Mythville

What Would Water Do?

The water would run to work,
but turn, gone amok at the work corner,
toward the One-O-One
to drink a red eye and puff a smoke
in the early morning Ra

The water would pick up
trash along the way
but wait for more force
to finish the job

The water would arrive
on time and unplanned,
feeling out each empty
bottomland space
since every handmade
space is disorganized
differently

The water would percolate
in the apocalyptic heat,
catch the wind
and go fly a kite

The water would commit
murderous rage and recede,
unpleased, unsatisfied,
moving on the moon

~ Lincoln City, Oregon


Disparate de Miedo (Folly of Fear)

Mr. Death hangs over
as they tumble.
Time will get them.
But not today.
Senore rises
in an angel's robe,
Aretha Franklin
singin' praises,
man with a sword,
face sketched
in a tree.
Wind blowing to the West.
Away from destiny,
which is too easy
to deny.

~ Telluride, Colorado

Disparate Feminino (Feminine Folly)

Spreading the blanket
like a firemen's net,
six women in jest
with two male jugglers.
Dancing in delight,
each long-dressed lass
has a different opinion
on the topic.
The jugglers,
they've got it so lucky,
all those women working
to make them happy.
But note: in the net,
the husk of a dead donkey,
Goya's coy brush with death
hanging in the air.
If Autumn came any earlier
there would be a counselor,
a policeman,
& tax collector
at the door.

~ Telluride, Colorado

Bedford Toll Plaza

And the more I drive up
The interstate, the more the evidence
of love gets pissed away into the snow.
Pee free or die,
So the state flag Of New Hampshire
May one day say.
The pattern runs hot
And steam runs loose
From a new day's snow
On a hothouse day
In which a solar storm
Would electrify A lake of fire
In the sky
The pattern: A tree,
maybe an off-ramp signage shadow,
with pecked And puckered knotty holes,
Where owls perch and eagles play.
I took that last quarter
To the phone booth ...
Oh, if not for so many lonely
And cynical Winnebegos
That drive, ceaselessly,
To bridge the great divide.
The real question isn't
How to turn lead into gold,
But how to turn gold into soul.

~ Bedford, New Hampshire



~ From "The Kachina's Son," by Douglas McDaniel