one serves oneself

the closest tennis court is really nice,
one of the best i've ever played on
with a perfect net and clean surface and tall
fences and a wall
to practice on, surrounded by enormous trees
i'm there to practice serves
with a bag of balls
some of which have my kids name on them
as they were hers most emphatically
both courts are being used when i get there
two teenage boys play a match
while two stocky grown men swat it back and forth
and take long breaks to visit by the net
they're all pretty good
it's a really nice
court. the teens leave first, i get
the shady side as the other guys also slowly
amble off to their car
i practice my serves, into
the corner where the fences meet so they're corralled
some stick in the fence
some really kick with spin
it's gratifying and the hot sun feels serious
when i serve from one side of the court, the sun
just peeks through one gap in the branches
right in the eye
shouldn't matter much having hit a million balls before
way back when i played hours every day
on merely decent courts
with saggy frayed nets and arbor vitae needles
and a sundown wind what pushes the
ball around like a top.

mustang malamute me

First Amendment Democrats, all 16 of them

 16 Democrats opposed the bill:

 Omar,
 Tlaib,
 Ocasio-Cortez,
 and Reps. Earl Blumenauer,
 Andre Carson,
Debbie Dingell,
 Jesus Garcia,
 Raul Grijalva,
Pramila Jayapal,
 Barbara Lee,
Betty McCollum,
 Gwen Moore,
Chellie Pingree,
 Mark Pocan,
 Bobby Rush,
 and Bonnie Watson Coleman.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kadiagoba/house-boycott-israel-vote-ilhan-omar-rashida-tlaib

“I stand before you the daughter of Palestinian immigrants,” Tlaib said on the House floor the morning of the vote. “Parents who experienced being stripped of their human rights, the right to freedom of travel, equal treatment.

 So I can’t stand by and watch this attack on our freedom of speech and the right to boycott the racist policies of the government and the state of Israel.

 I love our country’s freedom of speech, Madam Speaker. Dissent is how we nurture democracy."

____________

Deschutes Lazy

barefoot summer creek

summers in the cabin on the creek,  
strawbale bedroom with the cool stone floor.
one daughter feeds watermelon rinds
to her mustang, one daughter
pushes her baby sister 
in a swing hung from an oak tree limb,
growing out the creek bed. sofa sized
stones, roots and swing chains
ensnarl their eagle claws
over time's slippery facade. dragonflies
and tall grass and a billion
ash and alder shoots, 
go barefoot.
each toe
leaps

arrowhead, fine silver necklace

Peafowl in Portland

trumptanic (2016)

depleted uranium snails were trucked to the barge
ready to sail, given their toast
and wore well buttered vests,
heard pitches from trump men
with hard cards and small hands
gave balls for dancing in rings of fake fire
to later sell the rights (and their in-betweens)
for penance recompensense
subdivided on the model grounds most fertiled loin
according to snaily statutes and serial loan sauces
on a voyage maiden flight over waves forced to lick the hull
the trumptanic doubted never and veered less
always heading mouthlike
amid hurried hate hurricanes magnified
over precipices leading to more astute precipices which not even
nightcrawling profit slime
ascend to topple,
trumptanic




portland, or
oct 22, 2016

no limb nor cone wind taketh (2016)

---wind unseen takes form in snarling havoc
on a dormant volcano monadnock,
     rousing rabble to a fevered pitch
     jostling trash bins, putting ice on every hitch,

          testing hinges and humpday's saddle
          frostbitten reins in canoe sans paddle,
pushing what into where, whistling creaks
draw chaos---------& order speaks,

     ice motes drive or dally floating haphazard
     crow high, my perch perfect for such blizzard
          yesterday pulled pavers, made patterns
          undone thoughts, austere as a lecturn,

and so unlike the fir, unfurling wildly thrashing air
yet losing no limb nor cone, debonair
    as a stunt cosmos doing its own unravelings
    under silver laced mist, given body in sculpted hobblings,

          slowed to a point of stasis
          upon which reality has basis
wind everseen, how clean a forest floor at night,
            ages-tested branches, embodying might.      




Mt Tabor Oregon 12-8-16

teepee peepee on appammatox wood (2015)

Jesus on appammatox wood
going down deliverance liver
to a federal penury  of pigs
wearing crowns of barbie twigs
fire---- gas----- sun *open all nite*
for gut soon all things pass
legal kidney stones, our kin
all must get stoned
stomp yer leadbelly foot, unheards
un herd yer slough, snake
un rapt the campus rape or priestly silence
unless you do, will who?
time eats its children
treaty trick on blanket pox
truces hold by nail, denial.
eagles eternally chew
fire ----giver----- liver
gizzard wizard lightning
crowd sourced halo fine
welcome, theatre of pratfallen heroics
good deeds gone sour in injun land
scalp the tickets while you can
what can be canned of duh
it comes out the peepee hole


march 13, 2015
Portland, Oregon

Once there was a Moon Party

my earliest memory, a moon landing party
in ft worth or maybe dallas
i hadn't thought of it in awhile until this anniversary
50 years ago i was 2 years,
hadn't brushed off the cosmic dust
covering it by the kiloton and acre
perhaps it wasn't
the first moon landing, i'll have to ask mom
but it computes 
it wasn't at grandmas, but maybe it was 
at great aunt ruths
or the apartment of some other relatives of friend.
at a point, the mind plays coy tricks
there's no shadow off the flag pole goddammit
did it even happen? an earliest
memory? 

Grandmother Dorothy

510 Datsun Oklafuckinhoma

Peacemaker or not, all doors hoods and hatches open.
My face purple, nose broke
from a bad swim . That's our 510.

That's our 510.

Old great grandpa he tote that stick
Old bear old hustler he mind that nose broke
that's bad 510

old 510, down on blackwell
face hard solo woke
cut-toff jeans hurt knee tropes

down the dirty dirt roads fastern smartd ever go
wanna bet peacemaker 
510 out to the pasture said dad, opend the doors

symbolic endurance or dads catharsis
that 510 took us coast to coast after to school
every day 510 dat sun to classes 

1951 Predictions: conservatives and radicals in 2002

Champlin Lures

Champlin

Can A Duh Frackricide (2012)

Hoily Ouch

Big blue

Horsetail falls Sicilians

Pits gold zephyrs

Wind sweeping tree tops so luscious,
Threnody of poverty
Aisles of leaves unwrapping
Evening's gold bars
From nocturne's sultry cogs,
Tossing all human care
Like an olive oiled salad.

Git whatcha git

This quiet house, full of wrong smells
And worthless knick knacks
Also a bountiful refuge
Just ask the peahen
As her two wee chicks
Scurry under her moving ground hunt.
Earlier as I went to exit out back
Glass slider wide open there's
A bird splayed out two feet away
He gets up, slowly iridescent
I look at his razor spur, blue neck
Up in the garden I pick
Zucchini snap peas cilantro blueberries
And water off the fireworks loud grime
America

Cusp

Freedom need not ring,
Itself all note. Let ears
Cup, alms be liberal.
Nations need not rise,
Nor flagellate. Let
History be cusp,
Pain calves truths. Dawn
Has no early light,
Nor minder.

counting coup

today i boast what few have done,
the interloping peacock
so familiar in his roaming 
garden sniff,
eyeing the waist high fence
one long tail feather presented itself
dislodged from his body but 
entangled in the train, i drew close
he didn't panic as i freed
the three foot long flag of a
shimmering eye 
down on the street below later
some girls have a bouquet of them
found on their hikes
mine i had to claim