I miss driving up that street
The last in the land
With winds singing up Harney Peak.
A blue diamond cross
And a sailor’s sunburnt hand
Are all that’s left
Spreading across the dry land.

The night is thirsty for the juice
Of speech.
Woodmills chill the cherry bark;
The pond of the mind has drained dry,
And all night long little crackleberry roosters
Pray their way into the candles of the sky.
It’s blue. But what isn’t?
The candle burns the cathedral
Headed skulls through the mud, and what’s left of a town
Run by the rocky mountain weeds
Covering their faces at dawn.
(Oh teacher! Teacher! You taught me, but now its no fun!)

Who knew. Who knew? “Zu” knew. That’s who!
That’s it, we are climbing into the big Benz nude, only moonlight for a guide.
But what, pray you, have we got to hide?
Shills whispering sermons up ribbon covered hills?
For that we’ll take a dollar and climb it ourself.
Too bad for the Presidents. They didn’t see us live.
But we could have seeded candy for them,
And the green in our forest and the maple of our blanched cheeks
Could have penetrated their fossil tongues.

On climber! You’re goodwill has been left out to rot.
Better to make it before sun down when the heap in you
Gripes out you’re lost.
Come home closer, or better yet, stand still, and forget everything,
Except lusting the inside of this rock,
Has been wrong.

They will claim me back from the marble hill
For referring back to the never ending stream,
The one that runs uphill; to whispers that have no lips
Hunting inside the heart’s canyon’s rim.
Off with their heads! I’ll say it again, and I’ll say it last:
Supper grows growling like a hood wrinkled owl
From the depths of the mind.
Of-quoted sister ant curls her arms around the wind.
It’s cold up here.
We’ve been freezing for years.
But is that the past or the future?
Past present, past future
Pass me the presents!
Still we’ll go down quietly back to our dove like
Whipper-will past. Let’s hope for a time at least (present, future?)
The further in the vein we scamper,
We’ll be able to hold her still.

Still I’m confused. Who knew a climber could get so hungry?
Especially when the higher he gets the lower he feeds.

The bathing quilt whom the Sun with his rays impregnated,
Her sons said to the spider woman,
“The lover of a lifetime.”

And then she held the roots still,
Until they became wicked and flew over mountains
Through the balance of the circle from which they came.

©2009 Stephen Pickering

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