If the Rockies
don’t speak to you ...
never return
The quiet their
rejection
— a silent goodbye
(Dreamsleep: July, 2024)
Categories:
teton, goodbye,
Form: Free verse
Jack sits in the wheelchair in the grass
a rebel nerd, he thinks of the time
when he cycled up Teton Pass
by a stream through walls of pine
Obsessed, this viewpoint vampire
his memory full of hill and vale
A landscape loon, an odd desire
But now his body is his jail
The harried nurse to her surprise
Distracted from a patient's cries
sees a vision in Jack's fogged eyes
lakes and forests and crimson skies
[chorus]
In each scene, views so grand
At six thousand feet, he biked along
Never quite reached the Promised Land
But the last verse is not the song
Kate sits in the same old age home
A relic from a bygone show
Her friends long dead, she's now alone
Her melody no longer on the radio
She was warm and could be all heart
Now a meteor in afterburn
She knows that bodies fall apart
Resigned or not, the wheel must turn.
[outro]
Jack and Kate were luckier than some
They were free, knew right from wrong
They lived a long life, and had their fun
The last verse is not the song.
Categories:
teton, change, freedom, life, old,
Form: Lyric
Touching beauty
if just for an instant
if caught by its magic
— if only just once
(Moran Junction Wyoming: August, 2021)
Categories:
teton, beauty,
Form: Free verse
Sitting, Breathing, Learning
Mountain breezes riffle Cottonwood leaves
on the towering tree
outside my window
they rescue my focus from work
as deep memory calls forth
a poem by Allen Ginsberg
written at a Buddhist retreat
musing about exhales
in Grand Teton National Park
and their travels around
a spinning planet
before returning to sharp
craggy places of origin
waiting in line patiently
to once again become inhales
off to make
the same journey of roundness…
even the examined life
is like that you know,
repeating the same dances
making costume changes
re-doing make-up
in order to fool us into thinking
experiences are new and fresh
like juicy ripe fruit, just picked
when in truth it’s just
another face on the same old same old
for me to repeat until I finally touch
the essence of the exercise
one fine day perhaps
just sitting, breathing and learning, as
mountain breezes riffle Cottonwood leaves
on the tree outside my window…
Categories:
teton, destiny, growth, philosophy,
Form: Free verse
Read a Book about a General named Custer
Pompous and Ambitious
He was filled with Bluster
Thought of Fighting Indians from Night until Muster
Little Did he know in a Dream his Men were seen by Sitting Bull
The Great Indian Cheif of The Teton Sioux
Attacked by Crazy Horse and Slaughtered at the Little BigHorn
General Custer's Massacre
Doomed the Indians
as They were met with American's Eternal Scorn
Categories:
teton, history,
Form: I do not know?
TETON GOODNIGHT
From the hollows in stone the departing sun
Pours the twilight round the mountains’ curtains,
Drawing together their shades’
Gold end. Aye, the golden day
Is spent, worn against
Raw rock thrown upright two miles high:
Bouldered shoulders close over -
Michael’s knelling golden clarion.
…………………………………………………………………………
NOTE
The Tetons in Wyoming - one of my favorite places.
They are seen to excellent advantage in the movie “Shane”.
Categories:
teton, nature
Form: Free verse
TETON TITANS
Tetons’ bouldered shoulders close over Michael’s knelling golden clarion.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Written for ^Rick Parise's Contest "Nature Monoku ~ Single Line"
NOTE
Just couldn't resist this contest because the Snake River and
the Tetons in the photo are one of my favorite spots.
Categories:
teton, nature
Form: Monoku