Encyclopedia

What thoughts I’ve had
who knew?

A church steeple illuminated in the distant dark
neon blue and divine white
the quiet room but in the window
the church
reflection of a reflection
waits

Are you with the church?
he asked
boy of lengthy arm shadows
swinging loose t-shirt
tired expression of dust and grit

No

I missed what he said
slightly disturbed
wondering
bag of tortilla chips under an arm
an afternoon of walking

Distant lonely steeple in the dark
I could walk this ridgeline how far?

How far?
How long?

Time
stop the obsession

De profundis

Heard the remark of wheels on gravel
the complaining crunch of the unknown
always the expectation
relief

Church reflected and reflected and reflected in my eyes

I watched a woman tight black dress walking a bright blue perambulator
in the afternoon white heat of a dirt road
stooping cast a shadow
underarm shaven clean of shadow
mosquitoes in the breeze

Man I need a freeze out of all this bull shit
Man I need to breathe
I heard him mutter long distance
I hear everyone at long distance

I’m not going to qualify that

I’m not going to wonder how to spell pie
pye

Tonight a church steeple lights up
I’ve never seen it that way before
I don’t belong there

They’ve got tents
music
dance
speaking of breath
I don’t belong there or here
in this dark reflection of a reflecting reflection

Stepping out into that time
that moment
when a small town is dead
listening for an engine
plane
mower
any sign that I’m not deaf

I know I’m not dead

De profundis.

The Only Game in Town

Bright light café in the quiet prairie night
a girl, mother in the window
holds a frail worn gentle hand to the glass
speaking soothingly to her son
asleep out in the night
out beneath the headlight stars

The booths arranged in crooked rows
can’t claim comfort
their occupants look down at half-eaten plates
smack their teeth and wonder
at the knife
at the wiped-down surface of their souls

A man alone cracks his hands like a pack of cards
constantly shuffling
constantly moving about in the dark corners
where someone let in the night
he orders a single scoop of plain vanilla
lets his spoon down when he’s done
picks up the deck unhurriedly

The waitress moves unhurriedly
to the tired patrons of a café at night
she slides on the silky carpet of stains
tip-toe between the stains
bleeding wine on the tables
that streak as she tries to wipe them clean

The mother, girl takes her hand from the window
resigns to this new circumstance
rises slowly to her feet toward the out of order cash register
the tickets impaled are old
she lays down her money to no one
a couple extra tips or two
and walks out through the cold black door into the emptiness beyond
the starless forgotten waste.

Story Book

Pine martin clawed feet on the branch
nimbly now
whilst below the tree shadows intertwine
like the Kama Sutra
and the hillside of seeded grass is white with their seed
the dew

The stream below can cut and bend
but never here
never with him watching
climb the trees
too nimbly for the birds who watch open-mouthed
as he snares them with his long glass teeth

False

A painted scene on the back of some dirty wall
of some dirty gas station bathroom
a little too detailed for the Fuck You stenographers

They launch into a political debate
as the pine martin climbs upward on.

Culture

Tore the card up
side to side
said don’t split you’re luck
I’ll give you mine

They ended up
boots muddy
under the bridge
over the river
waiting for the barge to pass by
that would carry them down to Ole Jordan

But instead they found a lucky driver
who took them downtown
where the men played spoons
for their empty jars and hats

They took an empty bottle and spit on the side
to see what it might yield
in some recycle yard
the torn playing card in a pocket
they ended up playing it
in some crooked card game of drink

In the lime light of the Civic Center
where patrons of art enjoyed
the classic works of some unpronounceable foreign
portrayer of the poor
they lingered beneath the lighted windows
and watched the first snows fall

Waking Dream

Moonlight in broken window reflections
the insomniac’s drug
it turns around
this hollow orb
until it’s morning again

And always
feeling up the wall
love I knew in black and white
projected on far away screens
a faded close up
a lingering kiss
until the black and then

The insomniac’s drunken walk
down a white ribbon in the hot sun
gravel and dust rising at every stumbling kick of feet

Black dogs with human faces
grin but keep their distance
circle on circling

I could close my eyes
but still be awake
still turn over on this waking dream

Fingers fumbling eyes
the swollen lids violet
still I linger

Two rows of stone faced men sat, waited
and still they wait
presided over by a black-face god
white, gray

Two sets of stone men on a stone board
waiting until I linger to play
my finger hovering just over their featureless faces
upturned

This waking dream of wind
the sea
a glass leaning tree by the side of a road
the top tier leaves turned up
their underbellies white as snow
flowering flakes

Acacia
I dreamt of Greece
pale-barked groves and Diana

A nest box for decoration
the hole plugged
painted red sign of welcome

Fence the fields
the ridgeline fence the sky
bone thin boundary between this and the other concave orb
that I guess is spinning.

