I. Your chords
finger lightning adore
precise
fret fire melting ice
snow-packed dread sweat
hippies thousand
barefoot children blaze eyes wild bodies
float ghost-like into aura unmatched
untapped.
Better in summer sweat weather
antelope soul
prayers for rain to sop stoned earth slosh
sweat trickle to birth under ultra-wide July sky.
Fluid mind bend electric
pow
mind trance
whirling light heaven dance. Just like
four brothers running in apple
orchard bloom
chiggers
jumping
high
starlit baseball, fending for ourselves, land rulers.
Notes, chimes rumble waves,
waves, tingle hot color
immaculate color sting tips of ocean
sky blue orange berry pond water teal
green, evergreen with its
dark hints of wind-crazed memory and
the power of now power of life
power breathing blood pumping
circulating air
through scorched lungs
action imitation of holy.
II. Your voice
stalactite passion chant needled my blood,
reminds me of slanting snow piles ice
tight tree tips chai tea warm throat
in cool breeze.
Voice was warm too, warm like the girl
her hair long blond frayed on my skin liked to
look back couldn’t tell where I
ended
and she began one skin one pulse one body breathing hard.
Forward flash two kids two heads one dusty
blond the other red smile just like forever
just like their mother just like their father
just like the voice from my past your voice
tolls in my head throbs in my veins.
Smiling crying praying sad voice.
Night moon black sky star fire
fall air holds me stiff in quickness
crisp corn stalks wrap my ankles corn
dust in my nose smell of corn crackle
corn crunching through revolving chainsaw
jaws who grind spin crunch grind.
Windshield raindrops outside endless
grey
endless wonder grey skies go on
in private expansive mellow. The rain will leave
then stare at stars’ white fire.
They teach.
III. Your words
prints on blank page spirit like wet
pebbly sand vibrant toes hand prints
with grandpa, fresh cement under roof
musty barn dark walls dark barn
barn swallows soar sing for words.
Mine slip by fall unheard guarded
ancient haunted creek tomb.
Silence
was my god in the face
my blue-eyed father the one
who faced hard wind
sad years weathered
fingers of working man to match
stoic sad eyes sky blue while my love stayed
unexpressed mute unmade god I’m trying
to make up for it now still hurts, still hard
but your words were there red beard friend.
Pulling tears from dry crimson eyes like
forgotten bones
soil soaked
dust with my
hands, your words showed me how to use
my hands see healing in my hands
power they have, hands of healing, hands
of love, love to love a father love a wife
hold a wife hold kids hold them tight
work like a man work like your father
love like snapshots space and time won’t die.
Healing hands given light by your words.
