Monday, June 21, 2010

Alone Together



Naill & Blackwood
on a dog-day quest for fathers unknown
our Golden Eagle soaring along Route 66
attracting attention unwanted.

Disjointed memories
colliding with no rhyme
bypassed the Grand Canyon
nonstop through Navajo land
the Texas panhandle
far horizon country, past
cylindrical bales of gold spun
under a flaxen Oklahoma sun.

Aunt Opal in Carnegie
distant Kiowa powwow, that night
drumming a twister warning.
shelter in Anadarko
Gladys’ cellar fit all
telling lore of bygone family
history to help her belong.
not always right; not always wrong.

Onward to Arkansas
a diamond in the rough
through Cherokee hills
red dust & Ozark sweat.
Uncle Max on a tractor
his last summer tilling earth.
Dad, out back culling greens
only four summers more to reap.

No matter Nashville
detoured south to Broken Bow
undeterred by Choctaw thunderheads
sleuthed among soggy headstones
—none that Blackwood sought.


~text & photo by leh

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Dateline: Rosewood

Dateline: Rosewood
1923 New Year's Day

A bloody, bruised
white woman
stumbled from her home
in Sumner, Florida
claiming assault by a
negro man

                    1945 Auschwitz

Under an ashen sky
white men gathered
bloodhounds, guns, whiskey
and went after him

                    1955 Mayflower, Texas
        Rosa Parks arrested
        for refusing to give up
        her bus seat to a white man

By the time it ended
seven people died
unknown dozens of blacks
driven from their homes
into neighboring swamps

                    1968 Montgomery, Alabama
        Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
        assassinated

A once thriving
black community
called Rosewood
burned to the ground

                    1995 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
        White supremacist Timothy McVeigh
        bombs federal building

Satisfied
as if they'd simply
eaten a hearty meal
the upstanding citizens
of Sumner, Florida
staggered home
for a good night's sleep

                    1998 Laramie, Wyoming
        Matthew Shepard beaten to death
        for being homosexual

In the smoldering rubble
that used to be
Rosewood
the incessant ping of rain
echoed off tin roofs

                    2010 Brotherhood of Klans'
                    response to immigration:
        “The racial war is among us.
        It is time to fight.”


Who's next?

photo & text by leh

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Refraction

bending of light as it passes between
materials of different optical density

our collective stories pass
from one generation to another

truth bending, curving
refracting through time

memory of our origin fading
evolving into myriad tales of creation


text by leh; photo by Dixie Lewis

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Saturn Opposite Neptune

Saturn's boundaries are Neptune's enemies...
saying nothing because you don't feel safe
holding your breath so you don't hear your heartbeat
not letting him see you cry as he disappears into illusion
just one more look...no, remember your boundaries

Phew, Saturn wipes his brow, that was close!

If only she'd let him in, muses Neptune.

Why? Sooner or later, he'd still break her heart.

Not necessarily my cynical friend, not if she had faith.

You've been eating too many brownies!

Haven't you heard that chocolate is an aphrodisiac?

I give up, sighs Saturn, you're hopeless.

To the contrary, replies Neptune, I am hope.


leh

Sunday, December 13, 2009

the damn rain

the damn rain
won't stop
its monotonous drumming
foretelling flood, this year
before winter solstice
above my roof

sounds of cracking branches
send me cowering
as I curse the fickle moon

alone in our bed
I can still hear you breathing


~text & photo by leh


Sunday, October 18, 2009

San Francisco Beat

Broadway at Columbus
Chinatown fades into
little Italy, blessed by
Saint Francis of Assisi

omne ignotum

Chianti and Brad
at Ristorante Franchino
photos of young mama and
papa hang on the walls

buon appetito

City Lights, across the alley
Vesuvio Cafe where
50s Beats spouted prose
while pissing in the john

cool man

Ginsberg's Howl banned
Burroughts was Junkie
pre Condor and Carol Doda
Kerouac lived On the Road

the Beat bible

In that flicker between
when The Gate glows sienna
and neon lights Broadway
young poets of North Beach

hear the rhythm of the Beats


leh

Saturday, October 17, 2009

unquiet repose

electrical energy triggers
gates in the brain, synapses fire
impinge upon nervous system

grand mal, dis-ease
inflicted by the gods
activates pineal gland

supernova center eye
electric current overwhelms
causing failure in consciousness

mc2 = Energy = liberated matter
information travels faster
than light into the future

kundalini flow of energy
order out of chaos


photo & text by leh