Uncles

We boys we stood side by side
And looked death in the eye
Covered in death and grime
We men looked into each others eyes

At the end of it all we would play with one another’s children,
Uncles who had seen the war

All is Well

I step outside under the high eaves of the tin roof dripping from the finally melting frost. On mornings like these as a boy I would chase deer into the forest and climb the tallest pine.

I take a piss outside, standing staring out over three distinct mountain lines demarcated in various blue hues, just now showing their forest details as the sun comes up over my back.

The deciduous trees glow orange and red like ancient fires captured in time amongst the pines. And for some reason I feel tears sting my eyes.

Her Voice

For my wife 

When my time has come
for the skiff to take me back over
the celestial sea
I ask for my wife to sing me out
She who has borne our children in womb song
and has created them with light and purpose
in tone of her treble,
she who has the voice of the Valkyrie
and they that cry Holy of Holies,
 I ask that she sing me out
Her voice as a river will comfort my flesh's fear
and sing my spirit on.
Though she may weep that I go before her
as she kneels beside the bed
 I will hear her song as I set sail
then see her face upon the other shore,
for time is no match for eternity
and eternity no match for her voice.

Crows on a horse's back

"Did you see that?"
my wife asked me as we passed a pasture.
"No" I replied.
"There were crows sitting on that horse's back"
she said
but I had not seen it.

Time is a Runner Beside Me

though I see only the path before me
and my years fall like the grass
I know time is a runner beside me
and in it I am born and dead
and alive

though I see the sky as a blanket
it is a blanket being unfurled
by time the runner beside me
and under it I am naked and clothed
and free

though my children race before me
as I begin to slow
I know time is a runner beside us
and we arrive at the beginning
together

Stevens County Verses

Old man
fixing a barbwire fence
near your red pickup in the rain
I rejoice in you

*

on the right a crow takes to the air
as a coyote crosses the road from the left
I slow to let them pass
knowing this is a cosmic connection
I may never comprehend

on being a writer

In which I discuss being a writer:

American Son

Shiva II (Vishnu)

I ponder the sea before me
the battle at my back
I close my eyes
and hear the singing sea
drown the ring of war
I am as the sea
I have no enemies
I am my only enemy
I seek in myself all wrongs
I see in others no blame
but that which I can attribute to myself
I seek to take from no one’s spirit
and they take nothing from mine
I become the restorer over the destroyer

I am become Vishnu

Caleb Mannan joins Rabble Writers writer's group

Your name is a Caleb Mannan, a Heinz 57 American writer living in Washington State. You wrote your first hot mess of a novel years ago on a dare from your beautiful bluegrass southpaw singer songwriter wife. Your three children think you are silly. Your spirit guide is your Oregon Okie grandpa who was your hero when you were a boy and died over 15 years ago. You fancy he takes the form of a crow at times. You love roughhousing poetry Tanqueray fire pine trees stars crows Miller High Life deer America music and family.

You love to write and have had your poems featured in anthologies. You are currently trying to determine if you should self publish your latest novel which has received rave rejection letters from literary agents across the States. Some of your heroes are Ray Bradbury, Tom Waits, old men, children, Robert Service, your wife, and John the Baptist. You are on a journey to make peace with the earth through writing. You want to move back to the country and own some land. The other day you spent half an hour in the backyard with your daughter watching a white balloon rise up into the blue sky until it disappeared. You see a crow. You just had a great idea you have to write down. You gotta go. 

Rabble Writers

Everybody holler! It is a good day to be alive!

The Indian elder is now decrepit and gray tailed

He sits erect in a wheelchair

his dancing legs now stiff and useless

He chants out for the children dancers

in their feathers and beaded buckskins

He chants and shouts to the white people watching

“Everybody holler! It is a good day to be alive!”

and the Indian children dancing smile at his hollering

as they weave the ancient steps

that saved their people from the plague

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

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.

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

Our Love

Aye, m’lass,
our love does grow
as the ivy o’er the stones
Taking o’er fences, taking o’er roads,
aye m’lass,
Our love does grow.

January Chill

When we first moved to the mountains
we rolled up our pants and waded in the creek,
cold to the bone,
searching for fool's gold,
until our mothers scolded us
for the January chill

Longfellow's Beard

After last year of much 'poetry' and finishing my third novel, I grew sick of hearing myself think. After I finished my novel, and had edited and sent it to my beta readers (where it now currently resides), I felt the need to write still, but as I said before, I was sick of my own thoughts.
The solution, of course, was to read Robert Graves and some novels and write poetry that was stripped to the bone.
So, for 2012, I purpose that if I should write my verses of wheat and wildflowers, I should strip them to their necessity(and even less), to say as much with as little as I could.
I shall call this new collection of stripped verse 'Longfellow's Beard'.

That is all.

Lion's Mane

In the sunset
all the colors of the Lion’s mane.
My children call these colors by name.

Shiva

At times I am the god of war,
gleaming and golden, savage and brave.
I raise my sword as a scepter,
I rise above mine enemies.
Today,
I lay my tools of war beside me
in the sand at the water’s edge,
and looking out upon the singing sea,
I sit with my back to my enemies.