coyote poem

a prologue to 'coyote poem'

to be posted

at all meetings

once the photocopying

budget is approved (action item)

first allegiance

eat

second allegiance

more coyote

third allegiance

chorale practice

fourth allegiance

raven

fifth allegiance

limelight

(hint: coyote likes life

stuffed with

cottontails.)

preface to the coyote poem as requested by coyote:

a past reference in

verse

that fails

utterly

        Road Runner, the coyote's after you.

               Road Runner, if he catches you you're through.

“that song, if you call it such,”

said coyote,

one eye watching the

ticker tape,

waiting for a ship

to come in,

“wants for intelligent rhymes,

a meter that doesnt feel

like the kind of wagon an

okie would build

just to get drunk in

and crash,” said coyote.

(coyote laughing)

coyote

said, “this ditty

shows a real lack

of knowledge.”

coyote said,

“i hate this song. ugggh.

it makes me want to scream.”

coyote wears glasses that

make everything

move

and says

“pop music, pope music,

poop music.”

coyote likes to listen to

the nuthatches and monk

trade licks.

its also true

coyote

is sometimes so lonesome

yes, coyote cries.

coyote impersonates

smokey r.,

spins on his

heel – winks.

wags his well-groomed

tail

coyote says, “really,
i'm sad.”

and now, coyote poem, proper

1

coyote

on the question of

where to dig one's den

said, “i fall

strongly

into the category of them

who say

if its draws you,

follow -

like the earth follows

the sun...”

coyote said

“dig your den

at home” and

then

coyote had to

run.

2

after dark,

when its only

headlights and

taillights and

those bright yellow

eyes

coyote,

puzzled,

head tilted,

tongue out

- “you sure

kill a lot of

rabbits.”

coyote

looked over and

said

“your freeways are

why she dont love

you

anymore.”

“and that,” said

coyote, “ain't

all.”

3

coyote on edge,

distracted,

looking over shoulder,

looking back, “can't you

think of something

good to say?”

4

coyote pissing

on the vinyl siding, cold fall

night, steam rising,

owl screeching

said, “there's enough in the

grocery store to last

me 300 years -

once you guys are

out of the

way.”

5

coyote's wet tongue,

licking - “wake up,

wake up -

i was only

joking,”

coyote kind of worried,

kind of sorry –

cant stop laughing.

“oh brother,” coyote

said, “i didnt

really mean

shoot

yourself.”

6

coyote under the stars

asked, “who doesn't

like old cheese? - who

doesn't want

a few extra

mice in the cupboard?”

meteors shooting

from the back of

coyote's head and

coyote said,

“ssshh! these new jokes

are sleeping.”

dispatched

(written on a computer)

it's a dispatch from the last room that
still has air.
you do have to fear death after all.
you can say
'i've got the whole
rest of my
life'
and
in the end
that is the point.

thrushes come back every year
and still
these worlds can find ways
to incinerate
just about anything -
every story worth telling contains
a narrow passage.
look at the blackened
remains of
me or you
fallen from our nest and
cybernetically
repaired.

these are some things i doubt i'll ever learn to fix:
head gaskets and hard drives,
whole cities flattened -
the grotesque phantoms 
of infancy

***

neither foolish nor brave, the minutes are
lost into moments open and filled with
microscopic magnificences.
songs of despair and joy - songs of
protection that cannot
be torn - like a discrepancy in the
facts a small paw
can exploit.

climb the face
of this thing.
dangle from ropes
bolted to roosevelt's nose -
have you seen the latest reading
from the dynamo?
labratory peppers have
lifted their weight
a thousand-fold.

starfish double prime

its one of these things we call day.
your eyes are open and the orange cat
is waiting on the edge of the
next room.

you almost set the world on fire and
then of course this song gets sung the
day after so much loss of
life and limb.
- the number of murders we see here and there.

takes 2 more helpings and
the next meal is on me - fake blood and
heads with the dreamed of valhalla
whistling softly past their lips and the wind
in the trees.

the eucalyptus of dresden and the lost semantics
of despair.

listen to that wave - how cleanly she breaks.

you might think that altamont
was the end of this or that thing - eagle, hawk,
swallow or bat.

wait your turn for the next round and
the next round will wait
for you in turn -

Sanderlings forage

sanderlings forage
the uppermost band of wet
sand, - probe for tiny
mollusks and crustacea,
inscribe dense islands
on the wind-smoothed beach.

nearby birds in ones and twos
join the group and the group grows.

torn fog's blown across the strand.
this world! so mysterious!

    sanderlings weave world into sky,
knit all to each -
four ravens pass by.

louisiana 2005

i could sing you a song of louisiana
of marsh filled platforms and houses stranded
by the side of the road - a great sea of
money sloshing between cars and locked suitcases -
how the football team cried!
five snakes drowned!
a proliferation of cranes pulls the old tin carcass
helicopters and dead cows, -
hamfaced shrimpboats -
plough the levees
for trees that read
the same forward
or back -
my song will be filled with caskets
and plastic mallard decoys.
this is a world of television sets
and refrigerators and decayed
relations risen like all boats.

there are wider lakes still to come.
some keep some terrible scores
and the computers compute here as well
as kandahar.
airboats gunning engines in the great egret dawn -
crayfish ring each empty cup - 
the moss' lament: this is not the end.
it is no small trick to see without steel structure -
and some may have to be shot on site.

after the cold snap

light winter rain ticks
through bay laurel.
concealed,
i watch ducks.

where does the bright
edge of this grey misted morning
enter the page?
the paper glows and
the black ink shimmers -
some duckweed still green
after the cold snap
clings to the bank of
the slough that drains to the bay.
too hazy to see the
other side.

it's not a trick or conjecture
that we are real.
look around.
listen to that raven rattle his talk
somewhere above me and
the canopy.

studies in geneology

this morning reaches under
the ribs -
(last time i complain
about these wounds,
i'll tell you this.)

    i'd tell you the words
    my grandmother spoke,
    had she ever lived.

try to see the oaks on fire,
grandmothers
in flames.

    the worst of it has passed.
tongue lost,
hair torn -

these storied peaks

     and ridgelines like collarbones
beneath her chin.