Of Mountains and Men
It is for the truth and the beauty that I have seen in the eyes of Kathleen Marie Duncan that I give this work to all children of all nations. Go Climb a Mountain!
Albert Bianchine
Security...what is that? Something negative, undead, suspicious and suspecting; an avarice and an avoidance; a self-surrendering meanness of withdrawal; a numerable complacency and an innumerable cowardice. Who would be “secure”? Every and any slave. No free spirit ever dreamed of “security”- or, if he did, he laughed; and lived to shame his dream. No whole sinless sinful sleeping waking breathing human creature ever was (or could be) bought by, and sold for, “security”. How monstrous and how feeble seems some unworld which would rather have its too than eat it’s cake!
e.e. cummingsi-
Six Nonlectures, 1953
On the Wings of the Last Karner Blue Butterfly
Come,
Come to North America my friends
see the radiating beauty.
It lies from within
know that it is
under my skin
in my eyes
like the wings of the last
Karner Blue Butterfly.
Upon the Ocean’s Breezes
Listen!
The ocean’s breezes are beckoning
across the Isle Ellis
they are calling
extraordinary artisan’s
accustomed to nature listening
Apres her lady’s commissioning
to let our collective lights shine
brighter than the torch
lit for Liberty
to let our collective voices
be raised for all of humanity
crying from the ocean’s depths of peasantries
combating the silence of indifference
armed with swords of insignificance
to stem the rising tides
of Amerekaan Armageddon’s
turning back the raging seas
of Radical Extremism’s blasphemies
spewing from the cauldron’s
tended by the World’s Aristocracies
beckoning across the sea’s of mediocrity.
A Ticket to the Fair
(For the rededication of the Statue of Liberty 1986)
I dream that my manuscript of poetry
will be my ticket to fair
so that I could
look into the eyes of
all of the who’s who of the they’s
that will be there.
So that I could scream,
“Set the Children Free”.
From the Belly of the Beast
Once,
I stood strong and tall
atop America’s highest mountain peak.
Turning I faced Mecca toward the East,
to my eyes came this vision of a holocaust
that brought me to my knees.
Touching the very depth’s of my soul,
I saw the American Armada’s storming the seven seas.
Hear my voice ring, for truth and freedom for the children.
To every nation’s mountain peaks
From the depth’s of the belly of the beast.
Upon the Mountains
Go upon the Mountains,
my beautiful innocent children.
Leave the cities far behind,
for they,
they in their ingratitude.
Condemn themselves
to their solitude.
In the Wake of a Cultural Giant
Often,
I would sit on the cobble stone retaining wall
at lookout point in the Helderberg Mountains
and stare at the ivory towers of the Empire State Plaza Complex
marble masterpiece employing the working class citizens.
The renaissance and renovation of Albany, New York
was magnificent to live and grow through.
The cockroach filled tenements and slum housing restored
to earth tone colored Historic Brownstones, each bearing
a dated black oval raised gold letter plaque.
Solid upper middle class citizens live there now.
Often,
as I would sit on the cobblestone rock retaining wall
at Lookout Point in the Helderberg Mountains
I pondered,
Where have all the poor people gone
in the Wake of a Cultural Giant?
The Liberty Express
Mark my name well
against the annals of history
All of you
who dwell so comfortably
among the World’s Aristocracies.
I have been among your peasantries.
My Liberty Express
is a mythical golden chairlift.
It is on time and
bound to the plight
of truth and freedom
for the children of the world.
Into the Light
One day,
far above America I was gliding
in my ecstasy I flew too high
and I burnt my wings
down,
down,
down, to the earthen ground I crashed
with a heavy sigh,
in the depth’s of despair and confusion
of a drunken drug filled rage of my darkest hour
whereupon I wailed and bemoaned my fate
I raised my fist to heaven
letting forth a mournful cry.
There, there from a blackened sky
came this beam of light
into the light I stand with my outstretched hands.
Listen!
Hear my voice ring from every American Mountain Peak!
For now I possess this light
it is for you that I will let it shine.
If in your first attempt you fail.
Try,
Try,
And try again like I
in your attempt to touch the sky.
Assimilation
It is from deep inside
I do perceive
the vicious web
society weaves.
When you are young
and your mind still blank
they assimilate you through
their ungodly rank.
Where,
Conform! Conform!
are the words well worn
and individuality
pays
the price of scorn.
A Free Spirit
When they say that I
I have certain dues
that to them in this life
I must pay
or that I
must stand in their lines.
I will say, “Stick it in your ear,
for I am a free spirit
and as a free
spirit I am
willed not to hear it.”
The Wind in the Helderberg’s
A sunset’s golden glow
exposing remnants of
Autumn’s crimson leaves.
Grass clippings smoldering, smoking
erupting in the twilight
of falls tawny flickering flames.
The weeping willow crying out
in a contemptuous moan
grinding wheel grating against
hardened steel grumping
a throaty groan.
The wood pile in urgent need
of small kindling and I,
I deftly chopping
dead decaying branches.
You,
feeding the fire of the fifty-five gallon drum
carefully examining the rotting tree trunk
finding a fossil.
Of what,
some prehistoric animal?
Or, only the antler
of some other season’s deer.
Connecticut city boy turned country gentleman
you couldn’t resist using my
newly sharpened axe
to try an punch holes for air
in the bottom of the thick metal drum.
“Look!” You say to me.
“Look!
I really love this life
the hard work the
sense of self accomplishment.
Look!
Last year this time I,
I was unemployed,
Now I,
I own this home,
I,
even go to church on Sunday”
The smoke billows up curling
lazily into wispy cirrus clouds.
Listen!
peeling white birch bark
gentle rustling leaves
bare trees.
“Listen!”
I say, “it’s that now
your heart,
it belongs
to the wind in the Helderberg’s.”
Uncle George and the Steelies
A small brown leather sewn sack, always clutched tightly by his big dirty hands. A smelly old white owl cigar stuck from his mouth. His dark beady eyes were drawn, as he carefully undid the draw string. Big strong arthritic hands trembling, hands that you didn’t dare shake, for fear he would never let you go from those vice grips. Reaching in his leather bag, he would pull out his closed fist, clenched ever so tightly.
“If you can get my hand open you can have what’s inside,” he’d say.
I the younger and the smallest always struggled, strained and pulled one finger at a time. Until I could snatch the large round metal steelie, prized for playing marbles with, from those big misshapen hands.
(Thompsons Lake, The Helderberg’s, New York State)
The Thompson’s Lake Refrain
Awaken so gently to the music of the breeze
it’s song a sweet nectar
as honey to the bees.
The trees’ cry out
with a contemptuous moan
the frog’s are grumping a throaty groan.
“Good Morning, Good Morning it’s that time at the lake
the people are all gone and it’s time to relate.
The bunnies have been up and munching for awhile
now bring your face out and give us a smile.
Your dog Dusty there has been chasing the cat.
Old Frank on the porch is getting quite fat.
It’s near mid-morning and time for your swim
forget about work, it sounds to grim.
Jump In, Jump In, The water awaits you
so nice and warm
it loves to caress you and keep you from harm
remember you love it
every second is a pleasure
it is time you will treasure.”
A series of 5k races sponsored by Stroh’s benefiting the Statue of Liberty. Held in Albany, New York
Stroh’s Run for Liberty
I run for Liberty
where,
I once walked.
A Golden Poet King
Sometimes,
I feel as if I
am a marionette
of a golden mountain poet king.
Dancing to a cosmic tune
for her heart,
of golden strings.
Even White Knights Stumble, Guinevere
A white warrior walked
amidst the grandeur
of the mountains
that his Lord God had made.
Where in he found
inner strength,
peace, and
sobriety.
A question to Guinevere
So Listen!
When I become,
a golden American Mountain Poet King.
“Would you be,
My Video Queen?”
The Poet that came out of the Closet
For so very long now,
I have been struggling, juggling,
fighting a conflict internally.
I’ve tried to run and I’ve tried to hide,
I’ve tried to subdue
the growing power
of my love of poetry.
Oh! It was a classic case
of the mistaken muse,
the worst of possible maladies.
I’d refuse to write,
with any regularity,
not one of the men
in the rest of my working class family,
has been afflicted
with this insanity.
Five will get you Ten
“Say Hey, Joe-
Did ya hear about
the man who made it big,
in the big time.
Say’s he started with
Five-
Five Grand-
Then made Ten-.”
That Lost Weekend
Don’t tell me it’s over,
a relationship can’t work
you cannot take a seed
plant it in fertile soil
cover it in darkness and secrecy
and expect it to blossom
into a beautiful flower.
Love grows in sunshine
and open air.
A Promise to Katarina
Tomorrow I will awake
and you will be there.
The golden sun shining through
your graying hair.
You will bring to my heart
the most joyous feelings,
the very sight of your beautiful smile.
Then we shall take
each others hands.
Together we will
make them understand.
We will give them our love
of each other and illuminate
The American Land.
K now that you are a divine creation the lord has conceived. His gift of love that shines from you illuminates the darkness of the World.
A lways look forward to the future for there in lies your key to happiness. The days well lived will bring fulfillment and everlasting joy.
T races of your yesterdays cloud the sunshine of your skies. The warmth and radiance of your soul clears them to allow in the rays of light.
A nswer on to your heart’s desire. Your capacity for love is your treasure. The greatest romance you could have is yours for the asking.
R emember always the golden moments of your life. Cherish the deep friendships that Blossom within the garden of your personality.
I nnocence is last among the disillusionments of youth. Your perfume of peace, a wild fire of bliss, amidst the compassion of the Divine Mother.
N ow the strength of your magnetism sustains the power of your will. All your sorrows have disappeared with the passing of years.
A wakening the spiritual woman with Divine Love. Endowing her with the goodness and the sweetness of the honey of God.
Restless Spirits, Harnessed Spirits
Green fields,
spirits
running wild
across and endless eternity.
Hooves pounding on the turf
trodden by many men’s souls
before
slowing, slowing
only to a walk.
For at last a fence is it harnessed in.
Old Man
Old Man,
sittin in a chair
ain’t goin nowhere
so you’ve been to war.
I guess you know the score.
Old Man,
your hair turned grey
whatta you goin to do today.
Old Man,
you’re high on life.
Old Man,
you gotta skinny old wife.
Young Man writing down his rhyme.
Old Man,
taught you all about time.
My Mary
My Mary comes a totin her acid,
My Mary comes a totin her tea,
My Mary comes to give her love,
and receives it back from me.
My Mary she flies so high,
My Mary she flies so low,
I hope my precious Mary knows,
just which way to go.
My Mary she sings from cliff tops,
My Mary she sings from trees,
and if My Mary is without a song,
she can come and sing with me.
Nantucket Yacht Club Slip Blue
Eerie early morning drizzle dripping
off yellow
Sears rain slickers
blue fog steaming
Captain Zoom’s coke bottle bottomed
John Lennon glasses.
