EVERY ACRE
“New View”
High hunter’s moon,
Golden and full.
The wind lets me choose
This new view.
Bend me and break me,
Split me right in two.
Mend me and make me,
I’ll take more of you
In the high hunter’s moon.
Read me Day, Ada, Leaux,
Berry, and Olds.
Who knew it’d be so good?
Baby, did you?
Bless me and beg me,
I’m willing to lose.
Catch me and wreck me,
I’ll take more of you
In the high hunter’s moon.
Holy basil,
Tenants of another time,
Steward bodies down the line.
Bless me and beg me,
I’m willing to lose.
Mend me and make me,
I’ll take more of you
In the high hunter’s moon.
“SHADOWS”
Flannel, flushed, between red oak stacks;
Thicket’s full of fawn and clover traps;
Cornmeal rising high in cast-iron pans;
Cattails catching all the copperheads.
Walk your way into the river…
Is it fever, or surrender?
Like a quilt handing out patterns,
Like shadows to measure.
Ripping pages from the book of Psalms;
Kettle’s calling out a ransom song;
I shave your legs till the daylight’s gone,
Slowly reaching for a little more.
Walk your way into the river…
Is it fever, or surrender?
Like a quilt handing out patterns,
Like shadows in attics.
What else do I need to move – to make room?
What else do I need to lose – to make room?
What else new could I choose – to make room?
How else do I use this broom – to make room?
Leave this place just like you found it:
Posts of cedar, coils of wire,
Tangled up inside the briar;
Like shadows on fire.
“TURPENTINE”
Every ending that you ever rushed,
Stings like cinder, slow as rust.
Shotgun slug found in the middle of
A field of red bags, ripe with vidalias.
Time ain’t always kind
To the shakin’ child,
To the slippin’ mind.
Every heart that you ever loved,
Ragged wrung and divvied up:
Fallow tracts to a scythe, a dove,
A cellar stocked w bushels of.
Time ain’t always kind
To the shakin’ child,
To the slippin’ mind.
Hallelujah, turpentine!
We can tend the land for a little while.
Bones of those beneath the boundary lines –
East in sets first, then clockwise, clockwise.
Every acre that you ever owned,
Hissed and split like a radiator hose.
I seen your kinfolk walkin’ the meadows –
Burrs and burns, but not alone.
Time ain’t always kind
To the shakin’ child,
To the slippin’ mind.
Hallelujah, turpentine!
We can tend the land for a little while.
Bones of those beneath the boundary lines;
East in sets first, then clockwise, clockwise.
“DOVETAIL”
Some women come knocking,
Some come without calling,
Tear right thru the ticker tape;
Some sober and sunkissed,
Blushed, barely cussing,
Eat only after they pray.
Some dog-ear the best bits,
Dovetail the sunsets,
And never get caught in the rain.
Some dress for the darkness,
Want only the Artist,
And leave at the first light of day.
Some fast, sweating diesel
With fistfuls of pain pills,
Sure as a steeple is high;
Some starving for fathers
And couldn’t be bothered
To steal away your precious time;
Some looking for trouble,
Leave nothing uncovered,
And chase their whiskey with wine.
Some dress for the darkness,
Want only the Artist,
And change all you had in mind.
Sometimes she leaves you like a landslide;
Sometimes she’s a tower tall and strong;
Not all will want to have their hands tied;
Some will never want you gone.
Some dog-ear the best bits,
Dovetail the sunsets,
And never get caught in the rain.
Some dress for the darkness,
Want only the Artist,
And leave at the first light of day.
Sometimes she leaves you like a landslide;
Sometimes she’s a tower tall and strong;
Not all will want to have their hands tied;
Some will never want you gone.
“ROWS OF CLOVER”
Rows of clover cover up
A season’s worth of wasted dirt.
Rye will tie the doe to fear
The ring of cedars standing there.
Buckshot barrel, steady hands,
Plunder through the flattened land.
Barrels burn to ashes all
The baskets stockpiled in the hall.
It ain’t the easy
Kind of healing –
When you’re down on your knees,
Clawing at the garden.
Past heirs draw the master plot;
Red Wings in the pasture rot;
Axes, taxes, mark and bind;
Yield is rich with yellow pine.
Bow beside the granite mound:
At your heels, the steadfast hound.
Crawl to cracks where the light gets thru –
Warm and golden, absolute.
It ain’t the easy
Kind of healing –
When you’re down on your knees,
Clawing at the garden.
“BIG LOVE”
How long can a Big Love grow
If you stretch it, slow down the weathering?
If you bend it, bow, then let it go,
As the crow flies follow the scent of it.
How much can a Big Love stand
Like tossing sand to the wind?
Where, oh? Up in smoke.
What shape does a Big Love take
When it first awakes to the pulse of it?
No time or space, only dancing brave;
A two-step trade-off in balancing.
What line makes a Big Love wait
Patient, like an open gate?
Where, oh? Up in smoke.
How much can a Big Love stand
Like tossing sand to the wind?
Where, oh? Up in smoke.
Where, oh? Up in smoke.
“SOFT CROOK”
Bloodspill in the space between,
Baptized under hand-cut beams.
Find the light, and you can see
Right through to the field.
Never seem to ask for much:
A lover not afraid of love,
Around the edges a little rough,
Whose touch doesn’t bluff.
Do whatever dose you need to
To make it through the night.
Head in hands and haunches,
Heaving on the heart of pine.
Sneaky late-night lift kits
Smoke the Orange County line,
South-bound whistles, sundown,
Over Cole Mill, danger rests now –
There are angels all around.
Eyes high to the patient barred,
Towering in the black walnut,
Steady picking out bobcat skulls
To dive like a swan.
Blue light and the blush of dawn,
The soft crook of my woman’s arm.
All in, now is it so hard
To walk towards the want?
Do whatever dose you need to
To make it through the night.
Head in hands and haunches,
Heaving on the heart of pine.
Sneaky late night lift kits
Smoke the Orange County line,
South-bound whistles, sundown,
Over Cole Mill, danger rests now –
There are angels all around.
“WILD FOR THE KING”
Some kind of messiah
Kneeling at the feet.
If he asks you to be quiet,
If he wants you to be chaste.
Wild Thing,
Are you showing me the change?
Carriages to court her
In rations and degrees.
As you ante up the portions
Do you divvy up the steam?
Wild Thing,
Are you showing me the change?
Curled up in the corner
Like a child in fits and dreams;
Witness with a warning
And a shiv between your teeth.
Wild Thing,
Are you walking to your king?
Wild Thing,
Are you walking to your king?
“GOSPEL OF A CERTAIN KIND”
Freely,
You come to me kneeling.
Pleading,
Keep driving me mad.
Came to see the dripping moss,
Stayed to feel like some part of,
Left to know how real it was.
Heal me,
Words brave and binding.
Steeping
Tea leaves before bed.
Fertile as a Delta pile,
Final as a finish line;
Gospel of a certain kind.
Nearly
Gave into the feeling.
Seedlings
To scatter and spread.
Open-ended afternoons,
Rearrange the living room;
A vice, a wife, alone, you choose.