a recent poem about the mountains near where I live

Holy Ghost Creek

A lucky orange dog with thick hair & red

bandana crosses the interstate near

Glorieta Pass,

not quite controlled burn smoke

hangs in the valley, low

leathery brown over the round

green hills all muddied together

like spirit bison.

Up the trail along the Holy Ghost to old

Baldy, ascending tiers of tiny pastures

fading yellow now

fervid with September asters &

cinquefoil,

the higher I hike

the burbling trickle of a creek

crosses me more than once.

I’ve imagined it

coursing through my veins,

blood disciple,

a transfusion of headwaters

streaming in spring

cataracts down from a

treeless domed summit

& running away with the best of me

until it plows into the indefatigable

Pecos, shedding its snowmelt,

destined for the valley of

these summer burns.

Impervious old Baldy

the clouds build themselves about

his mastiff head in

no particular order;

there were herds of bison

down below the smoke once;

their spirit shadows drink from

the Holy Ghost, still.

New Mexico poet Keith Wilson

There's going to be a tribute To Keith Wilson reading down in Placitas, NM on June 15th. I was emailed this superb poem. So silent, so simple, aching with the weight of seasons. Brash & tender. He has written & taught in New Mexico for many years. He is the author of several books of poetry.

Desert Cenote

There is sadness among the stones
today, the rabbits are silent.

No wind. The heat bears down.
It has not rained for one year.

We have faith out here, desert
people, we wait, knowing with sureness

the swift cross of clouds, the blessings
of moisture (to deprive a man is to give

charms to him.) I love this dry land
am caught even by blowing sand, reaches

of hot winds. I am not the desert
but its real name is not so far from mine.

Keith Wilson

Jim Harrison is 70!

I look at the calendar and notice that author Jim Harrison is 70 this year! With friends like Yesenin and McGuane, who needs a truncated life? A toast to you! maestro. A real fire breather. Have been reading his Theory And Practice Of Rivers, selected poetry and much of it is great stuff. Tough guy, man-out-in-nature living the zen hearty life. Not "nature writing" per se, that would be simplistic, but he fits into gaggle of wordslingers like Terry Tempest Williams, Gary Snyder, James Dickey, James Wright, Lew Welch, Wendell Berry, Han Shahn, William Stafford and others, celebrants, all, of the drama and poetry implicit in the environment that surrounds us. Spirit Of Place writers.

Racist Media Out to Derange Obama Campaign

Since the media handed Bush his "Mission Accomplished" back in ought-three, they've relentlessly, irresponsibly filled the airwaves with slaughter & brimstone & banal happy talk that's undermined true cultural & political discourse in America.They've conspired with a corrupt & completely estranged administration to sanitize the war,obscure the coffins, & smokescreen the surveillance & torture until this most secretive of administrations has betrayed every last trace of reason & humanity in the civilized soul. America has been duped,compromised by the strident illegality & cruelty of Abu Ghraib & Guantanamo, quarantined daily from the truth & the media needs to be held responsible.

The recent antics of the punditrocracy has insulted most Americans with its petty condescensions, trivial "news" pursuits & braying postulations on the more serious events of the day. What I mean is, the media is no more serious or subjected to the truth than the ethical wasteland that calls itself our current government. "Spin" is not language. It isn't communication. It is verbal shorthand for the idiots. Just ask Barack Obama. He's been subjected to some of the most patronizing (at best), racist (at worst)media coverage ever heard in America. The political & cultural paradigm is shifting as we speak & the best the corporations can do is haul out the most fraudulent of their insipid punditeers to stoke the embers of fear & racism by endlessly looping the most fevered soundbite ravings of Obama's Chicago pastor.

the Corporate media is determined to present the slightly incestuous, sibling political act of McCain/Clinton to the voters in November regardless of who or how many voted.

It's time to "upset the ivory applecart of tyrannical values" as Gregory Corso has written.

Hail Media!Long live poetry!


John Macker

Desert Shovel Review

This is a poetry anthology published in Northern New Mexico by Long Road Press, edited by John Macker and featuring David Meltzer, Jack Hirschman, Philomene Long, John Thomas, Frank Rios, John Knoll, S.A. Griffin, Donald Levering, Kate Makkai, Amalio Madueno, John Nizalowski, Art Goodtimes, Michael Adams and other blindingly original and compelling intermountain west voices. With a color cover collage by Annie Macker and interior art by Denver's Steve Wilson. 91 pages, perfectbound, softcover, $12.95 plus $1.50 shipping & handling.

Solid poetry that embraces life, respects history and invokes danger.- Christopher Robin, Poesy
. . the impulse to defy is sublime . .- David Meltzer

Also, recently published: John Knoll's Elevator Music For The Dead. Perfectbound, 56 pages, softcover. $10. $1.50 shipping & handling.

make checks payable to: John Macker LongRoad Press 924 Old Las Vegas Highway South, Las Vegas, NM 87701-9671

"While the thunder of the batteries rumbled
in the distance, we pasted, we recited, we
versified, we sang with all our soul."
-Hans Arp

Elevator Music For the Dead

Always the harvest of butterflies always the cities of invisible/
architectures in crystal desert stones blood numbers in the
/deep sky/

magpie acequia fills with brittle cottonwood leafs with white sun/

bleached coyote bones

-John Knoll