tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45398934561445009562024-03-13T10:00:05.752-06:00long roada blog embracing all issues poetic, environmental, poesy, the body politic; anything that soars, floats, emotes, roars & wheels across this great troubled earth.John Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-34537613723471873432021-09-28T11:54:00.000-06:002021-09-28T11:54:06.467-06:00"From such impressions you gather yourself, you win yourself back from the clamoring multiplicity, and slowly learn to know a very few things in which the eternal is reflected, which you love and in which your solitude allows you to take part."
Rilke
from "in Rome"
Letters to a Young Poet.
Some of his wise words help me get through the day.<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l65L4SaJwh0/YVNWU5EUiUI/AAAAAAAAAUk/E6tkLZ5wEBYC1X2Ra3LzhKTt3N4mLJh6ACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_0801.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: left; float: left;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-l65L4SaJwh0/YVNWU5EUiUI/AAAAAAAAAUk/E6tkLZ5wEBYC1X2Ra3LzhKTt3N4mLJh6ACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0801.jpg"/></a></div>John Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-85356892593024737732021-09-27T16:20:00.002-06:002021-09-27T16:21:08.267-06:00Desert Threnody: essays, short fiction & one-act play<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nzgPjeH-iuw/YVJDw55k-eI/AAAAAAAAAUc/cPinAtbC1U8fzcQw3jnp5K_8_jUZKd47wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_0680%2B-%2BCopy.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: center; clear: left; float: left;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nzgPjeH-iuw/YVJDw55k-eI/AAAAAAAAAUc/cPinAtbC1U8fzcQw3jnp5K_8_jUZKd47wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0680%2B-%2BCopy.jpg"/></a></div>Published by the kind folks at auxarczen press in Missouri. 2020.John Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-67667058835688878012020-09-07T11:17:00.000-06:002020-09-07T11:17:25.668-06:00My two latest books from Stubborn Mule Press. The Blues Drink Your Dreams
Away Selected Poems 1983-2018 (Finalist 2019 Arizona/New Mexico Book Awards)
and Atlas of Wolves, 2019.<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B4yOvpwluiM/X1Zq6vY3NII/AAAAAAAAAQo/aQB3CND47oEUd1G56pOLBPzwC53XrqD2wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/blues%2Bcover.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: none;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B4yOvpwluiM/X1Zq6vY3NII/AAAAAAAAAQo/aQB3CND47oEUd1G56pOLBPzwC53XrqD2wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/blues%2Bcover.jpg"/></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S6GCOiBEeQ8/X1ZrAGZR-SI/AAAAAAAAAQs/dlbKoNXKP4EyDAe-2OzJkL7sWI1-Pm4OwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_0445.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: none;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S6GCOiBEeQ8/X1ZrAGZR-SI/AAAAAAAAAQs/dlbKoNXKP4EyDAe-2OzJkL7sWI1-Pm4OwCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0445.jpg"/></a></div>John Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-81888431241908989592020-09-02T14:19:00.000-06:002020-09-02T14:19:12.854-06:00<b><b><b>After the Funeral in Denver, Driving South into New Mexico<b><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JtDtSxEoD-g/X0_8dfC9OvI/AAAAAAAAAPE/hIIZ2MngniwjYU76OCbUZYqhMrFG1NrHACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/IMG_0111.JPG" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0; text-align: none;"><img alt="" border="0" width="320" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JtDtSxEoD-g/X0_8dfC9OvI/AAAAAAAAAPE/hIIZ2MngniwjYU76OCbUZYqhMrFG1NrHACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/IMG_0111.JPG"/></a></div></b></b>
February on the winter betrothed
plains. I share an anonymous rest stop with a lady
trucker, she cooks something in the parking space
on a small grill. I watch her breath as she empties
the used grey coals into the snow. Short
walk to the fence line and not far beyond it,
near the Canadian River, they say
a trail stop, some vernacular structure,
a homestead, once raised a family,
was a life-giving lone prairie light against
the darkness and was abandoned un-
ceremoniously, maybe to the last straw of
a blizzard, or the coming of the railroad,
maybe to the last man standing over
Johnny Cash singing, "There Ain't No Grave",
the night when there was no darkness worth
its weight in damnation more remorseless
than this prairie dark. the last of the
whisky finished with a flourish in the gothic
cold, rolled empty back into the black space
that was once a well-lighted room.
