Seven Poems about Ellensburg, Cafe Red, Lower Lewis Falls, Morton, the Ape Caves, Lava Canyon, and a Dark Apartment.

1: Ellensburg and CWU

Sweetness, dead
grass still
sitting still.
It’s red
unbearable
to feet
twice torn
or tearing
as lifted
they release
and ground
it’s more
than alive,
than this
borrowed land
horses, ranches
expansions
and releases.
I feel
a sorrow
but forward
for who?
Who more
for here
or before?

2: Cafe Red, Seattle

A moombahton
(reggaeton?)

the clap
of the drums

the sign
wait, look

watch for the 2nd
train of thought
and though it is
it is brighter

a glare in eyes
dreams of flight

where’s the first
train
and it runs
runs through

runs a fortune
my gut
the sunbeam
opening

3: Lower Lewis Falls, 8/11/17

In rainy darkness
sleeping boys
the wet cocoons

the wildest moons
each spout
evergreen liquid

upon fabric
up upon love
we are all frozen

sinking and jamming
it hurts to sleep
the mania

a yawn
a neighbor
with Jason

calcify
concentrates
bold unrest

boast coldly
bust unboldly
and then the breach

4: About 8/10/17

The Mortoneans
Mortonites
Logger Face

Friendliness
Fondly
Forked

Peanut Butter Pie
Chips and Fish
Beer and such

a sequence
of us open
and it’s fortuitous
and fruitful
along a love
and girth
and effervescent

the sunset
toys with decay
my steps invisible
the cooler
paupers or lovers
of poverty
of forks

5: About 8/10/17, the Ape Caves

in a perfect
dark
I read
a perfect
sermon
Lew Welch

Chanting in
my mind
while I read.
The water
chanting
across water
across stone
lava surfaces.
We’re here.
Present.
Pointed like
empty-bellied
sparrows
launched from
the branch
the moment
is precise.

Shadows of
precision.

6: Lava Canyon

this edge
could be the last
bright dreams of mute
the lava dulled
the landscape torn

crevice of hate
to love forward

pulled into a love
burst of flame
the muddy boil
the rush of air
rain-bowed in August

writing like tiptoe
crush
like slip upon
volcanic

shipment
the body flume

later: women
the prayer
braid cut and given

where’s my giving?

7: 8/22/17

The breath of the land.
I see these bodies.
They have been here.
Rough translations.
Bigger folds.

I sit in the dark room
with warm skin
and cruel
(undisciplined)
fantasies.

It is rupturing.
Uproarious cursing
in the dark.
Just below a beyond
a silent courtyard

sits

and squinting

I craft the method
for a more manly
sleep.