“Did I know you
were legally blind
without them?”
Starring through streaming
streaking shiny bright brass
framed teak deck
yacht port holes
filled with rainbow colored
crystal liquor decanters
bustling blue
uniformed suited crews.
You said,
“Certainly some have not
what the others have.”
Your vision was perfect
for the fall of 1973.
A Drunken Sailor in Saratoga
A drunken sailor, I met in
a bar in Saratoga said,
“I’ve sailed all over
the World-never seen
anything quite as beautiful
as the Golden Gate of
San Francisco’s harbor
through the dissipating fog
of a morning’s haze.
He stumbled to the door
shaking his finger
and looking back at me
like there was some-thing
about me
he found different.
Fat Albert
God how I hated Bill Cosby
The goading, teasing, chiding
“Hey, Hey, Hey.”
I grew up in
an Italian family
thought my name
for the first five years
of my life was
“eat albert,” except they said it
differently every good boy deserves
food as much as they can eat
3 times a day
imagine that
fat albert lost his,
fat he no longer lives
on the refrigerator shelf.
Loose Items O.K.
So Listen!
The National Centers for Disease Control
unveiled a $20 million “hot lab,”
a super-sealed facility
for the study of
The World’s deadliest viruses,
including pathogens “far”
more dangerous than
AIDS.
(In Protest of the use of explosives for terrorism)
Paris, France. Wednesday September 17, 1986 Tati Discount Department Store 3:28 pm
Blast. 53 wounded 5 dead mothers and children.
The report of a one hundred and five millimeter recoilless rifle
echoes through Big Cottonwood Canyon of
The Wasatch National Forest of Utah
gently awakening avalanches
rumbling through snowfields
above the timberline
of a sleeping Brighton and Solitude mountain sides
snow shifting, sliding, slicing, slamming, snapping
down among hundreds of year old pines.
Organizations I would like to see
M others
A gainst
W ar
S tudents
A gainst
W ar
W omen
A gainst
N uclear
H olocaust
United Food for thought Family Farms
I am a man
Alone
I have picked stones from fields.
We are men
united we have the strength
to move the mountain.
The Child in My Arms
I swear to you
Lord
that the child died in my arms
after a man made storm.
When will we stop from
continuing to hide,
against blatant acts
of genocide.
Now the coca leaves
I chew.
They help
to ease the pain
between the downpours
of yellow rain.
A Thought in a Garden
Strolling across an upward sloping grass hill
ending against a large brownstone building.
A grey slate roof slanting, shading, small
square glass paned windows of
genteel elegance.
A white trellised archway opening
pink petunia rows of
crimson roses, chrysanthemum, hyacinth blending,
daisy, dahlias.
When the poets dreamed
and writing scholar’s schemed
inside this mansion and garden walls.
Did they think of the mason’s fingers split open
sewn together needled black thread against
the drying cracking concrete lye
or the stone laborer
back bone weight weary
that built the grounds
of Yaddo?
A Thought of You
I thought of you
the day they launched Atlantis.
In the after burner’s gleam
I thought I’d seen
with a vision of crystal clarity,
another maiden’s voyage
upon an emerald sheen.
Poet to Poet
Today,
as many days lately
you
were in my thoughts.
Reflections, the way life once was
images
of bright white footlights
and snow covered mountain peaks
cascade
like sparkling, glittering, gleaming crystals.
Transforming,
melting, melding
like flowing rivers
into the sea.
Podunk Poet
Phoning
Friendly
Felicitous
Females
For
Fun.
Loves Hurts
Leaving you
Standing there
Falling wet snow
Me
Tripping over a piece of my heart
As I turned to leave
Ev what a black widow’s web you secretly weaved
I wish that you could see
From inside of my eyes
To hear the sound of empty lies
Wondering why?
Leaving me unaware waiting there.
A Promise to Evelyn
Today, I heard
the mountains call our names
through the Northwest Wind.
They said,
I was to be a mountain poet king
and you an artist queen.
A snowflake for your dreams.
The Burning Desire
In you eyes,
I see
a sunrise
glowing vibrantly orange
cresting to illuminate the land
of an American Nation
from the top of the Grand Traverse
at thirteen thousand feet in elevation,
my soul smolders like the fires of Yellowstone
off in the distant horizon
making their way
2 days later
into the Vail Valley
In your eyes,
I see
destiny
crawling from the frothing seas
growing into an everlasting sanctity,
like a light beckoning
me into eternity.
Unrequited Love
Love is a gift,
to be given without the expectation of reciprocation.
Love heals,
the wounds of temporary setbacks and failures.
To be held in esteem by a loved one,
is one of life’s magnificent pleasures.
Mutual love,
forms a bond as healthy and strong a mighty Sequoia.
Unrequited love,
eventually empties the well.
Manhattan Midnight Moonlight
“Listen,” you say, “it’s the worst case of
blue balls I never go this long
with out it.”
You say, “How do you do it?”
You mean me
being over thirty never
married, your manhood
suspect by, aunt’s, grandmother’s, divorcee’s.
Saying always, “I know this nice girl.”
You say, “Your problem is, you place women
on pedestals give them
the top
and they’ll hurt you.”
Me saying, “I don’t view all women
as my semen receptacles.”
“Listen,” you say, “I love my wife,
it’s just that I get tired of it,
being the same sometimes’
I just want it to be different.”
Me jotting down phone numbers
from a seedy pamphlet
lit by the dim lights on
The Staten Island Ferry
watching the crashing waves by
Ellis Island’s Statue of Liberty.
Little pink nipples peering
through black leather bras
crotch less pantied women wielding whips
captions reading Dominique, Desiree,
Master card and Visa accepted.
Riding graffiti filled subway cars
into Times Square,
stumbling drunk down cracked concrete sidewalks
cramming quarters into black plastic phones
seeking my idea of getting lucky.
Abandoning the search to purchase
a shish kebob from a man with a hibachi
in the Manhattan Midnight Moonlight.
You saying, “It’s probably dog meat.”
Then a panhandler’s blues saxophone wails.
In a Dream
Sometimes,
late at night I
lie awake and I
I catch a falling snowflake
and I wonder where my youthful dreams have gone.
It wasn’t long ago
I would sit with
Touloose, Crème King, Fast Eddy (The Buckle Meister), and Captain Zooms
on the various American Mountain Peaks
and discuss all the men wasting their youths
To live in bigger wooden boxes or drive fancier motorized metal containers,
climbing the ladder of corporate and factory society.
Just Accomplish It!
In order to put
mountains in the eyes
of your children,
keep them in the eyes
of your characters.
A Gift Given Me
One Day,
at the base of Whiteface Mountain
I thought of someone special and
about a gift he’d given me.
I ascended swiftly into a silver silken sea
in a crystal vision Mother Mary came to me.
She whispered to me softly,
words to sooth my fear.
I soared so gracefully
far above the timberline.
I descended slowly only
after I had picked my line
down among the emerald pines.
One Day,
at the base of Whiteface Mountain
I thought of someone special
about a gift he’d given me.
Written for the shortening of Chair Six of Whiteface Mountain for the 1980 Winter Olympics.
Chair Six
Oh! carousel of well worn
blue wooden chairs ascend me swiftly
upon the summit of your face.
Stark, lonely, loving, longing,
fair milk maiden’s lips
forever locked, granite windswept cheeks
ominous in your blue ice
laden grace.
Teeth chattering trembling fear
your North winds wailing,
searching, searing, stiff
frozen denim jeans.
The smell of
wet grey woolen poncho’s.
Turning out the Faithful
They,
tore down the old rustic white porched hotel and replaced it
with a brand new concrete and steel sparkling Hilton
at one Mirror Lake Drive.
I met a man in the Ancient Mariner who sold the Olympic
Organizing Committee 50,000 hot seats for the grandstands
everyone knows just how fiercely cold the winter’s of Lake Placid can be.
Everyone was going to make a Million Dollars.
Christmas Eve, the Chair Six Lounge, all the non local, especially for
The Olympic Entrepreneurs, tears falling like the rain in the streets.
Everyone was going to make a Million Dollars.
The Semi’s rolling through town from Saranac
heavily laden with man made snow
a caravan of determination and fierce pride
that is the American Spirit.
During the build up to the period
of the 1980 Winter Olympics
many landlords turned out their
faithful tenants of many years
for the high rents they could receive.
Trading Trinkets, Tall Tales, Telling Lies
Downtown any town’s Main street
this town, down
passed a shellacked shiny brass handled
carved crescent moon wooden door of
“The Ancient Mariner”
across the street from an old fashioned Bijou
sequenced white bulb Marquee
Flashing, “Fiddler on the roof.”
Butted by a brown concrete, steel, Lake Placid Hilton
descending down two flights
of green canopied wooden stairs.
“The Artist’s Café”
lapped white waves of Mirror Lake
reflecting the lights of “The Cottage”
and the excitement of the 1980 Winter Olympics
across from the Lake Placid Club
it’s walls filled with the owner’s original art
bustling buxom waitresses.
Comrade Ivan leaping to his feet touching my pins from Solitude and Brighton
would I care to trade for his shiny Soviet bears
slapping him on the back saying,
“certainly mine were worth a bit more, perhaps
one possibly two martini’s.”
Telling tales till they became martooni’s
The bustling waitress asking,
“Was I, could I be, an Olympic Athlete?”
Me smiling devilishly saying,
“Why, yes,
would she,
care to come to my room.
to view my gold medals from Europe.”
“No Hang Gliding”
...Goats Path....
dropping off
a narrow winding cat walk
from Mt. Mansfield,
Stowe, Vermont.
A square wooden sign says,
“No hang gliding”.
Before entering a field of Moguls,
as big as Volkswagens,
parked sideways.
Behind the Times
I am just a lonely poet
atop an emerald pine
so come inside of my mind
and live behind the times.
Now I,
I ride the six thirty number 55 express
into a three hundred year old Albany, New York.
I,
I stare through my reflection
longing for connection
through the windows of a new days sun’s direction.
All the bitter couples faces
stirs my memories traces
where these haunting feelings linger
giving my Alta ego
the Utah blue’s again.
Oh! To be twenty five and hear the report
of a one hundred and five millimeter recoilless rifle echoing
a good morning cry
gently awakening avalanches
rumbling high above timberline
moving mountainsides of Mt. Millicent of Brighton,
and awakening a Honeycomb Canyon of Solitude
in Big Cottonwood Canyon of the Wasatch National Forest.
Alas, I choose to be
a lonely poet
atop my emerald pine
but come inside of my mind and live behind the times.
By the hourly fruits of my labor
I am the last man in History to be awarded the coveted
seasons ski pass at Arapahoe Basin.
The, then, highest lift operated ski mountain in North America.