The Knot

Cigar smoke and dead fish wrapped in grass
drying, dying
death repulses me in this sport of blood

A hundred degrees and I walk on
across this field
this blank expanse of pressed and yellow cheat grass

Through the distant red gate
and it’s down to the river
you must go down to the river

The slow impatience of tying knots
fingers clumsily clutching at the last thread
the final remnant to be placed

But the river is just the same
cold clear
the sun beats back from the deep green surface

Rocks gather weeds
remaining in place
rocks form seams of light and slack water

Lighting not so good
lightly feeling the distant bottom
careful, don’t fall on them now

A dip, a turn
momentary
too lazy to be worth more

The slow impatience of untying knots
unweaving mistakes of the short-term past
sitting back to the stream, burning

I could cut the line
the connection between fly and rod
feather and graphite

I could sever this moment and turn my back on it
stand and move on
this sun’s too hot

But still my fingers turn
over and under
guiding a blind man with touch, feel

The river speaks
benign indifference
neither taunting nor encouraging

It simply is
and will be
long after the knot is not

It lingers in my mind
a certain pull of current
the course, the cottonwood bank a permanent boundary

It simply is
the knot simply is for now
a nest between my hands

Sitting on an exposed stone
legs in the slack light of water
eyes tired now from the sun

A dark shape moves down from the upstream
spooked, it runs
brushes my foot, blind strength focused

The last loop to be undone
you open everything that can be opened
and the knot falls away as if it never were

Now I leave the task complete
the heavy haze of a hundred degrees
grass grown in knots beneath the sun

I’m thinking, two paths diverged across the field
both were well-used, so I took the left one
and it made no difference.

The Aged

With each dip in the cloud
they stood a little
higher than the sky
big boots clopping down on the river rock moss
covered, the seamlessly blending bank and water
the sky heavy handed with approaching rain

With every day
I age a little older
don’t ask how old I feel

When everyone thinks you’re older
enough
you start to believe them

The sun obscured
the river running fog
the horizon bound close
though it felt a little out of place
in a Big Sky state

You just have to take it slow
each day
and find that stroke

I should know how to stand
to move
without disturbing too much
my wake through this world is too small

Down toward the glossy reflection
the gray heavy drooping afternoon
the water flat, opaque
broken by the hesitant rise and retreat of a pod of trout
feeding

let it do the work for you

let this cloud canopy remain

this sense of

something

waiting for the cast to unfurl

it kicks back

softly now
see it now

or feel?

feeling is seeing and seeing you discriminate
what it is
and what it should be

Standing on the water
boots silent
speaking softly of the river
watching the water break with a million little raindrops
looking for something more in the distant high water past
and they never cast
just kept walking on in the rain.

Golden Constancy

The full moon
waxes and wanes
waxes and wanes
and it’s yellow

I could spin around
and catch it
spin around
but it’s climbing the sky

It’s color fades
it’s golden constancy sways
false reflection of the sun
that I can’t wrap my hands around.

Public Conversation

Hello
skinny Indian kid speaks softly into a pay phone
red plastic haze in a small town
heavy bank clouds, big sky

Hello
the wondering pleading in his voice
it comes and goes with each scratchy hearing
phonograph semis passing with the dirt dog close by

But when the question waits
without an answer
too long
will he leave forgotten?

Hello
crying to the distant end of the line
pointing straight out without curvature
curve along the way

Hello
senseless voices calling out
to be heard
to remember that quasi quiet chant testament

Hello he tries
once more
trying to break through the plastic static distortion
of a small town calling a greater world collect.

Hotel Print

Sunset on this thin elongated horizon
a shadow casting light without a breeze
brushstroke
turn
these waters of light and bubbling glare

Turning toward the wall
muttering
I’ve done my part
a sight exchange of words and goods
but it will always be my river
my river
whoever me might be

I’m wandering out at night into the starless moonscape boundary
the wire thin line
the false flattering footsteps stopping just short of here and posted and persecution
listening to long ago gunshots
repeat
long ago gunshots
shod horses
barebacked wind

I’m wandering out and looking past the darkness
the night
hearing the too too shrill wild clawing cries of coyotes
specter of wolves
the shadow taught in my hand
whispering repeat
the shadow soft on the print posted abstractly on a hotel room’s wall
untitled
unsigned
crookedly unimaginative.

