A Prairie Prayer

Posted on November 26, 2013 by Jim Stewart

We moved his body to the rafters of the tack shed this morning.
His woman, his mate, his best friend,
will keep what is left of him alive as best she can.
She is listening for You and seeks solace
to staunch the hole in her breast that he left behind.
He was a good man, Lord.
His children are fine and true.
They listen well and have something to say.
Please listen to them.

That other hole, well Lord, we just cannot find
a way to conquer the winter ground.
I am sure You understand.
It has been biting cold, Lord.
Even now, back from church, the wind blows a dirge
and I can see tendrils of snow trailing from the eaves
like ghosts escaping a hard death.
The Henrys pulled out last September;
I hope they made it through.
Old Josh says he is gone come Spring.
He says we are all crazy and that wheat is just
too damn particular and vulnerable to Your whims.

The last time I spoke to You I was angry
and I want to apologize for that.
I guess, last Spring, I was lucky for soft earth.
Just between you and me, Lord, You know
that I have never much cared for You.
I reckon You know that and might be surprised
to be hearing from one so far astray,
but I just had to witness for Astrid, Tom and Ted,
and little Janey, who does not really know what has gone on.
It will be hard for them, as it was for me, but I reckon we can
all pitch in to help keep them alive and offer company.
Astrid is a proud woman and I hope You
can unbend her some for the children’s sake.

I need nothing from You, Lord,
but others do and I ache at your silence.
The Book says You hear all prayers and
I will be here every day asking.
Other than staying alive, it is all I can do.

Posted in American history, cowboy poetry, prayer, Slice of Death, Slice of Life | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Personal Transport (for Robert Frost)

Posted on November 25, 2013 by Jim Stewart

A steaming sip of fragrant tea
rouses mornings wrapped in fog,

walking beside the plumed dog
across a plain of memories,

calling the names of old
acquaintances, some deceased,

somehow puts my heart at ease
and draws me back into the fold.

The dog tugs freely at his leash,
reminding me gently of his need,

so I slow and pay him heed,
and wear the streetlamp halo I’m beneath.

The fog is silver, cold, and mute,
while I am upright, mulling there

adrift inside the familiar where
I cannot recognize my own wet boots

through my vague cosseted history
that ebbs and flows in this swirling fog,

yet dances like a happy dog
against the leash of mystery.

fog dog

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Dream of Seashell Water

Posted on November 24, 2013 by Jim Stewart

You chase her with long strides up a series of ramps.
You hear her laugh as she stays ahead.

She giggles when she changes directions
onto another ramp, behind you,

leading ninety degrees away.
You retrace a few steps and smell a wisp of her.

The ceiling comes closer and your are surprised
that you are not out of breath.

You arrive at a hatch in the ceiling where,
with great effort, you lift yourself

through a dark polished wood headboard and fall
onto an unmade grey-and-blue striped mattress.

She is there but is someone else.
You wash your hands in a small sink full of water and seashells.

A word you can’t remember is a litany in your head.
You are happy, but cautious.

Murals, somehow erotic, decorate the sleek wood walls and
it slowly dawns on you that this is an elite resort for sex.

There is a collector’s pitcher and wash basin by the door…
is she in your dream or are you in hers?

You’ve washed your hands in seashell water
and want to know who she was, really, back on those ramps.

Posted in Absurd fantasy, Dream, Poem | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Furniture Marches On

Posted on November 23, 2013 by Jim Stewart

You lie face down in a big bed and
wonder how you can breathe with a
pillow clamped around your face.
Your mouth tastes of feathers and
you smell your own acrid drool.
You jump at her voice when she says:
“Hey! I’ve come for my stuff!”

You look up but discover that you’ve
left your eyes on the pillow.
“Eyew, gross! she says.
“Put your eyeballs back in.
You know how I hate that.”
You do know this,
but cannot think of her name.
She begins removing furniture from the room,
dark wood marching past while you
struggle with your eyes.

When you can see again she says:
“Up! I need the bed.”
The bed moves from beneath you and disappears.
You don’t fall, but hang there in midair,
horizontal to the floor,
bedclothes floating like a magician’s trick.

You want to respond to this parade,
but are captivated with a long sling of drool
that catches colors from the early morning sun.
She does not return.
You want to attach importance to all of this,
but you go back to sleep
thinking of marching furniture and
how it used to be when things were still.

Posted in Absurd fantasy, Dream, Poem | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Waiting Just to Play

Posted on November 22, 2013 by Jim Stewart

I’ve given all my life
to play a rounded wooden box
that measures what I’ve gained
and burns up what I’ve lost.

Quiet house at the edge of dawn:
the moon scrubs clean the windows
and the cats stay busy sniffing my pantlegs
in their peculiar bobbing feline way.
They smell the tavern on me,
the honky-tonk flash and smoke,
the floor of the men’s room on my shoes,
the sour remains of briefly used beer.
The hooded amplifier by the door
is still warm and smoke curls
from the guitars as they wait,
locked in their shapes,
patient as always,
for the next chance to gleam and sing,
to howl in artificial light.

I’ve traded in the touch
at the tips of my left hand
and for all the years I’ve tapped my foot
I’ve never learned to dance.

