Verse by Caleb Mannan

If you like Robert Service, Longfellow, Tolkien, Milton, Robinson Jeffers, Whitman, Poe, The Bible, Tennyson, Ray Bradbury, life, death, Untermeyer, Pound, Donne, joy, sorrow, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves, children, beauty, Dante, Tom Waits, then set yourself down beside this fire.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Falcon (They believe and turn away)

Atop the monolithic turrets of
gothic water tower jutting
circa 1931
the falcon watches the children
playing with objects in the sun

When they spy and point up at him
he stays ever so still to fool them
 into thinking he is the tower
they believe and turn away

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The Lilacs are Blooming

For A.F.

She came to the tomb
to visit her religion
yet found it bare
She lingered for a moment, unsure
“The lilacs are blooming”
the stones heard her say as she left.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Whitefish Verses

In the mountains of Montana
there is a town
whose Main St. ends at the railroad tracks

On the other end of main
is the 1st Presbyterian Church
built in 1921, still standing strong
a square brick structure with stained glass windows

In the yard of the church is a rising great pine
and in this great pine a rather large raven
is rooting and cawing
shaking the whole damn tree

Winold Reiss



Winold Reiss

Winold Reiss

He put their faces to paper
without stealing their souls
when he died
the Blackfeet honored him and
scattered his ashes
near Glacier National Park
where the world first began
so that their white German immigrant
son brother
could walk with them forever