Black cows graze new grass— cranes dance among the calves— Still :: raven rides the sky.

North Of Wyoming

It was our banter and retort: I’d email to you,‘Whyoming?’ ‘Oming indeed,’ you replied. Now, I slug syllables and the wind stirs ashes in the western sky empty of you, your grin. How dull this stuff is without the roast of your sly reply! So, what’s the mailto of that narrow dirt room you lie … Continue reading North Of Wyoming →

Old Rodeo Man

The ground is an absolute, the air lets you down. The way you leave your bronc sustains a compromise with violence you embrace the way you mean an oath. Forever. Without fault forfeit or regret— a repossession of what you will never let go, even when you lose stirrup grip and (so finally) your life. … Continue reading Old Rodeo Man →

Hogs to Houston

The word "haul" reminds me of Maine, a place I have never been, and California, a place I visited once because I was in love, and Arizona, a place where I worked out of the back of a hotel for the Feds, and Maryland, a place I lived for many, many years. Most of us … Continue reading Hogs to Houston →

To every Season Turn

Churn yearn spurn learn discern concern turn adjourn urn burn.

The Last Worst Place

Toxic The only place I have seen death is in Hospitals. There is an inefficiency of death there. But a darkness of hope for those who will live yet beyond the walls, who look out on the Old Fan Mountain where they will walk again, out on the sun-silver water of the Madison where they … Continue reading The Last Worst Place →

Somebody Finally Tells Chesty

Hey, Chesty Deigndoun, sometime—sometime why don’t you just—get out of your insidious I, I, I; your primping, pouting me, me, me, me drama; your profane my, my, my orgasm; our salacious mine, mine, mine plundering. Get out of yourself, Chesty, and look up at the sun, and know it is not a glowing light bulb, … Continue reading Somebody Finally Tells Chesty →

Marty’s Proposition

One thing you never wanted to do around Marty Malpropiter, if you wanted any sense in a conversation, is let him think the conversation had intellectual underpinnings. As long as you kept to cows, horses, hay, irrigating, barb wire, bowling, football, road building, and such, things went fine. O, Marty may throw in an occasional … Continue reading Marty’s Proposition →

Even in Darkness

I have, on a moonless night, turned from the dark fail of mankind’s madness, to look on the dappled ageless sky-- before man made God and time-- and seen no emptiness, nor God, nor time— just the spark that gains my lively living eye. Here is a greater thing than faith: from dust of stars … Continue reading Even in Darkness →