Poetry

And where is a safe place where men share openly from their hearts without being judged, or advised, or fixed? And where is an honorable place where men listen with understanding to hear a man’s story, affirming him for his trust and honesty? Show me the whereabouts of such a place and I will be…

You know you want to ... but can you?You say you will ... but you don’tor you try and try ... then walk awayand tell yourself tomorrow – tomorrow’s the day  But your clock is moving backwardOn its own tomorrow doesn’t comeand those scenes mulling in you on a slow boil– their voices pleading –…

Dad where have you gone?Did you leap quicksilver into the last runof legendary kings – those eighty-pound June Hogs –that bashed themselves against the wallsof the Grand Coulee Dam?Or are you too smart for the trap of extinctionstill holding in the shadows of that damin the back of my mind – thinkingbut not showing much?…

It was long ago but that silence comes back like a soft-whistled lullaby with clean air floating in after and I could just give myself over to dreams – and see things not just in the clouds but down along foggy roads and in shadows of half-silent streams trickling in the woods and across the…

He walks between his metal shop and his greenhousefingernails broken at the edgeswrists coloring rust into the dirtfeet spread apart the old grunt way‒ a habit not broken off frommortars dropping In the metal shop sparks fly off the wheelsharpening a blade he may needto carve away trouble ‒ you never knowIn the greenhouse cherry…

By John Thompson I want to be the Lord’s stallion! Thick and broad and sinewed And of milky mane, Sun’s fire caught and flashing In my dancing eyes And hooves as sharp and shining As obsidian! I want to feel upon my neck The firm direction of His arms And feel my tensing flanks Beneath…

Find a place at the edge of a swamp Listen and learn and take in who goes – who stays – what’s eaten – what decays – all the stinks and stews of it in the percolating ooze of a swamp’s necessities until you realize this isn’t all that life’s about When you come away…

… we’d go tramping off the back road through salal and ferns and huckleberries and hike the dry logged-off ridges crisscrossed with wild strawberries tiny and tasty and gritty with sand We’d stomp down tough blackberry vines raveling over the slash of old bones piles of branches the loggers left We’d reach past bramble thorns…