I DON’T HAVE PTSD
[in Southernspeak]

When I wake up in the mornin’
most any day
everything isn’t broken
lying about in ashen heaps, the smell
his buddies dead or dyin’
one smokin’ wheel of the sideways chopper still turnin’.

I can have
an already-always appreciation
of a new day. Most any mornin’
rain, or sun peering at me
there’s bl…read more

The following poem is my entry to the contest… as well as being a poem about an experience with a moos in the wilds of Colorado. Being camped near Monarch Pass [elevation 11.350 ft), maybe a couple thousand feet lower on the banks of the North fork of the Arkansas River in June of 2023. I trust that you’ll enjoy the piece, and leave me a…read more

Oh-three-thirty
the “am” is implied
it can be considered (in military speak)
as zero-dark-thirty
either way, wakefulness is present
outside the sleeping bag cover in camp.

Yeah, still dark outside
my hound and I go out
and the in the darkness
all one has to do is look
up. There is the splendor
of the night sky, clear, starry, uno…read more

MORNING EXERCISES

I

I write to the world this day
to sense the wonder
asking it to remember the chances
of it’s beauty.

In writing to the world this day
it is the joy of simply Being
of participating with your God
in bringing the depth of a springtime thaw.

The snowmelt engorges the stream
a long male member pushing down

the meadow below a…read more

PINUS CONTORTA

Coming around the final red rock
a group of which perches precariously
on top of each other
it had been a steady climb up
the last thousand feet, ascending,
reaching for the infinity of a cloudless blue sky
having seen the top blonde rocks
those that might have been whitewashed
in the sun up there for maybe
a thousand…read more

There is time you spent looking
somewhere in the course
of the day
or days
or weeks and months
maybe even years

for that certainty of presence.

This is where you are no longer any sort
of impostor
of fearful
of lacking
of emotional
or dramatic

when the only thing there is, is that you, yourself, are.

those noises in your head are you
however…read more

A steam engine train chugs
down the tracks in the Alberta wilds
great clouds of steam
exit from the engine down at the side
the whistle sounds, echoing off the gorge
while snow falls off the tall pines.

It is a black engine
great silver coupling rods rotate the dark wheels
a pilot cow catcher moves first on the front
the locomotive turns with…read more

GOING TO BERLIN IN 1970 -for Hank

They were traveling by train
the whole family, for Thanksgiving
at seventeen it felt like being thirty
courage for the i-am-strong-enough
to face the i-don’t-know-what
speaking German wishing-to-know-words

even so he was in his own thoughts-
Where does genuine live?
Is it In amongst the realizations of the s…read more

She had left so much here
the carloads taken to Goodwill
numbered, now, beyond ten
he’d kept a count, tho, if pressed
he’d not admit to it

too much there to allow in
it was only to go out

elsewhere.

Which thoughtlined to such a different place
one of today the multi-colored thoughts and pictures
in an everyday, always anyway, person’s mind…read more