Posted in Music, Poem, Slice of Life | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Home, Townes

Posted on November 19, 2013 by Jim Stewart

I wrote this on a night in 1997 when a good pal called me and told me that Townes Van Zandt had moved onto another dimension.

 

Goodbye, you old rounder.
I’ll miss your gaunt sad voice singing

of the spirit and the trying and the being true
and the lying and the dying and the living through.

You were a hard road and
in more than a few of your thousands of songs

despair wraps you in its cape and billows out
over us, where we are able to hide in your

shadow and remember, as you sing
of being utterly desolate,

that not one of us is alone, ever, and we can connect
to something, however tenuous, if we so choose.

All we need is a horizon and an itch to see some country,
a couple aces, a taste of whiskey, some wry laughter, a sunrise,

and the certainty that we’ll feel just as good as
we feel bad and that tomorrow doesn’t matter at all.

I’ll sing your songs until my roll craps out.
Vaya con dios, Señor Troubadour.

Posted in Music, Poem, Reprint | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Too Damn Dumb

Posted on November 16, 2013 by Jim Stewart

He gave up in late nineteen sixty-three
with the death of a young president
still firmly caught on a fence in his mind
where the wind fans desire to intent.
The other hands tried to console him,
but they offered their friendship in vain.
He seldom came back to the bunkhouse
and spent the winter outside on the plains.
He’s just too damn dumb
to come in from the rain.

He met her on a bridge in Frenchglen.
He was fishing, she was walking to the store.
Her face let something in him untangle
as an old wind blew through him once more.
He offered her some conversation.
She laughed and made it quite plain
that old cowboys were still on her menu,
it was something she couldn’t explain.
She’s just too damn dumb
to come in from the rain.

So they joined for a walk by the river.
She discarded her needs at the store.
He left his pole in the crook of a cottonwood
and they trembled at the opening door.
The air smelled of sagebrush and water
and tasted of the high Steens terrain.
Sparks brightly flew from their fingers;
their hearts were a runaway train.
They’re just too damn dumb
to come in from the rain.

Now they sip at the spring of their passion,
cupped hands hold the stirring of love.
Fondness comes alive like a springtime
where distance fits the eye like a glove.
They each stand alone but together
and tested by time they remain;
whittled and tooled like fine leather
they make the eye of a proud hurricane.
They’re just too damn dumb
to come in from the rain.

Too damn dumb
to come in from the rain.

Posted in cowboy poetry, Lyrics, Poem | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Follow the Light

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Jim Stewart

Shadows beginning to form
as the light brushes your window.
Sunrise just moments away,
I can hear the dawning wind blow.
Moving across the moon,
a flight of albatross,
they follow the light and go home.

Your body’s as thin as your breath
and hardly raises the covers.
A smile comes to visit your mouth.
Are you dreaming of old lovers?
When you let go I want you to know
that I love you
as you follow the light to go home.

Vaya con dios amigo, Viejo.
Follow the light.
Follow the light.
Follow the light
and go home.

Posted in Lyrics, Poem | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

An Ashram at Wishram

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Jim Stewart

Notes scatter from
the bell at the top of the door.
She looks up from her book
to see him cowed as if
the notes were shards
of glass and he a hemophiliac.

“Close the door,” she smiles and closes her
book without marking her place.
The wind from the river across the tracks stops, but
the notes respill into the room.
He tries to hide it, but she sees, again,
the wince that happens a hundred times a day as
the rocks from the track bed stab his feet through
the thin soles of his worn engineer boots and
the cinders plague his eyes and
the wind cuts his neck where
the jacket won’t close.

He blinks slowly as she shows him,
up stairs that creak, to
the bull pen where
the men sleep and
the radiator clicks and sighs.
“Donations are helpful, but not required,” she says
and watches him begin to sag as
the warmth finds him.
“Thank you,” he says and marvels at
the ceiling rafters arching above.
He drops his duffel next to
the cot and sits, surrendering to
the building’s blanket-strewn hug.

She watches him for a moment,
smiles, and goes back down
the stairs, not making a sound, to
the dog-eared book that she
ruffles with affection. She knows
the light is always on and can be seen
even from the other side
of the broad dark river.

Wishram woman

 

(A Wishram woman, pinned from old-picture.com)

Posted in Poem, Reprint | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The Actress and the Grunion

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Jim Stewart

She was an actress
and even though I heard Wales in her voice
she was as American as French-fries.
I’d seen her in a play where
she bested the writing to make me laugh.
I lived two doors downhill to the ocean.
She was washing a car at the curb,
her damp roundness catching my breath.
As we talked of spawning tides she agreed to
come to my window when the time was right and
we would walk to the sea for the show.

The wet sand sucks at our feet and the ocean’s ribald tongue
licks the backs of our knees as we wait, expectancy held
like a mouthful of Pinot noir.
When they come they are millions.
Wriggling, the replace all of the water with themselves.
She gives a small cry and catches herself in my arms as the
grunion dance around our thighs in a living singing soup.
I should kiss her while the windows are
wide open and the world is perfect.
But the fish do it for us, everything, every passionate thing.
After the tide we join hands to walk back up the hill,
exhausted in their afterglow.

Posted in Poem, Reprint | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments