How beautiful the light is
A luminosity like something never seen before
How it catches the leaf
As it spins and drops gentle as a kiss
I wonder if this is how you fall
Luminous and quiet
Softly spiralling
But you fall screaming
Blood spills from your mouth
Your bones splinter
And the baby is gone from your arms
The leaf spins and drops
How it catches the light
From your fading eyes

arching my back
the sparks fly
like shaved metal
off of my sternum
as something
like happiness
flecks through
in metal firebuds
that screech coming
over me as a
wave washes
through my
molecular structure,
inside the libations
held up to the
small goddesses
running through
the rush of
the chainsaw shrieks
of bloodstream
now a fomenting river
of tiny waves
cresting made up
of my tears
shed all through
the mineral-encrusted
night
Now those tiny deities
with singing plumpness
of breast and thigh
indigo radiating
from their third eye
are dancing
inside my being
as I strive to catch
the shadows that
only just surrounded
me in that last hour
of plague
of chasm-patched torment
tears insulating me
until I could not see
for the steam
just on the edge
of inability to
contain my
filtered out
pre-injected rage
Here I now sit
a few inches above
the grasslands
lotus in each palm
pumped
with manifestation
in my very fingers
                       of life

seventy-five years ago today
I was napping on the deck, only the day
after I celebrated birthday number 25

they call that quick stretch from then
'til now, three-quarters of a century--though to me,
it seems not a fraction of anything

if anything is a fraction, it is I, though
now a full century on my calendar, I am but half
a man, my two legs sawed off, 12/7/41

on the flat screen in my room, I see other ancient
mariners, many proudly wheeled to the commemoration  
of that day--most with legs yet there

but what good are those parts, for war
and age leveled them, hobbled them even if they walk...
maybe I was the lucky soul

for I was sliced down to size all at once
humbled, hurt, but happy to come home, where
I made a life, with what pieces I had left

after the Sunday morning which began
with a soft singing breeze from the Pacific, and ended
with the tempests of hell, as I understand them

I'd like to tell you a story
It begins in 1492
When dear old Christopher Columbus
Sailed the ocean blue

He landed on what he thought
To be the country of India
He stumbled upon a group of people
Who appeared to be indigenous

Because these native people
Happened to be where he thought he was
He called them all "Indians"
&& somehow that name stuck

They welcomed his group with open arms
Even offered them their feast
Unaware that deep inside
They were but wolves, dressed as sheep

Columbus && his crew
Soon ravaged the land
They took what they saw
Then they took full command

Of the people they found
On the land where they landed
They felt they should rule
So they stepped in, heavy handed

They murdered the people
Who had taken them in
Set fire to their villages
While the victims watched with their kin

Flash forward to the future
It's now 2016
It's been over 500 years
Since the overtaking by the regime

Future settlers decided
To let the survivors live on
They designated them small areas
Of what had not yet been robbed

These Native Americans,
Generally keep to themselves
They get by living off their land
But now they need your help

The Sioux of Standing Rock
Are being horribly mistreated
The state of North Dakota
Is poisoning them without reason

A pipeline has been built
That runs through this Native territory
When Bismarck residents didn't want it
It was rerouted, how discriminatory

People from all over the country
Are seeming to agree
They are making the commute
To protest peacefully

In defense of an oppressed people
Who only want to live
But the government is stepping in
Even blowing off some limbs

"Let them die, they're not like us"
the message the administration is sending
It seems that after all this time
The battle is never-ending

What exactly does it take
For people to see eye-to-eye?
In the end we're all just human  
We kiss, we laugh, we cry

So if you have a heart at all
If you know that this is wrong
Please join the Sioux in their mission
By coming together, we can be strong

narrow potholed roads
long winding switchbacks
blind corners that lead
the chosen to heaven

the rest of us
sinners

rotting slash piles
in a clear cut
fireweed rising
from raw earth

in this land of trees
the forest is forgotten