Let Us Now Praise

Before they died they didn’t have a prayer,

And after no one heard. Inside the dark,

The ancestors inhabit empty space,

And they among. Bronze statues with a gene

In common look out at a distant sea

There in Nebraska, this the way they’re made,

Brittle and with that green pocked skin we give

Survivors, if they promise not to speak.

They keep their promises, which makes them special.

In life there was no little yellow barge

To ferry them to restitution, dull

Made serviceable. One, a tomahawk

Stuck in his stone cold belt, attempts a smile

And fails. He does not see a better day.

King of the Old Frontier

I have not written much about the Fathers,

Davy Crockett and The Cowboy G-Men,

Those on whom my constitution’s based,

University City and all the state

Houses of Colorado. They left trails

Which I have managed to convert to ruts,

The roots of routes, I almost said, which might

Demonstrate all you need to know. I can

Remember Alamo Park, an old and staid

Neighborhood with a centerpiece of fleurs.

It is still there, though I am not. This happens

A lot these days. There is somewhere a box,

Green and rectangular, if I had to had to guess,

Which holds the GOATS, who once were kids, which saves

Cobwebbed issues in colored ink, which waits

For No Man, who is never going to come.

The True Meaning of Christmas

 

On this night we observe the world of guilt,

Our consciences full of marzipan and myrrh,

And conifers where crabgrass clippings were,

Poinsettias, never to grow or wilt,

Unless tomorrow comes. And no one tells

The littlies, That is so. The manger moves

To U-Rent Storage Lockers, and the bells,

The bells, and clever evidence of hooves

Abscond, like fireflies or currant puds.

We are returning all our gifted goods.

We are remembering the little slights.

We’re cold and lonely on these winter nights.

Who knows what reindeer do in northern woods,

Where no one can unstring the brilliant lights?