To the accompaniment of Daniel’s sitar I recited my poetry
to the laughter and gaiety of the passerby’s for dollar bills
in the village square at the base of Vail Mountain.
While my contemporaries have accrued the material possessions
that I now desire
by giving up their youths to do so,
I have quietly collected snowflakes and mountain peaks.
Forever there will loom a fork in the road of life’s horizon
some will follow the trodden path
while others leave a wagon rutted trail.
Neither should carry the label of success or failure
instead we should applaud the individual freedom
to make that choice,
only in America.
Out of the Gondola Shed at Gore Mountain
(with Touloose)
Bright radiant red
chariot cherry plastic bubbles
“All the way to the top men,”
a lift attendant’s
warm wry smile.
His bright orange ski cap,
pulled well over the ears
Keeping out the biting cold.
Clomp and thump,
Clomp and thump,
hurriedly mad crazed killers
Plunging home our skis and poles.
Swish,
Heaven’s gate slides shut
a zero down gloved hand
bearing a radiant silver cross
that turns the key
clicking the latch
locking away
the chosen ones.
Bumping, bouncing,
bursting out
bathed in luminous sunlight
ivory crystals
set upon forest green pines
sparkling
pale blue skies
swaying, swinging,
precariously perched on a sterling
stranded string
dangling there.
Touloose
his purple passion hat
cocked over an optic gleam
a comrade in arms
comes his familiar cackle,
“Ain’t it the tits,” his breath hangs frozen
a cumulus cloud
moist
splashing against my brow
dissipating with our fears
into the quiet
frigid serenity.
The, “Oh My God!” Refrain
I have not many material possessions
material possessions are balls and chains
But, I know every inch of every trail
and every mountain peak in America.
I once walked from Dillion, Colorado over
the Continental Divide through Loveland Pass to
stop at Central City the oldest City in Colorado.
Where God made all men,
but Commander Colt made them equal
To meditate upon Virginia Canyon,
nicknamed, “Oh My God Canyon!”
after the first words that are
uttered by the view
of it’s grandeur.
Before continuing through Nederland
and the mountain tunnels of route six
where the prairie dogs play
at the base of the Flat Irons
rising out of the Gold Hills
to welcome you to the Valley floor of Boulder.
just to get the zipper on my tough traveler
knapsack repaired for free at the factory.
Against the Wall
(At Killington, Vermont)
Listen!
The prevailing winds
whisper,
they dance,
across the rolling meadows,
at Killington in Vermont.
Blowing wet snowflakes
that stick to my eyelids,
and freeze my toes.
A Powder Run
Light airy no where,
emerald trees my eyes see.
I hear nothing but fear.
Hidden pockets of which to fall in,
always reminding me of him,
God’s crystalline chowder.
(The further trials of the world’s greatest ski bum)
2 cents overdrawn
Mick Jagger on a full screen
MTV video screaming,
“I’m just waiting on a lady,
I’m just waiting on a friend.”
Gold Peak restaurant bar
warming my hands on a
steaming ceramic coffee filled mug
arriving one day later than,
the Vail Mountain employee draw.
Being 2 cents overdrawn and scribbling,
like Gollum caressing his precious, precious,
my powder snow poetry.
Leaving the restaurant like that,
I mean with blue words
on a white paper napkin
thinking them worth much
more than 2 missing pennies.
Pulling on down gloves
trudging into the wilderness,
like Strider the Ranger.
Never really fitting in
like a brown slab wood cabin
mud caulked chinked
with a grey stone chimney
sizzling snowshoe rabbit
smoke billowing wafting
through silent aspen’s.
It hangs drifting like
cotton ball clouds
sparkling crystals bending emerald boughs of pines.
A skinny ski trail snaking around
deep powder tree wells
to a stoked glowing fireplace
in the Arapahoe National Forest
warding off dusk.
A Tear By The Way
“Been climbing at Devil’s Tower
some of he 5-8 pitches were hard
Tho, I laughed all the way up.
I live in Breck, (Breckenridge, Colorado) during the winter
work as a waitron nights so I
I can board all day. Same
as now cept
I’m a fly clinging to and climbing
cracks all day.
Wyoming is big and beautiful,
endless vista’s and horizon’s
stretching into forever
glowing orange sun hanging
half in, half out of the Earth
light blue hue
tiny white wisps of cirrus
clouds rushing by
winds whipping
ripping my hair blonde
from it’s long pony tail
stinging my breasts.
There was nothing I could do
dangling on my descent
rappelling requires
complete concentration.
Saw you hitch-hiking your
blue and black Dana Design Pack
against your tan smooth skin
you know you have a climber’s body.
It’s too bad I turn here for
Eldora Canyon tho
this should get you far enough
out of Boulder.
It’s a pity
we couldn’t climb with one another.
My name is
Tear by the way.”
Elfie, Mr. Tweedy, and the Missing Insurance Claim Check
She is world renowned,
for her stained glass skiers in
Vail Village she cuts colored
pieces of glass places them carefully on
patterns of white Styrofoam
numbered in sequence, one
two, three in her shop she
fluxes between the cracks
before soldering with her hot iron
she reads novels in German
with and accent says,
“I still haven’t received my
insurance claim check for
Mr. Tweedy’s broken
World Alpine, 1989 piece.”
We had packed it and shipped it
ever so painstakingly in
bubble wrap, wrapped twice
after cutting foam panels for ends
and carefully placing it in cardboard,
suspended in foam peanuts
Taped in double boxes, prudently.
I should have known when
Mad Maxine the crazy U.P.S.
driver in her brown uniform
and red laced hiking boots
black smudged hands, from handling cartons
would come in to the pack-n-ship
telling dirty jokes,
“Do you know why Jewish women
have wrinkles around their eyes. It’s
from squinting at their husband’s
penis behind closed doors.”
Saying, “You want me to do what to it?”
She looks at the parcel with
the “This Side Up” and “Fragile”
stickers plastered all over it and
says, “Hey, what state is
the city of “Fragile” in anyway,
and did you know these
are supposed to be packaged
so that they can be
thrown at least ten feet.”
Dr. Bumps!
(of Vail, Colorado)
He’s Fred and he’s sixty
and he’s been banged in the head.
The oldest skier on the Pro
Mogul Tour.
How It Should Be
Some men grow
and they go away to war.
My friends and I
we went to ski.
It is how it should be.
Free Nelson Mandella
(MON)
Harry Belafonte’s voice comes over
the Colorado Zephyr air waves yelling
“Is anybody out there?
Can any one hear me?
Is any one listening?
To a 1960’s movie
where he is the last black man
on earth, co-starring Inger Stevens.
“Free Nelson Mandella,” he yells,
“Nelson Mandella has been
a political prisoner for
the past twenty-five years
in a South African jail.”
Then Ziggy Marley sings an up
tempo reggae tune asking,
“Tomorrow people where is your best?
“Tomorrow people how long may you last?”
Suddenly I’m trans---ported to
The State University of New York at Albany
I’m in the library reading
the only book by the poet Lyn Lifshin
I can find written through
the eyes of Blue Seneca Indians
waiting for a Bob Marley
concert without Bob Marley
just the wailers
I’m with Touloose
as usual and I say,
“I really wish you were a girl.”
(I’m tired of being alone in a crowd.)
(I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.)
I’m suddenly jolted back to reality, back into
my own political exile.
I think of Nelson Mandella languishing
in prison all the time
I was a spoiled young man
skiing all over America.
Jimmy Cliff comes on the Zephyr
playground of the rich and the famous
in the pristine Rocky Mountains.
Singing, “Sitting here in limbo
waiting for the sky to fall,
sitting here in limbo
but I know my faith will
lead me home.....
well
they’re putting up resistance,
but I know
my faith will lead me home.....”
(The most insane trial of the world’s greatest ski bum)
Please! No Ski Boots!
“Look, I’m a crazy writer!” I scream at
the sheriff of Nottingham,
“I’m being forced to live
in internal exile here
and I’m not supposed to be driving
and when they find out I was they
are going to lock me up
and throw away the key.
It’s ten thirty at night
this drunken skier just
stepped out in front of
my blue Toyota ski
bum car and you tell me
where the hell he was
skiing at this late hour?
When I hit him his
ski boots came all the way up
smashed my windshield, I
panicked and slammed on the brakes,
and he shot off the hood
his skis and poles were flying everywhere
and he hit the ground real
hard with a dull sickening thud
and a real deep moan.
Now my car is like everyone else’s
in the mountain’s of Colorado
it’s temporary tags
are expired and it’s
uninsured and now
the windshield is
cracked and broken.”
A Gandy Dancer
A gandy dancer is the most primitive form of railroad worker. It is a small closely knit group of men bound tightly by the burden of their great toil. In the summer of 1979 after leaving A-Basin in Colorado, I was ski bumming and found myself in Kendricks Crossing of Wyoming on my way to ski Jackson Hole that following winter. Being broke and destitute I found myself living on a railroad siding in the middle of nowhere Wyoming and sleeping in converted rail cars, washing in shower cars and eating in dining cars.
The rail was laid onto the rail road ties in one quarter mile pieces and because of the heat of the plains where they joined together they would often overlap as much as two to three feet. A large front end loader was brought in and a twenty foot piece of rail was suspended by a logging chain. The men were lined up on each side of the piece of rail. A maneuver known as bumping rail was performed. By striking the one quarter mile piece of steel with the twenty foot piece, we would take hours if not all day to move the larger piece the distance required to couple the rail together. There was often a song or a cadence shouted or sung to establish a rhythm.
Thinking about it know, they were some of the best years of my life. The adventure and the humanity of the school of hard knocks. However, I did get to ski Jackson Hole that year.
Written on the plains of Kendricks Crossing, Wyoming
Gandy Dancer
Steel,
cold, hard, heavy,
steel sings, ring.
Gandy Man,
blisters upon your hands,
understand life’s lot.
Blue, so very god damned blue,
is the color that I choose,
just a starrin down at my tattered,
hiking shoes.
Grey,
grey is the color of my pants,
as yet one more,
of they’re working ants.
Writing my poems by the light
of a kerosene lamp,
my arms too tired,
to slide under my pillow,
looking toward another day closer
to a future filled with great white hope,
but a night time filled warding off
the smell of industrial soap.
(The Thoughts of the World’s Greatest Ski Bum)
An Alone Poem
I was all alone
at Kendricks Crossing, Wyoming
sitting Indian style on the rough wood
of a Burlington Northern Railroad
flat bed car.
Discussing life with an itinerant hobo,
when he jumped up and left
a half empty pail of rail spikes
along with his hammer.
For the beckoning call
of an open door
on a Santa Fe rail car.
Leaving me alone
to watch the sunsets
silhouetted against the ridges of the Big Horns.
Dying with the dull aching
in the muscles of my arms
between the lines
of one of my poems.