-John Macker
></b>John Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-65697874122029651242012-02-17T16:06:00.000-07:002012-02-17T16:15:02.780-07:00Savage DefectivesA place in the desert,<br />once known for its heaven,<br />its perfected Aprils, became a city<br />of special hell:<br />not of Hieronymus Bosch, El Topo,<br />Peckinpah,<br />or chastened by Mephistopheles,<br />but where cities go that are too hot to die,<br />that perpetually reconnoiter eternity<br />for dollops of feral shade.<br /><br />There was a national moment of silence<br />for the newly <br />fallen, language was<br />riding shotgun down the<br />hot, hate speech streets and<br />sighed:<br />you can lead<br />spoken word to metaphor<br />but you can't make it think.<br />Glocks cavort across the landscape now<br />with demystifying candor and extended clips<br />of the Sonoran chaos ferment in our<br />common dream.<br /><br />Out here,<br />heavy, Moorish misting morning<br />hangs low over the foothills,<br />the white cowled peaks,<br />the winter temperatures adhere<br />to lows only whispered and beneath<br />us all,<br /> a solstice underground juggernaut<br />of soul speaks: our guns<br /><br />wait for us in heaven to die.<br /><br />John MackerJohn Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-12578897223075850002011-09-16T16:06:00.000-06:002011-09-16T16:13:26.702-06:00Artaud in MexicoWearing his coyote death mask,<br />he tells the clueless Tarahumara<br />Rimbaud never met a French poet he<br />didn't disdain.<br />Eats peyote by the handful<br />from a painted gourd,<br />intuits the last words Sam Peckinpah<br />spoke to God,<br />reads A Season in Hell<br />by firelight<br />next to a graveyard<br />with its<br />fanciful colored metal crosses<br />and plastic<br />flowers;<br />chants: one must be absolutely<br />modern!<br />as the incantatory clouds climb like<br />smoking gun blossoms high over<br />Sierra Madre.<br /><br />The Indians have mercy on this<br />tattered schizoid soul, install his<br />junkie ass upright on a drunken mule<br />for the long road home.<br />They recognize a kindred spirit<br />when they see one,<br />his garish, provocative nature not<br />at all at odds with<br />the fellaheen.<br /><br />They dig his otherworldliness,<br />his seer's heart.<br /><br />-John Macker<br /> August/2011John Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-73048958959887063402011-09-16T14:52:00.000-06:002011-09-16T15:11:10.357-06:00Las ConchasThis is the summer of drought.<br />The playas dried up like cracked words on the lips,<br />the heat wore steel-toed boots,<br />the wind pillaged sacred Chicoma Mountain<br />in dry wrathful blasts. The<br />snake-tongued flames drifted north on<br />Santa Clara land. A<br />cool fire they say,<br />slow to crawl lone wolf<br />low to the ground, not hot<br />like Cerro Grande was:<br />insatiable, a terrorist. How do you say<br />in Tewa,<br />the hell hound is on our trail?<br />how do you pray away these<br />orchids of smoke?<br /><br />The spirits<br />of the dead drift from grave to<br />Indian grave ahead of the fire,<br />some of them grieve for rain,<br />some are armed and dancing,<br />some stay safely underground,<br />cooled by the timber still<br />white moon.<br /><br />-John MackerJohn Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-7189031383904683392010-11-18T14:28:00.000-07:002010-11-18T14:40:25.436-07:00Discovering the Presence of Beauty for the Temple of ManTony Scibella greeted me the other night<br />on the dawn threshold of a dream,<br />Said: How’s that poetry thing working out<br />For you? I was high<br />over Taos and told him everything<br />was fine, fine, that I’ve known Her for over<br />30 years and I still get all tongue tied<br />in Her presence, my <br />heart races<br />my feet swell, I’m<br />docile and feverish, both, my<br />mind becomes a circular firing squad<br />of Catholic boyhood images.<br />At times, cold sober, I<br />feel like the most stoned Western<br />ever filmed—<br />I asked him what he was doing, he<br />said just smoking, dreaming, walking<br />the beach, I go to Hollywood Park<br />and win everyday.<br /><br />I asked him: Tony, are you and Stuart myths?<br />He said, I don’t know about him,<br />But I am and I know why I am where<br />I’m at, at<br />Any given moment.<br /><br />I told him I thought<br />Stuart Perkoff had an assortment of mini-<br />gods running through his veins, that<br />his human love stories could never compete<br />with his romance with the Muse,<br />Our Lady of Venice, spirit-sister of<br />born tricksters/<br /> Lover to human poets.<br /><br />I said I’m always getting turned<br />on: by<br />a meteor shower high over the Pecos River,<br />the elongated summer of September, with<br />its dry soaring highs and star power nights<br />where the Milky Way looks like<br />electrically-charged<br />grace on black velvet,<br />by the Kid in America sipping<br />brandy coffee outside the Suicide Room,<br />by hearing Alphabet mouths<br />speak Love is the Silence in<br />dreams of<br />autumn waves on pale<br />dawn beaches.