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William Craychee Poem
I'm at Dunkin Donuts dunking a donut,
for the experience.
Letting my memories pass through me.
Not repressing any of them.
I'm pretending to be a scientist
of the mind.
It's not fun though.
Makes you glad spreadsheets have functions!
Somewhere in the donut crumbs
stirring around in my coffee
is a hidden key to the messages in my head.
There must be a rhythm to all
the misunderstandings and misapprehensions.
But just as soon as I think I've found some answers
a damn truck drives buy and vibrates the windows and the tables and distracts me,
or some saucy ass walks by on the street.
Maybe I should go somewhere else.
No, damn it, I should be able to do this here.
The answers are wrapped in the distractions
now that I think about it.
They are everywhere.
Doesn't matter where I go.
Focus.
Don't focus.
Balance the two.
I'm Evel Knievel of the mind!
Maybe I'll look for a job today.
I should stay here and keep at this though.
I'm on the verge of something.
I know it.
Copyright © William Craychee | Year Posted 2017
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William Craychee Poem
Desert Morning
A stiff little north breeze, still cold from the night, shoves warm condensate into my fists and face from my coffee.
It was good to assemble that coffee.
Then a little weed.
A beautiful new morning sun and sky.
All my senses are awake and acquiring data.
The same thing the quail are doing.
And the coyotes. And some hawks and a snake or two.
Then the sun is warming us and brightening.
The wind changes south, grows a little.
In a Juniper grove surrounded by Joshua Trees.
The Great Basin Rabbitbrush look on fire.
You can smell the rain yonder.
Sweet Creosote!
Sitting on an old rock where the Indians sat.
Waiting for the unfolding.
Waiting for lazy friends to arise.
Copyright © William Craychee | Year Posted 2017
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William Craychee Poem
Golf courses are beautiful to look at.
Green vistas in a blasted world.
Birds twittering all about.
Growls, hums and whirring sounds from traffic streaming by.
Children screaming and laughing.
A shiny ball watched suspiciously by a couple of crows.
Electric carts, a quick margarita, a five wood.
Where else will you see bright green plaid shorts and red shoes?
What a bunch of fine forms.
The course is speckled with white sand traps, responsible for the loss of many a golfer.
White chairs and white tents and people getting married in the conventional style.
But I think it's the trees. And the rolling hilly vistas down the course. A world within a world of care and worry. A place to forget, for a while and just listen.
The occasional expletive elicits an empathic smile.
Bright colors in this world belie the garish anonymity of the world outside.
A little way station on the way back to Purgatory.
A little rest before the war resumes.
Copyright © William Craychee | Year Posted 2017
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William Craychee Poem
We're senior delinquents
modeling our lives after those times when they were so new
and all the rules were irrelevant disruptions
to everything we felt and experienced.
Our passions weren't lived to their full potential
and now we want to make up for our omissions.
But we can't help but notice you down there,
the same as we were.
Destined be be the same as we are.
To us you are equally amusing
and horrifying.
All the baroque seriousness you place on your little lives.
You have no idea the tangle of trouble ahead of you.
The useless energy you'll spend on desperate
subterfuge and out and out lies.
You have no idea of the nowhere it'll get you in the end.
You have plans. You have dreams.
You have lessons to teach and children to raise to be just like you.
A cookbook life.
But you have no idea what's really going on around you.
There is a complex wind blowing just above your heads.
Maybe if you stood up taller and noticed us
we could avoid all this.
We can't really blame you, though,
what with all the commercial viability you represent
and all the raw material you wield
and all that is at stake.
And all the sales pitches whirling around you.
It's tough. We don't deny that.
None of that means we can't enjoy a bit of fun at your expense.
Laugh a little at your predictable foibles.
God knows we deserve it.
No one takes us seriously anyway, including ourselves.
So, enjoy it all. It's yours. But do try to relax a little now and again.
And remember what we have said.
Because soon we will be gone and you will be us.
Copyright © William Craychee | Year Posted 2018
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William Craychee Poem
Children play on the stumps of the fallen giants, mocked in death by the glitter of disco lights and the raucous cheers of drunks.
Asphalt long melted round their dead roots where once they hovered over what is today the RV dump station, the lit restrooms, and every car and truck that ever was.
They stood tall and strong and bright in the sun.
Ancient even long ago.
Relics of bygone time.
Even so long ago.
The Ranger will tell you some nights, around a warm fire, on wooden stools, all about it.
Once there were giant trees even here.
They were alive.
Then men came.
Charged with building a civilization.
Powered by smoky manifest destiny
they toppled the great giants
to build banks, message parlors, and prisons.
In their guilt and because of the rage of others, people cordoned off parks where the giants are to be left alone to entertain the children of their enemies.
We drive to them in our shiny cars and carve our lover's names in them.
We record their many moods unknowingly in the digital memories of our smart phones, and share these images in our favorite social medium.
We buy t-shirts at the Visitor Center and listen to advice on which of the many paved roads we might travel to see them best from our car windows as we drive by on our way to lunch.
Back at camp the smoke of many fires makes it difficult to breathe.
The noises of auto camping drown our memories of ancient majesty and remind us it's time to cook a real campers dinner and have some wine before bed.