Written in Sheridan, Wyoming
Disco Bars
I am
just a child
of the sun, moon, and stars.
Sitting with my beat up brown,
Stetson hat in
Buffalo Bill’s Disco Bar.
Fresh Powder Down
A blinding blizzard beckons me into Steamboat Springs.
I arrive on the last greyhound from Vail.
My pockets full of snowflakes, a lonesome geyser’s whistle wails.
Always hiding, never tears to a cowboy’s eye.
Lord don’t let me be forsaken, the Baron’s have already taken
America by rail.
(Refrain)
(My darling I grow weary often lost without a home
but you know I’ll keep on searchin these mountain trails alone.
I wander through green valleys across the prairies, past the villages, farms and fields,
out beyond the concrete illusions where the Rocky Mountains pierce the aqua skies.
I find solace in the seclusion of another winter’s season, another place to ski,
as long as he will lay fresh powder down for me.
While you seek your fortune or search the world for fame,
be careful what you wish for, because when darkness falls upon you,
you’ll be wailing out his name.
Ski through barren aspens, see the forests through the pines,
sitting on my golden perch, am I crying out in vain?)
Sometimes you awake to find, you get what you need,
other times you take what you can get,
it is from the children that, they take everything.
Now I found that I possess this light,
from these mountains that I bring.
My gift is in my words, and for the children I’ll let them ring.
Go and tell everyone, silence is a snowflake falling,
until they hear me calling, to all the children I will sing.
Never take the last of anything.
(Refrain)
These day’s I’m a city, pretty girl painted, street wizard in his poems.
My freedom most men will never know, never have been wary of cardboard box labels,
fabled to contain rainbows.
Someday when their hair turns grey, their youth will have faded away,
with the colors that lost their shine.
The all American Gazebo Band plays behind, the new red white and corporate blue,
flag that flies against the changing hues.
Another rock opera story, of old glory and town with out it’s name.
Somewhere in time, the poet’s rhyme, makes a cosmic connection,
Then the Seer Sayers arrive in stages, and history endures the ages.
As a simple man who dreams beyond the Appletree Lane,
he sees a sunrise within her eyes.
And the hobo dude plays Howard Hughes, attempting to fill Dylan’s shoes,
to find out why they came.
But in disgrace, he falls from grace, to find success is not what they claim.
Listen Children to a thorn bird shrilly singing,
this truth you’ve heard, from a poet and his strings.
Fox
He said,
“My name is Vondall- but
you can call me Fox,
been all over the world.
Lived in Germany in the service.
From Oklahoma, if
Ya ever been there
you’d know why
I live in the Vail Valley,
but everyone calls me Little Joe.”
Hit and Run!
Sun Valley local sentenced
to 30 days in jail
and a fine of $300
in a hit and run
ski crash.
Million Dollar Cowboy Bar
(Jackson, Wyoming)
When I heard they had leather horse saddles
instead of stools
a slick polyurethane topped bar
covering silver dollars
said to be worth a million dollars
I couldn’t help it,
I mean
clomping down the old west
wooden sidewalk
into the local branch bank.
Exchanging hard earned
green back paper dollars
for shiny new silver ones.
One precariously placed behind
a rattle snake skin rimmed
beat up brown Stetson cowboy hat.
Sidling up to the row of saddles
stepping into a stirrup swinging
a Frye booted denim leg over it.
A real tourist
biting down hard on a shiny coin
not realizing it would hurt my tooth.
The way it never did
my childhood cowboy heroes.
Tossing it clinking on the bar
growling redeye bar keep.
My eyes drawn to his holstered
wood grained handled 44
rawhide string strapped thigh.
Thinking about it just now
I’d be tempted to ask.
Listen,
would you consider
a seedy graffiti filled
New York city subway car
5 black men with
razor sharp screwdrivers drawn
menacingly approaching asking
Brother can you spare a five?
A life threatening situation?
Or as a columnist for the New York Times
tells the story
a casual shakedown.
Would the people of the town of Jackson
erect
a Bernard Getz memorial statue
amidst an ivory elk antlered arched village square.
Where an honest man can
still carry a gun.
Lloyd Lambert’s Day At Hunter Mountain
You never did find out why you started receiving free passes
to Lloyd Lambert’s day at Hunter Mountain in the Catskills.
Perhaps it was a gift from the snow god.
Pure grape wine
that’s what the label said,
“Mad Dog 20/20.”
It certainly was bitter at eight o’clock in the morning.
The wine of the century,
along with a finely rolled joint,
thank God and Mogen David,
the proper tools for the proper job
and attitude adjustment.
Touloose,
Expert fire starter, the trick was to use excellent dry kindling,
of course the small jar of aviation fuel, from the silver streak, your BMW motorcycle,
had absolutely nothing to do with your great fires.
Spring skiing, magnum of wine,
chilling,
in the melting snows,
sausage patties sizzling on the open fire.
High Noon sun warmly glowing, creating little mountain streams.
You said,
“We are wise beyond our years, even the executive who works,
for General Motors and makes,
$100,000 a year,
with a matching 401K,
isn’t here today.
When we are old grey haired men,
about to pass from this world.
We will look back upon our lives and we won’t remember,
how much money we made,
how big our wooden boxes were that we lived in,
how many motorized metal containers we owned,
how big our yachts in our slips were,
we will remember and cherish,
our youth spent on mountains,
these days,
and savor the memories.”
Touloose, eminent philosopher, businessman, and ski bum,
comrade,
“Never take the last of anything I told you,”
handing you the last swig of wine.
The seventy year old man,
we drank shots with at the bar,
who had just won his first downhill race that day.
He informed us that we were lucky men.
We never did get to meet Lloyd Lambert,
although we were always in time for the Smorgasbord.
STH
(Snowbird, Utah)
S
T
E
E
P
E
R
T
H
A
N
Hell
I
F
You
F
A
L
L
T
H
A
T
I
S
A
L
L
X
Ski Patrolman
(For Touloose)
How is it that you need to be so free?
Why can’t all the other’s see
in a second’s glance
to perceive
the awesome danger of an avalanche.
While corporate executives
fill their briefcases with
unearned bonuses of business might
you fill your knapsack
with charges of DHP and pull start igniters
you know your right
when the charge has been thrown
the entire mountainside slides
exactly the way you knew it would.
Suddenly Life,
Was Turning Out To Be,
More than Just Mashed Potatoes and Gravy.
Leaving Denver’s
snow capped mountain peaks,
tearing, tugging at my heart.
A slick, sleek, silver jet streaks,
over Pac-man like farm fields,
flying towards Charleston, South Carolina.
May, Friday the thirteenth,
me, joking with my travel agent.
Saying, “as long I am not
on flight thirteen,
in the thirteenth seat.
Why yes, you certainly are
professional for only
your first week on your new job.”
Changing flights in Atlanta’s
soft computerized woman’s
voice saying, “Concourse B-
Use shuttle platform C.”
I deplane in Charleston,
walk out of the airport,
into the evening setting sun,
standing with by blue suitcases,
in Charleston, West Virginia.
Little Tommy Toot
“Does any body have any speck?”
Someone yells at the Piccolo Spoleto Arts Festival Theatre
in Charleston, South Carolina.
I slink down in my seat as
Professor types with tweed jackets and arm patches
turn to check out the unruly crowd.
Little Tommy Toot, the speck man
smiles his teeth clenched tightly
his eyes wide
like a mad crazed killer
as he passes a bindle
and a guitar pick.
Mount Sneffles
(14,150 ft.)
The turquoise water ripples
wind rustles yellow
aspen’s among dark evergreens.
Mr. Snuffleuffegus
can’t climb this one.
Mount of the Holy Cross
The melting spring snows
from nature’s ivory cross
trickle down through
the jagged rock ravines
filling the high alpine
earthen bowl of tears.
God’s way of crying
for his dying
Coventry.
Morning Light
Morning light,
revealed the gently falling snow.
Darkness unveiled,
Stole silently, stubbornly, assured of resurrection.
Mr. Plastic Fantastic
Old ski bums,
they never die,
they,
just turn plastic
but don’t mind me if
I seem somewhat sarcastic
It’s just that I
am practicing to be
Mr. Plastic Fantastic.
An Apology to all American Children
I’m so sorry children
now there is no
Mountain King
to let you
ski for free.
Pure Poetry
Tyler Thompson was an Adventurer and would take his lumps where they came. He was the happiest when he was on a new adventure. It was his responsibility to write about them. If he didn’t who would? The Academic Scholars? The state dull scholars. The stiff upper lipped scholars who had never seen the inside of a railroad box car. The stuffy scholars who talked about grants and artist’s colonies, until you were bored to tears by their stuffy poetry and stale prose.
Pure poetry he thought was sitting Indian style on the rough plank wood of a railroad flat bed car. The wind is gently rustling through your hair, the cool evening Wyoming wind. Your eyes are filled with thousands of mule deer slowly making their way into the fresh greenness of the Big Horns. The sun is big orange and wonderfully glowing vibrantly. Your arms are aching from swinging a twelve pound sledge hammer all day long. They hurt so much you don’t have the strength to put them under your pillow at night.
You glance off into the heat shimmer of the distant plain. You squint into the sunset where the horizon and the narrowing tracks come together. You see a Burlington Northern coal train coming. You hear its horn cry. The cry cuts deep, deep into your soul and you are alone. You’re the loneliest you have ever been in your life, and you don’t want to be alone anymore. You have blisters on the blisters of your big hands and for the rest of your life every time you hear a train whistle, you instinctively shiver. You clench your big hand into a fist and you shiver in loneliness.
Suddenly, you see on the front of the train that a big thick logging chain has come loose. It’s a big black ugly snake and it’s pounding the living piss out of the Wyoming Plains. You see Pedro, the Mexican who works the spike nailer. He can’t speak any English or understand it either. He is by the tracks. Your up on our feet on the flatbed car, your waving your arms, your tired arms, and your screaming into the wind. He can’t hear you. Your screaming and train the is bearing down on him. The chain is furiously pounding the plains. Your running and screaming. The wind is howling in your ears. Your screaming your head off and he can’t hear you or he can’t understand you, because he only comprehends that green means to start the rail road spike nailer and red means to stop it. The train is getting closer and so are you. He hears you holler and turns fully toward you. You yell to him, “Pedro! Pedro! Get the fuck out of the way!”
You motion to him to turn around and he finally does. The big black ugly snake of a chain catches him in the stomach. The force of six diesel locomotives coupled to a mile of cars filled with Wyoming Anthracite forces the chain through Pedro like he was butter. Pedro’s torso topples to the ground and Pedro’s blood and his guts spill out of his standing abdomen, all over the Wyoming Plains.
A Star Is Born
So know you know,
I’m going to be
a golden American mountain poet star,
and I can’t even play a guitarmountain!