<br />By Frankie’s center ring--<br /><br />WORDS!<br />Scibella said it best:<br /> <br />For it is a mad quest<br /> This poet gig<br />Ridiculous if you choose it<br />Doomed if you don’t<br /><br />It chose me, Tony, and you<br />helped lead me through the mindfield of self-<br />deception and broken blossoms<br />of prayer and promise until we <br />uncovered beauty<br />on this landscape of sighs—<br />and she sang like Aretha Franklin.<br />Emoted like Brando.<br />Was as silent as John Cage.<br />Cursed like an Irish Priest.<br />Exploded into the existential border<br />mayhem of <br />bad whisky Peckinpah,<br />her guns of September cradled<br />in the revolutionary doomed passions<br />of Zapata;<br />she did the bars in the badlands<br />with Venus,<br />she flowed out of Miles’ horn like<br />a death row butterfly,<br />and in the end, beauty,<br />was as elusive and mythic as<br />Zapata’s white horse.<br />That’s why we craved her. That’s<br />How she revealed herself <br />To us.<br />Salud!<br />Jimmy, Frankie, Tony, Stuart, John, Philomene,<br />S.A., David, Larry, Ed and everyone who taught<br />me that beauty is <br />always more than dream deep.<br /><br /><br />--John MackerJohn Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-41679310105972484382010-10-07T14:45:00.000-06:002010-10-07T14:50:51.016-06:00"Alaska's Flag"*Mad helicopter gunship<br />a hair's breath above timberline<br />thundering over tundra<br />dead flat out ahead,<br />inside,<br /> a drunken pale faced war dance<br />of serial wolf hunters, arctic whoops<br />and weapons, singing:<br /><br />the gold of the early sourdough dreams<br />the precious gold of the hills and streams<br /><br />below,<br />a mythic creature bounds<br />across the forget-me-nots<br />into the hills of deep snow,<br />the midnight sun illuminates<br />everything;<br />no longer territorial governor spends a life-<br />time separating in her mind<br />wilderness<br />from soul,<br />while down below<br />the epic chase of lobo the tragedian.<br />Her tattoo reads<br />"death from above"<br /><br />the forty-ninth state.<br /><br /><br />*Alaska's state songJohn Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-58944448793961189142010-10-07T14:18:00.000-06:002010-10-07T14:43:06.587-06:00Trinity Site Dream Bomb for Joe D'AlessandroTo get there drive down I-25<br />past Albuquerque, stop at Mas Tequila to<br />watch the Juarez pole dancers, pick up<br />the hitchhiking ghosts of Gregory Corso & Johnny Cash,<br />take a left at San Antonio,<br />trigger's edge of desert time, to the<br />desolate virtuosity of the<br />Jornada del Muerto<br />with its flat occult sunsets &<br />morbid sense of irony.<br /><br />At ground zero<br />where the spring wind strips you of everything<br />but your virginity,<br />bomb has lost its bellicose boom,<br />has bottomed out as boogie man,<br />Doctor Bomb<br />who took a Hippocratic oath to kill,<br />has become alchemist of blissful peace.<br />No longer dances afoul of nature<br />behind the mushroom eyelids of the dead,<br />no longer enters eternity like a<br />defrocked priest,<br />bomb used to be the devil's passionflower<br />at dusk,<br />in cantankerous desolation, dust<br />devil's moaned Corso's name as he de-<br />bunked bomb on his famous broadside,<br />when bombs in America sprouted like daffodils &<br />dogs barked at unearthed midnight bombs.<br /><br />All that's left is dream bomb & its shrieking<br />shattered sunset bloom of deep sleep smoke,<br />we are its mirror.<br /><br />We've been to the edge & the edge is us,<br />dropping these sweet pages from the womb<br />of bomb<br />on unsuspecting<br />green earth.<br /><br /><br />*this poem was included in S.A.Griffin's traveling<br />"Poetry Bomb Tour Of Words", summer, 2010.<br />Many thanks.John Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-50105234206578542142010-07-15T14:53:00.000-06:002010-07-15T14:59:27.678-06:00Monsoon SeasonI'm lying on the floor listening for<br />the distant thunder,<br />sounds like deep songs,<br />like old friend's voices milling<br />around the cosmos,<br />their chairs scraping<br /> in the El Chapultepec bar.<br /><br />The heat lightning of revelation strobes:<br />LA, Denver, Albuquerque,<br />old outposts where flashes of<br />inspiration became<br />epic burns and the smoke<br />tonight<br />drifts beyond all proportion<br />under these<br />black gloved clouds.