Ghost Rock View

Sign by the side of a road

Through a dry spot on the map—

Ghost Rock View—a nice view, too,

Wide sky—pale, sharp cliffs and buttes.

But it’s not the rock that’s ghost.

The ghosts are the ones with views.

The ghost is the word for ghost,

And the words for rock and view.

Why on earth would you name rocks

For lost lives you thought haunt you?

Just since some are pale, shell-white,

Since they glow when there’s a moon?

Ghosts just die to be like rocks.

A rock is not what it’s not.

O

No one holds their views
Due to what went down
With them or their kin.
Love, hard times, and pain
Aren’t the half of it.

Folks hold their views due
To views that they’ve learned,
The views that hold them,
Have since they were young,
Just kids, most of them.

Rough blows can tilt you.
You can learn to loathe
Who did what to you.
You can come to love
The few more than kind.

You can act as if
You don’t hold such views.
You may sense you don’t
Hold those views that hold
You in like thin skin,

But they’re part of you,
All the views that flew
Through the storms, the worms
That lit on your head
To hatch howling storms.

Wet Day In Dry Night Out

Read, write, and wait. Them’s
The breaks. Some of you

Know from breaks. Some don’t.
Break for you. Breaks you.

Mind is a junk drawer
Filled with what might be

Of use that was not
Of use, or no clear

Class of use, years past.
Take out and put back.

The seas aren’t all wet.
The seas are all waves.

You’d Think You’d Feel at Home

Why does the mind,
That mess of life
Mixed up with signs,
Draw back from spots

That don’t add up
But to more spots?
The world’s a splotch,
A spilled hodge-podge

Of yes and no,
Same and change, here
It’s dark and there
It glows. The night

Is full of lights
That all add up
To noise and void.
What’s with the mind?

Kings

He wrapped his face in cloth
And went out to the mouth
Of the cave. Then a voice,

A still, small voice, told him
What to do next. He did
Not ask why the voice was

Small and still. He did not
Ask where that voice came from.
At the mouth of a cave,

The earth breathes out that voice,
Not like the roar of storms,
Not like dry gusts of wind.

A sigh that says the same
Sigh, night on day, that voice
Says you can go and do

All the things done to kings,
That still, small voice that still
Sighs here once things are done.

Lourdes Is a Check-Out Line at the Store

We’re all sad to look at
And we know it. A few
Of us can fake it well.

Well, we try not to look
Too close. A few of us
Get all the fuss for good

Looks, like the rest of us
Are clods and spuds. We lust
To have those few good looks.

It’s not just looks, of course.
We’re all sad to think on
Us, when we think on us

Too much. A few of us
Can hug this to our chests,
The most strange ones. Bless us.

Know the Truth

Reads a sign
Perched in dirt
By the road.

O sweet soul,
To feel truth
Is to know.

Truth’s to fight,
Truth on truth,
Sign to sign.