Albert Bianchine
Security...what is that? Something negative, undead, suspicious and suspecting; an avarice and an avoidance; a self-surrendering meanness of withdrawal; a numerable complacency and an innumerable cowardice. Who would be “secure”? Every and any slave. No free spirit ever dreamed of “security”- or, if he did, he laughed; and lived to shame his dream. No whole sinless sinful sleeping waking breathing human creature ever was (or could be) bought by, and sold for, “security”. How monstrous and how feeble seems some unworld which would rather have its too than eat it’s cake!
e.e. cummings
i-Six Nonlectures, 1953
On the Wings of the Last Karner Blue Butterfly
Come,
Come to North America my friends
see the radiating beauty.
It lies from within
know that it is
under my skin
in my eyes
like the wings of the last
Karner Blue Butterfly.
Upon the Ocean’s Breezes
Listen!
The ocean’s breezes are beckoning
across the Isle Ellis
they are calling
extraordinary artisan’s
accustomed to nature listening
Apres her lady’s commissioning
to let our collective lights shine
brighter than the torch
lit for Liberty
to let our collective voices
be raised for all of humanity
crying from the ocean’s depths of peasantries
combating the silence of indifference
armed with swords of insignificance
to stem the rising tides
of Amerekaan Armageddon’s
turning back the raging seas
of Radical Extremism’s blasphemies
spewing from the cauldron’s
tended by the World’s Aristocracies
beckoning across the sea’s of mediocrity.
A Ticket to the Fair
(For the rededication of the Statue of Liberty 1986)
I dream that my manuscript of poetry
will be my ticket to fair
so that I could
look into the eyes of
all of the who’s who of the they’s
that will be there.
So that I could scream,
“Set the Children Free”.
From the Belly of the Beast
Once,
I stood strong and tall
atop America’s highest mountain peak.
Turning I faced Mecca toward the East,
to my eyes came this vision of a holocaust
that brought me to my knees.
Touching the very depth’s of my soul,
I saw the American Armada’s storming the seven seas.
Hear my voice ring, for truth and freedom for the children.
To every nation’s mountain peaks
From the depth’s of the belly of the beast.
Upon the Mountains
Go upon the Mountains,
my beautiful innocent children.
Leave the cities far behind,
for they,
they in their ingratitude.
Condemn themselves
to their solitude.
In the Wake of a Cultural Giant
Often,
I would sit on the cobble stone retaining wall
at lookout point in the Helderberg Mountains
and stare at the ivory towers of the Empire State Plaza Complex
marble masterpiece employing the working class citizens.
The renaissance and renovation of Albany, New York
was magnificent to live and grow through.
The cockroach filled tenements and slum housing restored
to earth tone colored Historic Brownstones, each bearing
a dated black oval raised gold letter plaque.
Solid upper middle class citizens live there now.
Often,
as I would sit on the cobblestone rock retaining wall
at Lookout Point in the Helderberg Mountains
I pondered,
Where have all the poor people gone
in the Wake of a Cultural Giant?
The Liberty Express
Mark my name well
against the annals of history
All of you
who dwell so comfortably
among the World’s Aristocracies.
I have been among your peasantries.
My Liberty Express
is a mythical golden chairlift.
It is on time and
bound to the plight
of truth and freedom
for the children of the world.
Into the Light
One day,
far above America I was gliding
in my ecstasy I flew too high
and I burnt my wings
down,
down,
down, to the earthen ground I crashed
with a heavy sigh,
in the depth’s of despair and confusion
of a drunken drug filled rage of my darkest hour
whereupon I wailed and bemoaned my fate
I raised my fist to heaven
letting forth a mournful cry.
There, there from a blackened sky
came this beam of light
into the light I stand with my outstretched hands.
Listen!
Hear my voice ring from every American Mountain Peak!
For now I possess this light
it is for you that I will let it shine.
If in your first attempt you fail.
Try,
Try,
And try again like I
in your attempt to touch the sky.
Assimilation
It is from deep inside
I do perceive
the vicious web
society weaves.
When you are young
and your mind still blank
they assimilate you through
their ungodly rank.
Where,
Conform! Conform!
are the words well worn
and individuality
pays
the price of scorn.
A Free Spirit
When they say that I
I have certain dues
that to them in this life
I must pay
or that I
must stand in their lines.
I will say, “Stick it in your ear,
for I am a free spirit
and as a free
spirit I am
willed not to hear it.”
The Wind in the Helderberg’s
A sunset’s golden glow
exposing remnants of
Autumn’s crimson leaves.
Grass clippings smoldering, smoking
erupting in the twilight
of falls tawny flickering flames.
The weeping willow crying out
in a contemptuous moan
grinding wheel grating against
hardened steel grumping
a throaty groan.
The wood pile in urgent need
of small kindling and I,
I deftly chopping
dead decaying branches.
You,
feeding the fire of the fifty-five gallon drum
carefully examining the rotting tree trunk
finding a fossil.
Of what,
some prehistoric animal?
Or, only the antler
of some other season’s deer.
Connecticut city boy turned country gentleman
you couldn’t resist using my
newly sharpened axe
to try an punch holes for air
in the bottom of the thick metal drum.
“Look!” You say to me.
“Look!
I really love this life
the hard work the
sense of self accomplishment.
Look!
Last year this time I,
I was unemployed,
Now I,
I own this home,
I,
even go to church on Sunday”
The smoke billows up curling
lazily into wispy cirrus clouds.
Listen!
peeling white birch bark
gentle rustling leaves
bare trees.
“Listen!”
I say, “it’s that now
your heart,
it belongs
to the wind in the Helderberg’s.”
Uncle George and the Steelies
A small brown leather sewn sack, always clutched tightly by his big dirty hands. A smelly old white owl cigar stuck from his mouth. His dark beady eyes were drawn, as he carefully undid the draw string. Big strong arthritic hands trembling, hands that you didn’t dare shake, for fear he would never let you go from those vice grips. Reaching in his leather bag, he would pull out his closed fist, clenched ever so tightly.
“If you can get my hand open you can have what’s inside,” he’d say.
I the younger and the smallest always struggled, strained and pulled one finger at a time. Until I could snatch the large round metal steelie, prized for playing marbles with, from those big misshapen hands.
(Thompsons Lake, The Helderberg’s, New York State)
The Thompson’s Lake Refrain
Awaken so gently to the music of the breeze
it’s song a sweet nectar
as honey to the bees.
The trees’ cry out
with a contemptuous moan
the frog’s are grumping a throaty groan.
“Good Morning, Good Morning it’s that time at the lake
the people are all gone and it’s time to relate.
The bunnies have been up and munching for awhile
now bring your face out and give us a smile.
Your dog Dusty there has been chasing the cat.
Old Frank on the porch is getting quite fat.
It’s near mid-morning and time for your swim
forget about work, it sounds to grim.
Jump In, Jump In, The water awaits you
so nice and warm
it loves to caress you and keep you from harm
remember you love it
every second is a pleasure
it is time you will treasure.”
A series of 5k races sponsored by Stroh’s benefiting the Statue of Liberty. Held in Albany, New York
Stroh’s Run for Liberty
I run for Liberty
where,
I once walked.
A Golden Poet King
Sometimes,
I feel as if I
am a marionette
of a golden mountain poet king.
Dancing to a cosmic tune
for her heart,
of golden strings.
Even White Knights Stumble, Guinevere
A white warrior walked
amidst the grandeur
of the mountains
that his Lord God had made.
Where in he found
inner strength,
peace, and
sobriety.
A question to Guinevere
So Listen!
When I become,
a golden American Mountain Poet King.
“Would you be,
My Video Queen?”
The Poet that came out of the Closet
For so very long now,
I have been struggling, juggling,
fighting a conflict internally.
I’ve tried to run and I’ve tried to hide,
I’ve tried to subdue
the growing power
of my love of poetry.
Oh! It was a classic case
of the mistaken muse,
the worst of possible maladies.
I’d refuse to write,
with any regularity,
not one of the men
in the rest of my working class family,
has been afflicted
with this insanity.
Five will get you Ten
“Say Hey, Joe-
Did ya hear about
the man who made it big,
in the big time.
Say’s he started with
Five-
Five Grand-
Then made Ten-.”
That Lost Weekend
Don’t tell me it’s over,
a relationship can’t work
you cannot take a seed
plant it in fertile soil
cover it in darkness and secrecy
and expect it to blossom
into a beautiful flower.
Love grows in sunshine
and open air.
A Promise to Katarina
Tomorrow I will awake
and you will be there.
The golden sun shining through
your graying hair.
You will bring to my heart
the most joyous feelings,
the very sight of your beautiful smile.
Then we shall take
each others hands.
Together we will
make them understand.
We will give them our love
of each other and illuminate
The American Land.
K now that you are a divine creation the lord has conceived. His gift of love that shines from you illuminates the darkness of the World.
A lways look forward to the future for there in lies your key to happiness. The days well lived will bring fulfillment and everlasting joy.
T races of your yesterdays cloud the sunshine of your skies. The warmth and radiance of your soul clears them to allow in the rays of light.
A nswer on to your heart’s desire. Your capacity for love is your treasure. The greatest romance you could have is yours for the asking.
R emember always the golden moments of your life. Cherish the deep friendships that Blossom within the garden of your personality.
I nnocence is last among the disillusionments of youth. Your perfume of peace, a wild fire of bliss, amidst the compassion of the Divine Mother.
N ow the strength of your magnetism sustains the power of your will. All your sorrows have disappeared with the passing of years.
A wakening the spiritual woman with Divine Love. Endowing her with the goodness and the sweetness of the honey of God.
Restless Spirits, Harnessed Spirits
Green fields,
spirits
running wild
across and endless eternity.
Hooves pounding on the turf
trodden by many men’s souls
before
slowing, slowing
only to a walk.
For at last a fence is it harnessed in.
Old Man
Old Man,
sittin in a chair
ain’t goin nowhere
so you’ve been to war.
I guess you know the score.
Old Man,
your hair turned grey
whatta you goin to do today.
Old Man,
you’re high on life.
Old Man,
you gotta skinny old wife.
Young Man writing down his rhyme.
Old Man,
taught you all about time.
My Mary
My Mary comes a totin her acid,
My Mary comes a totin her tea,
My Mary comes to give her love,
and receives it back from me.
My Mary she flies so high,
My Mary she flies so low,
I hope my precious Mary knows,
just which way to go.
My Mary she sings from cliff tops,
My Mary she sings from trees,
and if My Mary is without a song,
she can come and sing with me.
Nantucket Yacht Club Slip Blue
Eerie early morning drizzle dripping
off yellow
Sears rain slickers
blue fog steaming
Captain Zoom’s coke bottle bottomed
John Lennon glasses.
“Did I know you
were legally blind
without them?”
Starring through streaming
streaking shiny bright brass
framed teak deck
yacht port holes
filled with rainbow colored
crystal liquor decanters
bustling blue
uniformed suited crews.