<br /><br />memory, not as mellifluous as camaraderie<br />but I can hear them<br />there is more than<br />echoes and ashes dancing in time<br />to see or feel<br />or praise. The<br />changing features of the sky<br />can alter life and the lightning<br /><br />so close,<br />burns holes in their names<br />as the standing rain fills them<br />with an unforgettable beauty.John Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-45932748740386550102010-05-23T08:47:00.000-06:002010-05-23T08:52:17.797-06:00Crossing -for Todd Moore 1937-2010He sits outside smoking, drinking & breathing<br />In the corpse sweet smell<br />Of the Aztec earth. It is pitch black,<br />Mexico, the hard pure universe of<br />Night & death<br /><br />Mangas Coloradas,<br /> imperfect winter tool of the<br />gods, <br />astride a good pony<br />the rare snow last night spitballed<br />sideways, frosted the organ pipe,<br />each flake disappeared in his hand<br />before it could declare its <br />individuality, a<br />brittle irony<br />not lost on the aged chief. <br /><br />Soon,<br />despite the hoarseness and dust furies <br />of<br /> the droughtscape,<br />it’ll be time to harvest the macho dark<br />magic of the mezcal <br />eastern slope of the Chiricahuas.<br /><br />Just north of the border,<br />oblivion rhymes with vermilion, <br />not a soul<br />was caught in the living act of crossing<br />just the winter wired coyotes;<br />now in his seventies,<br />dreams of one last score,<br />riding off some Fronteras rancheria’s<br />renegade remuda<br />in the dark because<br />revenge this sweet must<br />be Mexican, must taste<br />mezcal bitter on the tongue,<br />the dusk glows saffron<br />as the earth rotates lustily <br />into hard shadow.John Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-45793253085437950342010-03-12T14:18:00.000-07:002010-03-12T15:33:36.498-07:00Todd Moore, poet, 1937-2010Poet Todd Moore, Albuquerque resident outlaw, author of many books celebrating John Dillinger, passed away this morning in Tucson. He left behind two sons and lovely wife Barbara. We'd been friends for years, following our initial connection as poets. He was kind, gentle, wise, outlaw in spirit, generous, totally devoted to the word in all of its more fiery incantations. Dillinger was his chant, his channel, his obsession, his godfather, his endearing myth. He understood the poetry inherent in the dark side of americana, of Dillinger as pop culture icon, like Bonnie & Clyde, still fascinating sorcerers in the American mainstream mind's eye. <br /> I remember one time visiting his home and writing room filled with wall-to-wall books and the amazing collection of historic knives. The Bowie, the Spanish dagger, you could feel Todd's vibrant imagination run wild all over the blades; they were heavy in the hand like some of his books. Freighted with myth and history. His latest, maybe his best: The Riddle of The Wooden Gun and Dead Reckoning published by Epic Rites. Small press, Tough guy titles. His words, staccato machine gun bursts that fractured the American poetic line sometimes right at the joint, the syllable, are unique in American underground letters. Uncompromising lines are used as switchblades to cut into the corrupt, alcoholic gut of the American Myth. The fascinating girlfriends and gun molls of his vicious mobsters were almost as obsessed as his anti-heroes. As they seductively stroke Dillinger's lethal .38 and coo precocious bribes into his ear, they become as iconic as his gangsters. <br /> His real life youth was full of uncertainty, violence, and adventure.<br /> He was generous as a mentor and one of the most enthusiastic and devoted practitioners of the art I'd ever met. Our first in-depth discussion, in Santa Fe, of course, had to do with Westerns, movies, books, outlaws; more Bill Holden in the Wild Bunch than John Wayne, the conversation always wound circuitously back to the poem. As he wrote in his essay, Machine Gun Dreams: "And if I had to write Dillinger at the expense of Literature, then fuck Literature. See, I wanted flesh and I wanted blood and I wanted dreams and I wanted death all mixed up in a wild desperado stew. I wanted that above all else."<br /> Amen, Todd.<br /> Todd and I met for our last lunch together a couple of months ago in Albuquerque. He brought with him a few books he'd been reading. One was a thick book on the mythology of the contemporary frontier, another a slim volume on Mayakovsky. Another book I don't remember, but his excitement for them, for literature in general, was sincere and infectious. Absorbing Todd's love of books was like loving writing itself. He had a schoolboy's crush on outlaw literature.<br /><br /> I'm selling books on a slow afternoon in the gallery as I write this. An older gent, maybe about Todd's age has just purchased 2 classic first editions of the genre: Turmoil In New Mexico and Violence in Lincoln County. Two titles I know Todd had read. I swear, Todd is here in spirit, just maybe, sharing his vast knowledge of western history with the cosmos, overseeing this transaction; I know he's now out there somewhere, where Heaven is caretaker to wind-swept Boothills and abandoned shotgun shacks, where Dillinger has lived just as large on the edge as Todd Moore's poetry surely will.