Winter

with broken knees no one would shoot.Then again, he was like the orange tree,and young women plucked from him sweet fruit.To meet him, you must be in the right place,even his sons and daughter, we wonderedwhere was papa now and what was he doing.He held the mystique of travelersthat pass your backyard and disappear into…

Red chile ristras decorate my door,dry on my roof, and hang from eaves.They lend open-air vegetable standshistorical grandeur, and gently swingwith an air of festive welcome.I can hear them talking in the wind,haggard, yellowing, crisp, raspingtongues of old men, licking the breeze.But grandmother loves green chile.When I visit her,she holds the green chile pepperin her…

when I run by them.Those robins do not have the grand style of the red tailed hawk,no design, no dream, just robins acting stupid.They’ve never smoked cigarettes, drank whiskey, consumed drugsas I have.In their mindlessfluttering aboutfilled with nonsense,they tell me how theylove the Great Spirit,scold me not to be self-pitying,to open my lifeand make this…

I could leave my loneliness behind with the old year.My leathery loneliness an old pair of work bootsmy dog vigorously head-shakes back and forth in its jaws,chews on for hours every day in my front yard—rain, sun, snow, or windin bare feet, pondering my poem,I’d look out my window and see that dirty pair of…

I gently thumb each burnt bead,fingering scabbed stubs with ointment.Could have neutered me, made extinctthe volatile, romantic man I am.“He’s dead,”doctor at emergency roomcould’ve easily told my wife that night.Instead, “Soak him in a bath twice a day. Applythis ointment to the sores. Here’s a month’s supplyof pain killers.” I remember the deep guttural groanI…

Blood-sloshed floors,And guards count the deadWith the blink of an eyelid, then hurry homeTo supper and love, what saves usFrom going mad is to carry a vacant stareAnd a quiet half-dead dream.