Fountain of Youth

They are drawn to the water
in the close-knit heat
somehow they know
and knowing they find the spring

Dancing dew-eyed
bouncing through the stream
the spinning sprinkler head chasing them merrily
beneath the long tree shadows
the misty haze of the temperature rising

They are drawn to the water
for sport
picking at the wet grass
bare spots in places
dead or pulled apart before

They’d whirl and pick and prank
until the water stopped spinning
but the feral cat is drawn to the water
and quickly snatches a bird as it dances in the sun.

A Quiet Walking

I walked home in the quiet rain
like dust, though wet
falling gently in the empty light of nine o’clock

Darkness
starless night predicts rain
though only a forty-percent shower
these fluorescent streetlights
silence

Between shadows
I trace formless silhouettes making love
tireless
uninhibited
though I pretend to know an age

There in the treeless skyline
a light alone
soil hermitage
ponder the existence of a light
of a solitary existence
breathing
awake too late at night

Rolling over
there must certainly be a proper way to do this
sowing clouds
the light silent mist of steamy summer rain

I listened to the grating sounds of my footsteps
disturb the night
the first shower in an ageless summer.

A Final Resting

Casting in an empty parking lot
while inside an old man flexes his fingers
defying age
a slight tremor of acknowledgment in his face
looking with half-closed eyes at the wall
seeking and not finding some small item
a final wisdom

The pastel lights on the slated floor
are clean
wiped and dusted down once more
for a final day, a final resting

While outside he casts to an empty parking lot
waiting for the clouds and the rise
the rocks, the dust, and the dirty wind
thunderhead
whipped thin by the fury
the rising heat and it’s all over

Resting
within the burn stained room
he wonders
at a wall of absolutions

The Pit

The pit-pit-patter of bare feet echoes in the mirrorless hall

the darkness groping for a vein
finds it
Oh the release

A heavy weighing on a weary mind

the darkness feels
tendrils
around the brain
opaque

the shadow, an insect crawls
translucent lighted door
rises and is gone

a last apology, a last farewell and clasping hands
he remembers the face but not the name

Painted the wall with all the photographs
without caption, without reference
the legendless eyes and moments
can never watch the footprints on the wall

the room shakes at night
as if the wind had entered
pushed against each wall
alternating

thrash in the bed
finally close your eyes to the mewing, crowing sounds
the growing shadows on the wall
just before dawn
the snaking, stuttering, yet unrelenting dawn

and darkness in vines
pushing through the closed ears
creeping toward the eyes

I’ve seen a man swallowed that way
she said groping for a vein

whispering the names
so he could pretend just a little longer

until all that remained was the bestial parts
in the end
thrashing about on the bed
falling
rising up on the side again
that was a good day

the wood has stained and the lines between
I’ve heard him whisper before
drinking ice tea and thinking of Rhett Butler
every time he spoke

Don’t turn around

turn again in the narrow hall
mirrorless, windowless, dark

until all that remains are footprints
footsteps
the sounds like falling water
rain
furtive in the wind

Gun Shots

The lush damp morning
gray-light rain and the green of outside
these folding fondled mountains
smoothed down

These quiet streets
mud and ruts like signatures
this June morning
quiet dawn

And cold, cold silence
the emptiness that follows two gunshots
they echoed in this sleepy Wednesday morning
seeming to break and burst again

When starlight was bitter
turn down this dreary dewy lane
labeled
and forlorn

The birds called
I could pick out a few
the dull thrill of identifying the unseen
eyes closed, brow damp electrical

The eclectic collection of scene after scene
played out on eye lids
the red and bloody screen
that rises now at ten or eleven to one

I long to see you
reach out and touch that fading specter
that shadow of flesh and hair
passing around each corner before and behind me

These quiet (misspelled) streets
of lust and loneliness
rising awake and asleep
feeling for the last hollow footfall and then it’s done

No more
it’s finished
at last
incomplete

The soundless dreary shadow
behind gunshots
fades behind some distant corner
and the birds resume the background white noise reverie

Trout Bum

The trout bum idles in the grass
--he doesn’t do shit

But anyway
it’s a Zen thing when he casts cane
delicate
bending at the base
his arm a pivot point for something, something

But anyway
the cool crisp (gin) clear waters
braid and unbraid through the Russian olives blue, unyielding and thorny
the trout sip and that’s all tonight
that’s all there ever needs to be

The Hi Church of Dry Fly is sermonizing now
come on outside

But in a drifting city
toward the log jam flood
the quiet death of drowning
the trout bum casts sixty feet on his gravestone lawn
they planted flowers there
she planted flowers
--he doesn’t do shit

But anyway
three inches to the left
three inches to the left
an inch
to the right
and he hooks the blade of grass
mistaken for a rising trout
in the windy evening
blue.