You said,
“Certainly some have not
what the others have.”
Your vision was perfect
for the fall of 1973.
A Drunken Sailor in Saratoga
A drunken sailor, I met in
a bar in Saratoga said,
“I’ve sailed all over
the World-never seen
anything quite as beautiful
as the Golden Gate of
San Francisco’s harbor
through the dissipating fog
of a morning’s haze.
He stumbled to the door
shaking his finger
and looking back at me
like there was some-thing
about me
he found different.
Fat Albert
God how I hated Bill Cosby
The goading, teasing, chiding
“Hey, Hey, Hey.”
I grew up in
an Italian family
thought my name
for the first five years
of my life was
“eat albert,” except they said it
differently every good boy deserves
food as much as they can eat
3 times a day
imagine that
fat albert lost his,
fat he no longer lives
on the refrigerator shelf.
Loose Items O.K.
So Listen!
The National Centers for Disease Control
unveiled a $20 million “hot lab,”
a super-sealed facility
for the study of
The World’s deadliest viruses,
including pathogens “far”
more dangerous than
AIDS.
(In Protest of the use of explosives for terrorism)
Paris, France. Wednesday September 17, 1986 Tati Discount Department Store 3:28 pm
Blast. 53 wounded 5 dead mothers and children.
The report of a one hundred and five millimeter recoilless rifle
echoes through Big Cottonwood Canyon of
The Wasatch National Forest of Utah
gently awakening avalanches
rumbling through snowfields
above the timberline
of a sleeping Brighton and Solitude mountain sides
snow shifting, sliding, slicing, slamming, snapping
down among hundreds of year old pines.
Organizations I would like to see
M others
A gainst
W ar
S tudents
A gainst
W ar
W omen
A gainst
N uclear
H olocaust
United Food for thought Family Farms
I am a man
Alone
I have picked stones from fields.
We are men
united we have the strength
to move the mountain.
The Child in My Arms
I swear to you
Lord
that the child died in my arms
after a man made storm.
When will we stop from
continuing to hide,
against blatant acts
of genocide.
Now the coca leaves
I chew.
They help
to ease the pain
between the downpours
of yellow rain.
A Thought in a Garden
Strolling across an upward sloping grass hill
ending against a large brownstone building.
A grey slate roof slanting, shading, small
square glass paned windows of
genteel elegance.
A white trellised archway opening
pink petunia rows of
crimson roses, chrysanthemum, hyacinth blending,
daisy, dahlias.
When the poets dreamed
and writing scholar’s schemed
inside this mansion and garden walls.
Did they think of the mason’s fingers split open
sewn together needled black thread against
the drying cracking concrete lye
or the stone laborer
back bone weight weary
that built the grounds
of Yaddo?
A Thought of You
I thought of you
the day they launched Atlantis.
In the after burner’s gleam
I thought I’d seen
with a vision of crystal clarity,
another maiden’s voyage
upon an emerald sheen.
Poet to Poet
Today,
as many days lately
you
were in my thoughts.
Reflections, the way life once was
images
of bright white footlights
and snow covered mountain peaks
cascade
like sparkling, glittering, gleaming crystals.
Transforming,
melting, melding
like flowing rivers
into the sea.
Podunk Poet
Phoning
Friendly
Felicitous
Females
For
Fun.
Loves Hurts
Leaving you
Standing there
Falling wet snow
Me
Tripping over a piece of my heart
As I turned to leave
Ev what a black widow’s web you secretly weaved
I wish that you could see
From inside of my eyes
To hear the sound of empty lies
Wondering why?
Leaving me unaware waiting there.
A Promise to Evelyn
Today, I heard
the mountains call our names
through the Northwest Wind.
They said,
I was to be a mountain poet king
and you an artist queen.
A snowflake for your dreams.
The Burning Desire
In you eyes,
I see
a sunrise
glowing vibrantly orange
cresting to illuminate the land
of an American Nation
from the top of the Grand Traverse
at thirteen thousand feet in elevation,
my soul smolders like the fires of Yellowstone
off in the distant horizon
making their way
2 days later
into the Vail Valley
In your eyes,
I see
destiny
crawling from the frothing seas
growing into an everlasting sanctity,
like a light beckoning
me into eternity.
Unrequited Love
Love is a gift,
to be given without the expectation of reciprocation.
Love heals,
the wounds of temporary setbacks and failures.
To be held in esteem by a loved one,
is one of life’s magnificent pleasures.
Mutual love,
forms a bond as healthy and strong a mighty Sequoia.
Unrequited love,
eventually empties the well.
Manhattan Midnight Moonlight
“Listen,” you say, “it’s the worst case of
blue balls I never go this long
with out it.”
You say, “How do you do it?”
You mean me
being over thirty never
married, your manhood
suspect by, aunt’s, grandmother’s, divorcee’s.
Saying always, “I know this nice girl.”
You say, “Your problem is, you place women
on pedestals give them
the top
and they’ll hurt you.”
Me saying, “I don’t view all women
as my semen receptacles.”
“Listen,” you say, “I love my wife,
it’s just that I get tired of it,
being the same sometimes’
I just want it to be different.”
Me jotting down phone numbers
from a seedy pamphlet
lit by the dim lights on
The Staten Island Ferry
watching the crashing waves by
Ellis Island’s Statue of Liberty.
Little pink nipples peering
through black leather bras
crotch less pantied women wielding whips
captions reading Dominique, Desiree,
Master card and Visa accepted.
Riding graffiti filled subway cars
into Times Square,
stumbling drunk down cracked concrete sidewalks
cramming quarters into black plastic phones
seeking my idea of getting lucky.
Abandoning the search to purchase
a shish kebob from a man with a hibachi
in the Manhattan Midnight Moonlight.
You saying, “It’s probably dog meat.”
Then a panhandler’s blues saxophone wails.
In a Dream
Sometimes,
late at night I
lie awake and I
I catch a falling snowflake
and I wonder where my youthful dreams have gone.
It wasn’t long ago
I would sit with
Touloose, Crème King, Fast Eddy (The Buckle Meister), and Captain Zooms
on the various American Mountain Peaks
and discuss all the men wasting their youths
To live in bigger wooden boxes or drive fancier motorized metal containers,
climbing the ladder of corporate and factory society.
Just Accomplish It!
In order to put
mountains in the eyes
of your children,
keep them in the eyes
of your characters.
A Gift Given Me
One Day,
at the base of Whiteface Mountain
I thought of someone special and
about a gift he’d given me.
I ascended swiftly into a silver silken sea
in a crystal vision Mother Mary came to me.
She whispered to me softly,
words to sooth my fear.
I soared so gracefully
far above the timberline.
I descended slowly only
after I had picked my line
down among the emerald pines.
One Day,
at the base of Whiteface Mountain
I thought of someone special
about a gift he’d given me.
Written for the shortening of Chair Six of Whiteface Mountain for the 1980 Winter Olympics.
Chair Six
Oh! carousel of well worn
blue wooden chairs ascend me swiftly
upon the summit of your face.
Stark, lonely, loving, longing,
fair milk maiden’s lips
forever locked, granite windswept cheeks
ominous in your blue ice
laden grace.
Teeth chattering trembling fear
your North winds wailing,
searching, searing, stiff
frozen denim jeans.
The smell of
wet grey woolen poncho’s.
Turning out the Faithful
They,
tore down the old rustic white porched hotel and replaced it
with a brand new concrete and steel sparkling Hilton
at one Mirror Lake Drive.
I met a man in the Ancient Mariner who sold the Olympic
Organizing Committee 50,000 hot seats for the grandstands
everyone knows just how fiercely cold the winter’s of Lake Placid can be.
Everyone was going to make a Million Dollars.
Christmas Eve, the Chair Six Lounge, all the non local, especially for
The Olympic Entrepreneurs, tears falling like the rain in the streets.
Everyone was going to make a Million Dollars.
The Semi’s rolling through town from Saranac
heavily laden with man made snow
a caravan of determination and fierce pride
that is the American Spirit.
During the build up to the period
of the 1980 Winter Olympics
many landlords turned out their
faithful tenants of many years
for the high rents they could receive.
Trading Trinkets, Tall Tales, Telling Lies
Downtown any town’s Main street
this town, down
passed a shellacked shiny brass handled
carved crescent moon wooden door of
“The Ancient Mariner”
across the street from an old fashioned Bijou
sequenced white bulb Marquee
Flashing, “Fiddler on the roof.”
Butted by a brown concrete, steel, Lake Placid Hilton
descending down two flights
of green canopied wooden stairs.
“The Artist’s Café”
lapped white waves of Mirror Lake
reflecting the lights of “The Cottage”
and the excitement of the 1980 Winter Olympics
across from the Lake Placid Club
it’s walls filled with the owner’s original art
bustling buxom waitresses.
Comrade Ivan leaping to his feet touching my pins from Solitude and Brighton
would I care to trade for his shiny Soviet bears
slapping him on the back saying,
“certainly mine were worth a bit more, perhaps
one possibly two martini’s.”
Telling tales till they became martooni’s
The bustling waitress asking,
“Was I, could I be, an Olympic Athlete?”
Me smiling devilishly saying,
“Why, yes,
would she,
care to come to my room.
to view my gold medals from Europe.”
“No Hang Gliding”
...Goats Path....
dropping off
a narrow winding cat walk
from Mt. Mansfield,
Stowe, Vermont.
A square wooden sign says,
“No hang gliding”.
Before entering a field of Moguls,
as big as Volkswagens,
parked sideways.
Behind the Times
I am just a lonely poet
atop an emerald pine
so come inside of my mind
and live behind the times.
Now I,
I ride the six thirty number 55 express
into a three hundred year old Albany, New York.
I,
I stare through my reflection
longing for connection
through the windows of a new days sun’s direction.
All the bitter couples faces
stirs my memories traces
where these haunting feelings linger
giving my Alta ego
the Utah blue’s again.
Oh! To be twenty five and hear the report
of a one hundred and five millimeter recoilless rifle echoing
a good morning cry
gently awakening avalanches
rumbling high above timberline
moving mountainsides of Mt. Millicent of Brighton,
and awakening a Honeycomb Canyon of Solitude
in Big Cottonwood Canyon of the Wasatch National Forest.
Alas, I choose to be
a lonely poet
atop my emerald pine
but come inside of my mind and live behind the times.
By the hourly fruits of my labor
I am the last man in History to be awarded the coveted
seasons ski pass at Arapahoe Basin.
The, then, highest lift operated ski mountain in North America.
To the accompaniment of Daniel’s sitar I recited my poetry
to the laughter and gaiety of the passerby’s for dollar bills
in the village square at the base of Vail Mountain.
While my contemporaries have accrued the material possessions
that I now desire
by giving up their youths to do so,
I have quietly collected snowflakes and mountain peaks.
