Unincorporated The Slab City
Off-the-grid different community.
Slab City is a place of real danger,
whether be a resident or stranger.
Lawless free city, yet hundred fifty
families live without facilities
of electricity or sewerage,
running water : Yourself to arrange.
In Slab City retirees or visitors
known as snow birds coming to spend winter.
No need to buy any land, it is free.
Build your house with own effort in spree.
Local police may have jurisdiction :
No use in critical situation.
Get absolute freedom to commit crime.
Have perfect scope to turn into victim.
If daredevil or crazy to visit :
None gives objection or none will assist.
Rough rigorous life as if life sentence
A vagabond may gain experience.
Categories:
unincorporated, city, community,
Form: Couplet
My partner called out cars she sent
as we stood at opposite ends
of the work zone, and when
hers had passed, I called out mine
sending them along a narrow passage.
We found a common language
to communicate, and we made
small talk when things were slow.
The construction crew struggled
to settle each fresh coat of asphalt
over a moist bed of clay
of a two-lane in northeast Nebraska
arcing and curving over hills and valleys
between two unincorporated areas.
Black angus cows grazed
on a grassy hill, coincidental beauty found
in another time and place,
and a bull bellowed
to declare the spread his own.
After work my partner and I stood
outside our rooms at the hotel.
She talked about her husband
and I talked about a librarian
who read my poems.
While we spoke about our
lives back home, a light in the lot
shone a distant star.
Categories:
unincorporated, allegory, career, friend, home,
Form: Free verse
When I was a newborn,
I had no experience to reassure me
my first gasp for air
would not also be my last.
Between that first second inhaled reassurance,
and now,
I have operated under a romantic assumption,
More clean and nurturing air will follow.
Now, I have enough post-romantic experience
to deter me
from assuming this next gasp
for healthy air,
for more time to listen for compassion
still surfing in and out
EarthMother's warm bath of nurtured reassurance
will not also be my ego's last.
My dramatic eco-memory's first romantic breath
now also echoes my last timeless moment
Fully
ecstatically re-investing
away from ego's autonomous wall
of lifetime erected identity
into a webbed forest's nutritional re-memory
faithfully resurrected again
not autonomous,
unpropertied
unincorporated
unbreathing
more than me.
And I hope I will not be troubled
or even distracted,
by all those competing for air time breaths
assuming falsehoods of ZeroSum economies
in-between first and last.
Categories:
unincorporated, appreciation, blessing, earth, environment,
Form: Political Verse
Chickens
When I was five we lived on the Oregon coast
We were coming back from Tillamook to Bay City
My aunt and uncle lived up on a hillside
We all were poor, their house nothing but a shack
I loved to go there, the chickens roamed on the table
a dog was on a chain, a chicken tied around is neck
I cried, but he had killed that chicken, this his punishment
As our car rounded a curve I heard my mother scream,
"Bill's house is on fire!"
Rising through the night flames rose to the sky!
Black smoke billowed in a thick, stinking fog
Chickens scurried, hurried, clucking up a storm
Dog got loose and seized the opportunity
grabbing a rooster and then cowering for a kick
No firemen came, it was unincorporated and after all
it was only a pathetic little shack where no one cared
I cried and sobbed and for that I got a heavy slap
I can still see those yellow flames and chickens running
Categories:
unincorporated, fire, friend,
Form: Blank verse