<br /> <br /> Rest in peace, hermano.John Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-11594824625581468442010-02-22T10:53:00.000-07:002010-02-22T11:00:41.594-07:00We lost old Bill of old age last summer.first light<br /><br />I let Diego out at first light,<br />felt so finite under fading stars,<br />I heard a distant dog's bark carried<br />on the breeze<br />from the village, it<br />sounded like Bill's bark, a<br />soulmate I just buried and at that<br />moment<br /><br />dawn was a maroon thing of beauty,<br />the crown of the sun<br />appeared<br />hurling sparks,<br />loss became a river that<br />flowed away from me<br />and near the river<br />a coyote yipped a frenzy<br />of dawn songs<br /><br />the wolves of Afghanistan must've heard<br />and replied:<br /> "here are the ruins of war"<br /><br />loss is mostly everywhere<br />but dawn<br />spills its fiery light misted up<br />forever young<br />across all the rivers of earth.John Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-20269171806507850832010-02-12T14:26:00.000-07:002010-02-12T14:32:44.270-07:00On Graciela Iturbide’s Mujer Angel Sonora Desert, 1980<meta equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; 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panose-1:2 4 6 2 5 3 5 3 3 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:647 0 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --> </style><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">Here is where she enters <st1:country-region st="on"><st1:place st="on">Mexico</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">Black and white photograph penetrates the soul<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">like a sacrament,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">easy intimacy with the eyes, as if <i style="">my</i><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">angel woman, Seri goddess,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><span style=""> </span>boom box swinging<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">in her right hand, <span style=""> </span>in her left<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">she’s pulling something hidden<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">from the rock,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">long black <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">bridal veil of hair<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">maybe listening to hip hop<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">or be bop,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">hiking down from the mountain-<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">top in <span style=""> </span>white billowing <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">dress <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">her face a hidden <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">determination to be one<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">with/<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><span style=""> </span>the opposite of <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">the desert.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">She descends <i style="">sin nombre <o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">into the sun-<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><span style=""> </span>basted,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">flat<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">Sonoran badlands<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">where she’ll lose her mysteries<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">to that rigid overheated ocean<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">where scant rains fall,<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style=""><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";">here is where she enters my dream. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua";"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;">This was published by artist Leon Loughridge's DCPrint Folio this year in Denver. Poem is based on b & w photo by Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide. Enjoy. Peace.</span>
