Vida Dura

Vida Dura

A vida é dura e é difícil 
se você é famosa ou não. 

É melhor ser famosa
porque as vantagens são melhores. 

Você obtém melhores
mesas e lugares no restaurante
no avião e até na plateia.

Há muitas indulgências
que você recebe, 
se você é famosa. 

Seja famosa hoje e sempre!

Desert Paint

The two-lane road stretches
through a shimmering glaze
to the horizon, passing
smokestacks of mesas spewing
clay and maize in vaporous mass.

I hear the sibylline whisper of rain 
through emerald brush
and serpentine hiss
of slithering sand.
The acrid smell permeates
evergreen and purple sage,
carries the aroma
with fine dust.

I point my thumb west,
a prayer for a willing traveler
to whisk me away 
from the cumulative downpour
when the desert paint 
floods umber in the gullies.

Trumpland

I ride the mesas
Wherever I go
Are Hopi, Zuni,
And tall Navajo

So many people
On dry, barren land
All Trump says is,
"They sure have got sand!"

Thunderscape

Dark thunderclouds hover uneasily 
over the red mesas and arroyos. 
I can feel the tingling sensation of
charged air, an unnatural quiet
as the thick, humid air seems to
catch its breath, anticipating. 

Suddenly the landscape is overwhelmed
by electric white veins of lightening 
that flash and spread like roots
shooting down towards the desert floor.
Urgent rumblings reverberate 
under my feet as I anticipate 
the loud claps of thunder to follow.

Large, beaded raindrops, lukewarm
begin to drop steadily onto the dry
dusty terrain, marking the sandy soil
causing plants to rise up like 
excited exclamation points. 

I savor the moment, relishing 
in the wonder of nature's drama
admiring the intense power I see
feeling reinvigorated and renewed 
in body, mind, soul and spirit. 






Written on 8/10/2016

The Ghost Dance Part II

2.

                                     Waiting for Wovoka

For some time the old ones gazed that way,
Then came a seer,
A man named Wovoka.
Who told them he had heard their voices calling in the night to him,
That voices spoke to him of better times soon to come,
That might be brought forth by a special way and a special dance
That would bring to birth a stronger magic than that of Progress,
That would dispel the evil changes.

They listened and they took heart
With the pitiful fervor of the desperate.
He taught his new believers his way and his dance,
And for a time, a fragile time in their trembling twilight
They feltl the spirit of a former time lying still upon their hearts,
A thing beyond the shallow grasp of youth.

     They sit stonily, unmoved in their fogs, remembering tales.
     When no one looks,
     They turn their failing eyes back to the red mesas
     To recall the Dance of the Ghosts.

Meditations In the Meadow

Meditations in the Meadow

Red rock mesas, 
Majestic jagged crowns, 
Crystal ice castles --
Absence of sound.

Bracing breezes, crimson cheeks,
Silver teardrops, frosty breath,
Crackling fires, warm gloves --
Standing on sacred ground.

Intriguing fragrances swirl,
Mesmerizing a puppy’s essence,
Gleaming nose inhaling deep
Guardian angels abound.

Iridescent fairy whispers, 
Quixotic elven promises,
Soft butterfly kisses;
Spinning me around.

Departure imminent,
Memories essential,
Connections eternal;
Discernment found.

1998

i ride to work four days a week
one hour each way.
i don’t like it
but i take the ride.
jerry springer is on the t.v. nightly
i don’t like it
but i watch.
somewhere in between…
of aryan dreams
black power screams
brown men plying in trade
mobile laboratories
moon over the mesas
the valley stretched out below
mountainside condos
trailer park bimbos
babies still die in the ghetto.

Heil Valley (Lyons, Colorado)

The valley so far and wide below
Linden rocks on to capture the show

Bluebells ring to take a picture
mountain lions roam a permenant fixture

And on we trek up the valley
It kind of looks like Cali

And the birds chirp and sing
But oh, does that hot sun sting

Oh look, there's a beautiful sight
Purple mountains with such height

And the time to look at the flat mesas sublime
Let's sit down at the picnic table and have a diet lime

In the green shade now at noon time
Is it a crime to see such lush beauty on not even a dime?

Wild Horses ~ {a Septolet}

beautiful bangtail
spirit untamed
racing tumbleweeds
thundering
across mesas

stallions wrestle
under night skies...

Riding Toward the Light

(for Rod Nichols)

Oh, there’s a campfire up ahead
In the smoky darkness of night,
That holds the hopes and things we dread
As we go riding toward the light.

Those wagon wheels just keep spinning,
And all our life’s but one wild ride;
Our end is but the beginning
As we let all our dark thoughts slide.

And when the warmth of youth expires
As all our years of living pass,
We seek the wisdom of campfires
Amid gold mesas and green grass.

But then we gathered by your fire
And shared our words of bygone days;
Raw hands and poets in your hire,
Lost in the prairie’s pulsing haze.

And as we watched you drink that joe 
And fling away the final drop,
We know that soon we all must go
To gallop skies that never stop.

Yet, there was much you had to do
To make sure you had left a mark,
And though you knew you’re never through,
You lit a light within our dark.

Yes, still we sit around fire flame
And now reflect on things we’ve done;
Knowing our ends are all the same,
As we recall your glints of sun.

There’s still a campfire for the crew
As we now drift in glowing night;
Yet, you left far more than you knew 
As we go riding toward the light.

Albuquerque

The Great Plains offers it beauty slowly as the edge of 


The Rocky Mountains rose like a rugged and 


Unclimbable fence keeping them penned in


Driving southwest the line of fence posts became a blur of


Old hand cut wood and slowly rusting barbed 


Wire save for the occasional juniper shrub


The sun warmed the air, the smell of prairie grasses and the


Expanding desert, arid and dusty but too the taste of 


Honest hard work and over a century of history


The unending ribbon of blacktop eased left and right around 


Bluffs and mesas following the original wagon trails 


Of long ago. The cars engine whined as armadillos lay 


By the side of the road.  Just waiting


Following the magnificent Rio Grande as the early settlers did,


It is time for a rest now, stepping off the dusty trail,


With the oasis sought clearly in view

Arizona Sky

The stars shone bright... 
under an Arizona sky 
Mesas of red rock stood still, 
bathed in reflected light 

Winds blew, 
winding their way through.... 
Towers of rock.... 
Sighing too 

An opalescent moon rose.... 
In an Arizona sky... 
In a land , the stars chose.... 
For you and I 
Shooting stars fell.. 
Upon monument valley 
Silent whisper of wind 
The red rock stood still 
What they could tell.... 
In the evenings' chill 

Spears of rock, 
pointed to an Arizona sky 
Held up a roof of stars..... 
Watched them pass by 

The red rock grew... 
Right up into the deep blue 
The colour.... 
Like deep red wine.... 
the arizona sky... 
stars too, 
became mine

• Short Mesas Poems
• Famous Mesas Poems
• Best Mesas Poems
• Read Mesas Poems
• Long Mesas Poems
• Mesas Quotes