Forever there will loom a fork in the road of life’s horizon
some will follow the trodden path
while others leave a wagon rutted trail.
Neither should carry the label of success or failure
instead we should applaud the individual freedom
to make that choice,
only in America.
Out of the Gondola Shed at Gore Mountain
(with Touloose)
Bright radiant red
chariot cherry plastic bubbles
“All the way to the top men,”
a lift attendant’s
warm wry smile.
His bright orange ski cap,
pulled well over the ears
Keeping out the biting cold.
Clomp and thump,
Clomp and thump,
hurriedly mad crazed killers
Plunging home our skis and poles.
Swish,
Heaven’s gate slides shut
a zero down gloved hand
bearing a radiant silver cross
that turns the key
clicking the latch
locking away
the chosen ones.
Bumping, bouncing,
bursting out
bathed in luminous sunlight
ivory crystals
set upon forest green pines
sparkling
pale blue skies
swaying, swinging,
precariously perched on a sterling
stranded string
dangling there.
Touloose
his purple passion hat
cocked over an optic gleam
a comrade in arms
comes his familiar cackle,
“Ain’t it the tits,” his breath hangs frozen
a cumulus cloud
moist
splashing against my brow
dissipating with our fears
into the quiet
frigid serenity.
The, “Oh My God!” Refrain
I have not many material possessions
material possessions are balls and chains
But, I know every inch of every trail
and every mountain peak in America.
I once walked from Dillion, Colorado over
the Continental Divide through Loveland Pass to
stop at Central City the oldest City in Colorado.
Where God made all men,
but Commander Colt made them equal
To meditate upon Virginia Canyon,
nicknamed, “Oh My God Canyon!”
after the first words that are
uttered by the view
of it’s grandeur.
Before continuing through Nederland
and the mountain tunnels of route six
where the prairie dogs play
at the base of the Flat Irons
rising out of the Gold Hills
to welcome you to the Valley floor of Boulder.
just to get the zipper on my tough traveler
knapsack repaired for free at the factory.
Against the Wall
(At Killington, Vermont)
Listen!
The prevailing winds
whisper,
they dance,
across the rolling meadows,
at Killington in Vermont.
Blowing wet snowflakes
that stick to my eyelids,
and freeze my toes.
A Powder Run
Light airy no where,
emerald trees my eyes see.
I hear nothing but fear.
Hidden pockets of which to fall in,
always reminding me of him,
God’s crystalline chowder.
(The further trials of the world’s greatest ski bum)
2 cents overdrawn
Mick Jagger on a full screen
MTV video screaming,
“I’m just waiting on a lady,
I’m just waiting on a friend.”
Gold Peak restaurant bar
warming my hands on a
steaming ceramic coffee filled mug
arriving one day later than,
the Vail Mountain employee draw.
Being 2 cents overdrawn and scribbling,
like Gollum caressing his precious, precious,
my powder snow poetry.
Leaving the restaurant like that,
I mean with blue words
on a white paper napkin
thinking them worth much
more than 2 missing pennies.
Pulling on down gloves
trudging into the wilderness,
like Strider the Ranger.
Never really fitting in
like a brown slab wood cabin
mud caulked chinked
with a grey stone chimney
sizzling snowshoe rabbit
smoke billowing wafting
through silent aspen’s.
It hangs drifting like
cotton ball clouds
sparkling crystals bending emerald boughs of pines.
A skinny ski trail snaking around
deep powder tree wells
to a stoked glowing fireplace
in the Arapahoe National Forest
warding off dusk.
A Tear By The Way
“Been climbing at Devil’s Tower
some of he 5-8 pitches were hard
Tho, I laughed all the way up.
I live in Breck, (Breckenridge, Colorado) during the winter
work as a waitron nights so I
I can board all day. Same
as now cept
I’m a fly clinging to and climbing
cracks all day.
Wyoming is big and beautiful,
endless vista’s and horizon’s
stretching into forever
glowing orange sun hanging
half in, half out of the Earth
light blue hue
tiny white wisps of cirrus
clouds rushing by
winds whipping
ripping my hair blonde
from it’s long pony tail
stinging my breasts.
There was nothing I could do
dangling on my descent
rappelling requires
complete concentration.
Saw you hitch-hiking your
blue and black Dana Design Pack
against your tan smooth skin
you know you have a climber’s body.
It’s too bad I turn here for
Eldora Canyon tho
this should get you far enough
out of Boulder.
It’s a pity
we couldn’t climb with one another.
My name is
Tear by the way.”
Elfie, Mr. Tweedy, and the Missing Insurance Claim Check
She is world renowned,
for her stained glass skiers in
Vail Village she cuts colored
pieces of glass places them carefully on
patterns of white Styrofoam
numbered in sequence, one
two, three in her shop she
fluxes between the cracks
before soldering with her hot iron
she reads novels in German
with and accent says,
“I still haven’t received my
insurance claim check for
Mr. Tweedy’s broken
World Alpine, 1989 piece.”
We had packed it and shipped it
ever so painstakingly in
bubble wrap, wrapped twice
after cutting foam panels for ends
and carefully placing it in cardboard,
suspended in foam peanuts
Taped in double boxes, prudently.
I should have known when
Mad Maxine the crazy U.P.S.
driver in her brown uniform
and red laced hiking boots
black smudged hands, from handling cartons
would come in to the pack-n-ship
telling dirty jokes,
“Do you know why Jewish women
have wrinkles around their eyes. It’s
from squinting at their husband’s
penis behind closed doors.”
Saying, “You want me to do what to it?”
She looks at the parcel with
the “This Side Up” and “Fragile”
stickers plastered all over it and
says, “Hey, what state is
the city of “Fragile” in anyway,
and did you know these
are supposed to be packaged
so that they can be
thrown at least ten feet.”
Dr. Bumps!
(of Vail, Colorado)
He’s Fred and he’s sixty
and he’s been banged in the head.
The oldest skier on the Pro
Mogul Tour.
How It Should Be
Some men grow
and they go away to war.
My friends and I
we went to ski.
It is how it should be.
Free Nelson Mandella
(MON)
Harry Belafonte’s voice comes over
the Colorado Zephyr air waves yelling
“Is anybody out there?
Can any one hear me?
Is any one listening?
To a 1960’s movie
where he is the last black man
on earth, co-starring Inger Stevens.
“Free Nelson Mandella,” he yells,
“Nelson Mandella has been
a political prisoner for
the past twenty-five years
in a South African jail.”
Then Ziggy Marley sings an up
tempo reggae tune asking,
“Tomorrow people where is your best?
“Tomorrow people how long may you last?”
Suddenly I’m trans---ported to
The State University of New York at Albany
I’m in the library reading
the only book by the poet Lyn Lifshin
I can find written through
the eyes of Blue Seneca Indians
waiting for a Bob Marley
concert without Bob Marley
just the wailers
I’m with Touloose
as usual and I say,
“I really wish you were a girl.”
(I’m tired of being alone in a crowd.)
(I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.)
I’m suddenly jolted back to reality, back into
my own political exile.
I think of Nelson Mandella languishing
in prison all the time
I was a spoiled young man
skiing all over America.
Jimmy Cliff comes on the Zephyr
playground of the rich and the famous
in the pristine Rocky Mountains.
Singing, “Sitting here in limbo
waiting for the sky to fall,
sitting here in limbo
but I know my faith will
lead me home.....
well
they’re putting up resistance,
but I know
my faith will lead me home.....”
(The most insane trial of the world’s greatest ski bum)
Please! No Ski Boots!
“Look, I’m a crazy writer!” I scream at
the sheriff of Nottingham,
“I’m being forced to live
in internal exile here
and I’m not supposed to be driving
and when they find out I was they
are going to lock me up
and throw away the key.
It’s ten thirty at night
this drunken skier just
stepped out in front of
my blue Toyota ski
bum car and you tell me
where the hell he was
skiing at this late hour?
When I hit him his
ski boots came all the way up
smashed my windshield, I
panicked and slammed on the brakes,
and he shot off the hood
his skis and poles were flying everywhere
and he hit the ground real
hard with a dull sickening thud
and a real deep moan.
Now my car is like everyone else’s
in the mountain’s of Colorado
it’s temporary tags
are expired and it’s
uninsured and now
the windshield is
cracked and broken.”
A Gandy Dancer
A gandy dancer is the most primitive form of railroad worker. It is a small closely knit group of men bound tightly by the burden of their great toil. In the summer of 1979 after leaving A-Basin in Colorado, I was ski bumming and found myself in Kendricks Crossing of Wyoming on my way to ski Jackson Hole that following winter. Being broke and destitute I found myself living on a railroad siding in the middle of nowhere Wyoming and sleeping in converted rail cars, washing in shower cars and eating in dining cars.
The rail was laid onto the rail road ties in one quarter mile pieces and because of the heat of the plains where they joined together they would often overlap as much as two to three feet. A large front end loader was brought in and a twenty foot piece of rail was suspended by a logging chain. The men were lined up on each side of the piece of rail. A maneuver known as bumping rail was performed. By striking the one quarter mile piece of steel with the twenty foot piece, we would take hours if not all day to move the larger piece the distance required to couple the rail together. There was often a song or a cadence shouted or sung to establish a rhythm.
Thinking about it know, they were some of the best years of my life. The adventure and the humanity of the school of hard knocks. However, I did get to ski Jackson Hole that year.
Written on the plains of Kendricks Crossing, Wyoming
Gandy Dancer
Steel,
cold, hard, heavy,
steel sings, ring.
Gandy Man,
blisters upon your hands,
understand life’s lot.
Blue, so very god damned blue,
is the color that I choose,
just a starrin down at my tattered,
hiking shoes.
Grey,
grey is the color of my pants,
as yet one more,
of they’re working ants.
Writing my poems by the light
of a kerosene lamp,
my arms too tired,
to slide under my pillow,
looking toward another day closer
to a future filled with great white hope,
but a night time filled warding off
the smell of industrial soap.
(The Thoughts of the World’s Greatest Ski Bum)
An Alone Poem
I was all alone
at Kendricks Crossing, Wyoming
sitting Indian style on the rough wood
of a Burlington Northern Railroad
flat bed car.
Discussing life with an itinerant hobo,
when he jumped up and left
a half empty pail of rail spikes
along with his hammer.
For the beckoning call
of an open door
on a Santa Fe rail car.
Leaving me alone
to watch the sunsets
silhouetted against the ridges of the Big Horns.
Dying with the dull aching
in the muscles of my arms
between the lines
of one of my poems.
Written in Sheridan, Wyoming
Disco Bars
I am
just a child
of the sun, moon, and stars.
Sitting with my beat up brown,
Stetson hat in
Buffalo Bill’s Disco Bar.
Fresh Powder Down
A blinding blizzard beckons me into Steamboat Springs.