Setting the Circumstance

The river is low
runs once red turn ashen
boney residue
swollen mud and cattle footprints
Old West prints for sale
But we took the boat out anyway

An old new skiff with wooden oars
light skimming across the open flats
watch the fat fish backs
in arcs, simple muscle tailing loops of spray

Water tension release
and we’re gone
past the fair weather boaters
their umbrellas red and green and blue and yellow
turning round in a supple merry-go-round
a half-assed circle snagging trout
a hundred and fifty click

The river is low
I remark needlessly
watching the banks encroaching ever so slightly

in

in this riffle
this patch of green or light or gold
I’ll spot a fish

Today a trout hunter
today a casting lesson and its on
downstream
down the rising tide
the lofty expectations of fried chicken licking Mississippians
Montana sucks
(a little more obscenely)
I’m done

But then we’re out and down
the wooden oars golden in the afternoon
honey
I’d thought to lick it off
watching the currents mesh, entwine, then separate on their common journey
our common journey

I felt the tired breeze
on the back of my burning neck
and thought of this dropping river bed
this stone cold tomb and womb
birthing place of rhyme and half-wild trout
some a little more wily than others

Tattered hats and loose shirts
wrinkled from the day before
always the day before and another client
another frustration
airing like the sweated rental gear
its all neoprene and size ten boots here anyway

I’d rather talk it quiet and think aloud
I’d rather not mention
the oar creaks
the turning rhythm of moving
the river whispers some
but it garbles the words and I’m lost
lost when I close my eyes
this or that play of light
the yellow russet hews
words beneath the rocks?
I cannot understand them
though I listen
listen now and then

We passed the known named places
a shelf, a run, The Swirl
some empty
some occupied
shouting greetings
Hey
I feel like a coke
looking back, at a shelf, a drop
the upstream is raised
it raises the sun

We pulled into the slow water behind an old car body
The Steering Wheel
slowing to watch for heads
turning to see
startled
a bloated rainbow
pale
face down dead
age
nature
carelessness
hold your breath then breathe
hold your breath in this heat then wait
feel the burn
then realize
it’s all the same
we rowed on

In the hazy heat sitting eyes closed on the water
it feels like you’re sitting on the water
glide
I felt the graphite quiver
the run
the retrieve
but most of all the shiver
that one instant and now
for a moment
twenty
at least it’s there
that fleeting connection
millions alone
baptism
venture into this water and wait
baptism
seeking a connection
a slow persistent tug
in that haze
I feel and felt
a thousand shadows
a thousand spirits
each a little different
rising and pull
running and the throb deep
he’ll shake you off that way

Pirates in the shallows
VPs in the deep
circling like sharks the distant aquifer

Shadows become shadows
transparent solids become mirages cloaked in sunlight
the heartless burning sun
engenders life
life and trout working a seam, a shelf
spinning this toiling sun
heartless
a lidless eye

Turning I see him stalking
the soft brush of wings
turning I see him casting
soft, delicate
the tireless stroke easy
soulless
soulful
it twists and unfolds in perfect loops
always a perfect circle descending
a constant rhythm unbroken by me
the evening
the loose spin undone

I’m open now
for suggestions

Standing wet in the deep trough between rocks
naked without neoprene
not quite
another fly
another arc
tracing the rod tip back and forth across the sky
waiting
it’s all about the lighting this lighting’s perfect
their heads appear bigger
distorted by refraction and projected just a little further upstream
I’m thinking this doesn’t matter
he lands six inches off
two inches on
we were there
I see it in my mind
slightly before the cast is done
I see it
cussing himself if his vision is blurry
cursing the snotty fish
ignoring the stupid ones
he’s on to them
two or three
still they rise

And then it moved back
its head a bullet
its mouth white in the golden heartless sun
moving
he dropped it
small twist of thread and feather
down and down on top of him
until
the inexplicable timing of things
the long wait
then he pulls the line and water and fish in a thin spray
he’s there

I watched and watch a fish
a brown trout
a toad
(twenty something)
shake its head and shake the fly
or break the knot

We moved on to old commitments
there’s always a commitment
but it’s all in the timing
in the initial set of situation and circumstance

The river is low
drained of evening light
swollen with summer
but we take the boat out anyway
a skiff
wooden oars
golden honey of sun
and the trout illuminate
watching the fly go down