<br /></o:p></span></p> John Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-81801131791541339822008-11-11T14:42:00.000-07:002008-11-11T15:05:01.066-07:00a recent poem about the mountains near where I live<p style="font-weight: bold;" class="MsoNormal">Holy Ghost Creek</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">A lucky orange dog with thick hair & red</p> <p class="MsoNormal">bandana crosses the interstate near</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><st1:place st="on"><st1:placename st="on">Glorieta</st1:placename> <st1:placetype st="on">Pass</st1:placetype></st1:place>,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">not quite controlled burn smoke</p> <p class="MsoNormal">hangs in the valley, low</p> <p class="MsoNormal">leathery brown over the round</p> <p class="MsoNormal">green hills all muddied together</p> <p class="MsoNormal">like spirit bison.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Up the trail along the Holy Ghost to old</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Baldy, ascending tiers of tiny pastures</p> <p class="MsoNormal">fading yellow now</p> <p class="MsoNormal">fervid with September asters &</p> <p class="MsoNormal">cinquefoil, </p> <p class="MsoNormal">the higher I hike</p> <p class="MsoNormal">the burbling trickle of a creek </p> <p class="MsoNormal">crosses me more than once.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve imagined it</p> <p class="MsoNormal">coursing through my veins,</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=""> </span>blood disciple, </p> <p class="MsoNormal">a transfusion of headwaters </p> <p class="MsoNormal">streaming in spring </p> <p class="MsoNormal">cataracts down from a</p> <p class="MsoNormal">treeless domed summit </p> <p class="MsoNormal">& running away with the best of me </p> <p class="MsoNormal">until it plows into the indefatigable</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><st1:place st="on">Pecos</st1:place>, shedding its snowmelt,</p> <p class="MsoNormal">destined for the valley of </p> <p class="MsoNormal">these summer burns.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Impervious old Baldy</p> <p class="MsoNormal">the clouds build themselves about</p> <p class="MsoNormal">his mastiff head in</p> <p class="MsoNormal">no particular order;</p> <p class="MsoNormal">there were herds of bison</p> <p class="MsoNormal">down below the smoke once;</p> <p class="MsoNormal">their spirit shadows drink from</p> <p class="MsoNormal">the Holy Ghost, still.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>John Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-90854768396910965462008-06-12T15:04:00.000-06:002008-06-12T15:27:42.352-06:00New Mexico poet Keith Wilson<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">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.</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;"><br /><br /></span></span></span><span style="font-family: arial; font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">Desert Cenote<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;">There is sadness among the stones<br />today, the rabbits are silent.<br /><br />No wind. The heat bears down.<br />It has not rained for one year.<br /><br />We have faith out here, desert<br />people, we wait, knowing with sureness<br /><br />the swift cross of clouds, the blessings<br />of moisture (to deprive a man is to give<br /><br />charms to him.) I love this dry land<br />am caught even by blowing sand, reaches<br /><br />of hot winds. I am not the desert<br />but its real name is not so far from mine.<br /><br />Keith Wilson<br /></span></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;"></span><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span>John Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-72224303291378588672008-05-30T10:59:00.000-06:002008-05-30T11:11:14.453-06:00Jim 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 <span style="font-weight: bold;">Theory And Practice Of Rivers</span>, 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.John Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4539893456144500956.post-36358619760160436282007-05-21T11:06:00.000-06:002007-05-22T10:30:57.211-06:00Desert Shovel ReviewThis 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.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><em>Solid poetry that embraces life, respects history and invokes danger.- </em>Christopher Robin, Poesy</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"> <em>. . the impulse to defy is sublime . .-</em> David Meltzer</span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><br />Also, recently published: John Knoll's <strong>Elevator Music For The Dead</strong>. Perfectbound, 56 pages, softcover. $10. $1.50 shipping & handling.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">make checks payable to: John Macker LongRoad Press 924 Old Las Vegas Highway South, Las Vegas, NM 87701-9671<br /></span><br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;">"While the thunder of the batteries rumbled</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;">in the distance, we pasted, we recited, we</span></em><br /><em><span style="font-size:85%;">versified, we sang with all our soul."</span></em><br />-<span style="font-size:85%;">Hans Arp</span>John Mackerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16521338316864996705noreply@blogger.com0