I arrive on the last greyhound from Vail.
My pockets full of snowflakes, a lonesome geyser’s whistle wails.
Always hiding, never tears to a cowboy’s eye.
Lord don’t let me be forsaken, the Baron’s have already taken
America by rail.
(Refrain)
(My darling I grow weary often lost without a home
but you know I’ll keep on searchin these mountain trails alone.
I wander through green valleys across the prairies, past the villages, farms and fields,
out beyond the concrete illusions where the Rocky Mountains pierce the aqua skies.
I find solace in the seclusion of another winter’s season, another place to ski,
as long as he will lay fresh powder down for me.
While you seek your fortune or search the world for fame,
be careful what you wish for, because when darkness falls upon you,
you’ll be wailing out his name.
Ski through barren aspens, see the forests through the pines,
sitting on my golden perch, am I crying out in vain?)
Sometimes you awake to find, you get what you need,
other times you take what you can get,
it is from the children that, they take everything.
Now I found that I possess this light,
from these mountains that I bring.
My gift is in my words, and for the children I’ll let them ring.
Go and tell everyone, silence is a snowflake falling,
until they hear me calling, to all the children I will sing.
Never take the last of anything.
(Refrain)
These day’s I’m a city, pretty girl painted, street wizard in his poems.
My freedom most men will never know, never have been wary of cardboard box labels,
fabled to contain rainbows.
Someday when their hair turns grey, their youth will have faded away,
with the colors that lost their shine.
The all American Gazebo Band plays behind, the new red white and corporate blue,
flag that flies against the changing hues.
Another rock opera story, of old glory and town with out it’s name.
Somewhere in time, the poet’s rhyme, makes a cosmic connection,
Then the Seer Sayers arrive in stages, and history endures the ages.
As a simple man who dreams beyond the Appletree Lane,
he sees a sunrise within her eyes.
And the hobo dude plays Howard Hughes, attempting to fill Dylan’s shoes,
to find out why they came.
But in disgrace, he falls from grace, to find success is not what they claim.
Listen Children to a thorn bird shrilly singing,
this truth you’ve heard, from a poet and his strings.
Fox
He said,
“My name is Vondall- but
you can call me Fox,
been all over the world.
Lived in Germany in the service.
From Oklahoma, if
Ya ever been there
you’d know why
I live in the Vail Valley,
but everyone calls me Little Joe.”
Hit and Run!
Sun Valley local sentenced
to 30 days in jail
and a fine of $300
in a hit and run
ski crash.
Million Dollar Cowboy Bar
(Jackson, Wyoming)
When I heard they had leather horse saddles
instead of stools
a slick polyurethane topped bar
covering silver dollars
said to be worth a million dollars
I couldn’t help it,
I mean
clomping down the old west
wooden sidewalk
into the local branch bank.
Exchanging hard earned
green back paper dollars
for shiny new silver ones.
One precariously placed behind
a rattle snake skin rimmed
beat up brown Stetson cowboy hat.
Sidling up to the row of saddles
stepping into a stirrup swinging
a Frye booted denim leg over it.
A real tourist
biting down hard on a shiny coin
not realizing it would hurt my tooth.
The way it never did
my childhood cowboy heroes.
Tossing it clinking on the bar
growling redeye bar keep.
My eyes drawn to his holstered
wood grained handled 44
rawhide string strapped thigh.
Thinking about it just now
I’d be tempted to ask.
Listen,
would you consider
a seedy graffiti filled
New York city subway car
5 black men with
razor sharp screwdrivers drawn
menacingly approaching asking
Brother can you spare a five?
A life threatening situation?
Or as a columnist for the New York Times
tells the story
a casual shakedown.
Would the people of the town of Jackson
erect
a Bernard Getz memorial statue
amidst an ivory elk antlered arched village square.
Where an honest man can
still carry a gun.
Lloyd Lambert’s Day At Hunter Mountain
You never did find out why you started receiving free passes
to Lloyd Lambert’s day at Hunter Mountain in the Catskills.
Perhaps it was a gift from the snow god.
Pure grape wine
that’s what the label said,
“Mad Dog 20/20.”
It certainly was bitter at eight o’clock in the morning.
The wine of the century,
along with a finely rolled joint,
thank God and Mogen David,
the proper tools for the proper job
and attitude adjustment.
Touloose,
Expert fire starter, the trick was to use excellent dry kindling,
of course the small jar of aviation fuel, from the silver streak, your BMW motorcycle,
had absolutely nothing to do with your great fires.
Spring skiing, magnum of wine,
chilling,
in the melting snows,
sausage patties sizzling on the open fire.
High Noon sun warmly glowing, creating little mountain streams.
You said,
“We are wise beyond our years, even the executive who works,
for General Motors and makes,
$100,000 a year,
with a matching 401K,
isn’t here today.
When we are old grey haired men,
about to pass from this world.
We will look back upon our lives and we won’t remember,
how much money we made,
how big our wooden boxes were that we lived in,
how many motorized metal containers we owned,
how big our yachts in our slips were,
we will remember and cherish,
our youth spent on mountains,
these days,
and savor the memories.”
Touloose, eminent philosopher, businessman, and ski bum,
comrade,
“Never take the last of anything I told you,”
handing you the last swig of wine.
The seventy year old man,
we drank shots with at the bar,
who had just won his first downhill race that day.
He informed us that we were lucky men.
We never did get to meet Lloyd Lambert,
although we were always in time for the Smorgasbord.
STH
(Snowbird, Utah)
S
T
E
E
P
E
R
T
H
A
N
Hell
I
F
You
F
A
L
L
T
H
A
T
I
S
A
L
L
X
Ski Patrolman
(For Touloose)
How is it that you need to be so free?
Why can’t all the other’s see
in a second’s glance
to perceive
the awesome danger of an avalanche.
While corporate executives
fill their briefcases with
unearned bonuses of business might
you fill your knapsack
with charges of DHP and pull start igniters
you know your right
when the charge has been thrown
the entire mountainside slides
exactly the way you knew it would.
Suddenly Life,
Was Turning Out To Be,
More than Just Mashed Potatoes and Gravy.
Leaving Denver’s
snow capped mountain peaks,
tearing, tugging at my heart.
A slick, sleek, silver jet streaks,
over Pac-man like farm fields,
flying towards Charleston, South Carolina.
May, Friday the thirteenth,
me, joking with my travel agent.
Saying, “as long I am not
on flight thirteen,
in the thirteenth seat.
Why yes, you certainly are
professional for only
your first week on your new job.”
Changing flights in Atlanta’s
soft computerized woman’s
voice saying, “Concourse B-
Use shuttle platform C.”
I deplane in Charleston,
walk out of the airport,
into the evening setting sun,
standing with by blue suitcases,
in Charleston, West Virginia.
Little Tommy Toot
“Does any body have any speck?”
Someone yells at the Piccolo Spoleto Arts Festival Theatre
in Charleston, South Carolina.
I slink down in my seat as
Professor types with tweed jackets and arm patches
turn to check out the unruly crowd.
Little Tommy Toot, the speck man
smiles his teeth clenched tightly
his eyes wide
like a mad crazed killer
as he passes a bindle
and a guitar pick.
Mount Sneffles
(14,150 ft.)
The turquoise water ripples
wind rustles yellow
aspen’s among dark evergreens.
Mr. Snuffleuffegus
can’t climb this one.
Mount of the Holy Cross
The melting spring snows
from nature’s ivory cross
trickle down through
the jagged rock ravines
filling the high alpine
earthen bowl of tears.
God’s way of crying
for his dying
Coventry.
Morning Light
Morning light,
revealed the gently falling snow.
Darkness unveiled,
Stole silently, stubbornly, assured of resurrection.
Mr. Plastic Fantastic
Old ski bums,
they never die,
they,
just turn plastic
but don’t mind me if
I seem somewhat sarcastic
It’s just that I
am practicing to be
Mr. Plastic Fantastic.
An Apology to all American Children
I’m so sorry children
now there is no
Mountain King
to let you
ski for free.
Pure Poetry
Tyler Thompson was an Adventurer and would take his lumps where they came. He was the happiest when he was on a new adventure. It was his responsibility to write about them. If he didn’t who would? The Academic Scholars? The state dull scholars. The stiff upper lipped scholars who had never seen the inside of a railroad box car. The stuffy scholars who talked about grants and artist’s colonies, until you were bored to tears by their stuffy poetry and stale prose.
Pure poetry he thought was sitting Indian style on the rough plank wood of a railroad flat bed car. The wind is gently rustling through your hair, the cool evening Wyoming wind. Your eyes are filled with thousands of mule deer slowly making their way into the fresh greenness of the Big Horns. The sun is big orange and wonderfully glowing vibrantly. Your arms are aching from swinging a twelve pound sledge hammer all day long. They hurt so much you don’t have the strength to put them under your pillow at night.
You glance off into the heat shimmer of the distant plain. You squint into the sunset where the horizon and the narrowing tracks come together. You see a Burlington Northern coal train coming. You hear its horn cry. The cry cuts deep, deep into your soul and you are alone. You’re the loneliest you have ever been in your life, and you don’t want to be alone anymore. You have blisters on the blisters of your big hands and for the rest of your life every time you hear a train whistle, you instinctively shiver. You clench your big hand into a fist and you shiver in loneliness.
Suddenly, you see on the front of the train that a big thick logging chain has come loose. It’s a big black ugly snake and it’s pounding the living piss out of the Wyoming Plains. You see Pedro, the Mexican who works the spike nailer. He can’t speak any English or understand it either. He is by the tracks. Your up on our feet on the flatbed car, your waving your arms, your tired arms, and your screaming into the wind. He can’t hear you. Your screaming and train the is bearing down on him. The chain is furiously pounding the plains. Your running and screaming. The wind is howling in your ears. Your screaming your head off and he can’t hear you or he can’t understand you, because he only comprehends that green means to start the rail road spike nailer and red means to stop it. The train is getting closer and so are you. He hears you holler and turns fully toward you. You yell to him, “Pedro! Pedro! Get the fuck out of the way!”
You motion to him to turn around and he finally does. The big black ugly snake of a chain catches him in the stomach. The force of six diesel locomotives coupled to a mile of cars filled with Wyoming Anthracite forces the chain through Pedro like he was butter. Pedro’s torso topples to the ground and Pedro’s blood and his guts spill out of his standing abdomen, all over the Wyoming Plains.
A Star Is Born
So know you know,
I’m going to be
a golden American mountain poet star,
and I can’t even play a guitar
Lucky Me
Some men grow
and go away to war.
My friends and I
we went to ski.
Lucky, lucky me.
A Powder Run
Light airy
no where.
Emerald trees
my eyes see.
I hear
nothing but fear.
Hidden pockets
of which
to fall in.
Always reminding me
of him.
God's Crystalline Chowder.
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