Copyright © William Craychee | Year Posted 2017
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William Craychee Poem
Appearances aren't everything.
There are feelings too and appearances of feelings which, really, are a direct result of appearances.
Appearances and feelings.
Thank God for design.
Design is God's gift to us.
With design we can mold our appearances which, in turn, mold our feelings.
Genius, really.
Should I wish to have a good feeling, for example, I can design, by God's Grace, an appropriate appearance.
I can shave, cut, pierce, and paint myself in any number of combinations.
I can rotate combinations endlessly, for a frenzy of feeling.
When it was finally discovered that one could actually design the appearance of feeling there was the appearance of great jubilation.
Suddenly design could really shine.
Eventually the appearance of feeling became indistinguishable from either appearance or feeling.
The great golden age of design emerged from the confusion.
Annoying philosophical questions became marvelously rococo hair styles or complete face reconstructions and clothing to match.
Hours of design time for a moment of simulated feeling.
Soon, however, the designs and simulated appearances of feeling lost a bit of furor.
It began gradually at isolated dinner parties or parades.
Try as they might, they couldn't regain their original simulated exuberance.
New paints, hair shavers, mirrors.
Violent encounters.
Humiliation. Cruelty.
All forms of abomination design could muster.
In the end it was all they could do but pretend that they were truly simulated.
Their pretense became the appearance of design.
The appearance grudgingly allowed them the illusion of apparent feeling.
And so it went.
Appearance, feeling. Designed and simulated reality.
Life remained somewhere in there.
Some designer will figure out how to simulate the appearance of it.
Copyright © William Craychee | Year Posted 2017
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William Craychee Poem
The seagull has no insurance.
No mutual funds for later days.
No friends or lovers to burden him.
The seagull is alone and always just now.
The seagull cries to all who'd listen.
But no one does.
The seagull doesn't care.
The seagull looks for threats.
He is always on guard.
As he was then he is now.
Copyright © William Craychee | Year Posted 2017
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William Craychee Poem
so that night under that full moon
when my hair hung over my dark skin
in profile
it was the answer to a fantasy
out there in the desert night
a wild western man
and the anticipation...can he fulfill that fantasy?
maybe he is the one from this special place
of fantasy
and then that night was very nice but you couldn't be sure
but you figured it's still possible
even under the hot desert sun in the glaring unkind light
the next morning
but you had to go back to your life
in the far off land of reality
and your fantasy dwindled into a little box
of messages from the past
don't you remember how your little box gained weight
and became oppressive?
and how you wished it would go away?
but always the fantasy held you?
remember?
then he came to you and you said
"this is no fantasy"
just a regular human
with qualities
but no fantasy
then he left and you were sure
there was no more time for fantasies
Sent from my iPad
Copyright © William Craychee | Year Posted 2017
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William Craychee Poem
Hiker Dude
Commander of the view of the curving earth
the Piñon stands a-grip a forest of boulders,
jagged giants, held in place by her, a part of her,
at her bidding.
The lone hiker dude,
grasps the piñon to haul himself up.
Sweat freezing in a wicked wind.
He extends his soul to the mountains beyond, to
the curving sky, to the air and the feel of the sun.
This is the view,
the pay-off.
Ridges stud the valley below
like waves on some restless sea,
up to the giant peaks where the spirits live.
A pair of ravens gurgle above him,
from the rocks he's yet to climb.
He sighs.
The rest time is finished.
The spirits are put away for now.
This terrain demands attention to detail,
lungs and legs working together:
a samba.
Monstrous and preposterous.
He smiles. His muscles feel good.
They bend and flow willingly with the jagged land.
The ravens play hopscotch ahead,
rising and plummeting with the wind,
mocking the strange ape below.
A pair of butterflies rise and fall like
drops of water in a giant fountain:
flapping up
plummeting down
over and over.
He's been tracking some deer for a while
but the soil has lost to the rocks,
each one a stunning testament to entropy that
has to be climbed over
or wedged around (or both).
Mounds of cactus, stands of manzanita, fallen piñon, yucca.
They command our respect. They are far tougher than we.
Up and up he climbs
cussing the ravens who started circling him.
Loving the company.
A bit of flat.
A bit of sand in the shade of the final cliff.
Cat tracks moulded in the damp sand. Fresh too.
Must like the view here.
The cliff is easy to climb
and finally the top.
Howling wind nearly knocks him down.
So, the lone hiker dude hunkers low
and recites the names of the peaks
in the distance as he eats his lunch.
Copyright © William Craychee | Year Posted 2017
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William Craychee Poem
Port wing folds
Steep spiral toward the fiery water below
Fish dart in all directions
She springs upward faster than light
Into the blinding sun
She circles the brilliant scene
One mind
One muscle
Tail and wings tucked
She stops
Necessity become pleasure
This is evolution
Her dark eyes pierce the water below
Bending the scene to her will
She flips and drops
Propelled by will
She pierces the water
Then rises
Water flying in every direction
Rainbows of reflection
Off the shiny prey
Into an unknown infinity
She and her nutritious companion
Disappear
And we continue on our way
Copyright © William Craychee | Year Posted 2017
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