And breaded trees
Land-hungry time
Backstairs time
In each of us
An eye witness
Marthy Cannary
By herself
An eye witness
*
Born 1852, Missouri
oldest of six brats
rider until I became an expert rider,
able to ride the not rideable
horses, which I spent
my early and later life riding
overland to Virginia City, 5 month
journey, hunting the plains
or adventuring, shooting
and riding way beyond
many times crossed
the Rockies
to Montana, our wagons
lowered over ledges,
boggy places, no use
to be careful
lost all, horses and all,
then there were dangers,
streams swollen; mounted
a pony to swim through currents and save
lives or to amuse ourselves.
Narrow escapes. Simple escapades,
reached for obstacles and overcame
as God is witness.
At Black Foot mother died,
I buried her under the spring.
She taught me weather,
strength and to cuss. Then
To Salt Lake. Where my father dies.
Joined General and his campaign.
Between Deadwood and Custer
Molested very little.
Ordered out to the Muscle Shell
Or Nursey Pursey Battle; in saddle
Swirled to catch and cradle
Egan in my arms. Christened
Me Calamity, heroine.
*
To rely on what
One had once
Lost faith
Perseverance keeping
The quiet outer
Fact
Synchronicity and spirit
*
Doris Day is Calamity sipping sarsaparilli
Bill can’t see her beauty till she drops
her coat, can’t see her
face or coif. Or hear her
sing, “My gun got so hot had to sit
with a muzzle between my legs.”
Her magic: pink chiffon.
made into a woman
“no changeless essence ... no eternal verities”
Custer, Custer, elle était plus qu’une prostituée
a true star of gold
ornée d’une étoile
la défroque of all théâtre
tout le monde
Jane Russell and Jean Arthur,
John Wayne and Bogie too.
The frontier’s Florence Nightingale.
Custer, she is more than a prostitute,
an assassine-squaw
First met up with her long about ’75. Business was off so rooming
cottages built and ladies called for to occupy them. They was of the
sporting variety, would have to be wanna come to Fort Laramie.
Common like Jane. Her and some few others followed Gen. Crook
and when Gen. Merritt sent wagons back home the women rode
with the wounded.
Tongue River
*
The Gold Rush was a period in American
history when men were digging and mining.
Oremos, oremos
angelitos semos,
del cielo venemos
a pidir oremos
of riches and respect, out of gulches
came jealousy, destruction of the unseen.
... we little angels
from heaven come
to ask for treats
selves, hearts and emptiness
*
Spectral
War vets sit
Armless
Incrusted black
Marble
Ploughshare
Hero infatuations
And Methodist
Prohibitions
Painted sex
Front tier stage
Ghosting tips
Chartreuse plumes chanteuse.
Cheyenne. Le chuk wagon.
Young muscled whackers,
Triple-barreled and stallion-tailed
Deadwood, New Dakota
Derring-do boom
Gold Black Hills
From Kingdom Come
Calam & Wild Bill
Parade down Main
*
Donned in buckskin, in beaver,
hammered silver, the sun
children, five men
And Jane joins the pageantry
on horse, not prospector
but sentimentalist scout
The Queen with rosemary
potpourri and cowhands
never bedded sober
or pennies in her pocket
to awaken on a familiar cot and recall
a fairy tale
“you’re a wonderful little woman to have around in times of
calamity,” says Captain Egan when I save his life.
to awaken in an unfamiliar fairy tale
*
Letters to your
self, inflammation of bowels
weaver and vowel lover
sense of restriction like touch
part of her
life nutrient
confessions encoded
in the photo album
diary of a surface
wound
Your rest in her sleep
*
Master says, “With your eyes, what have you
Seen? With ears, what have you heard?
What have you said with your mouth?”
As none of these was ever practiced
From where come such colors, sounds and scents?
Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises
*
Hat Creek
Calamity Peak
Drunk at Jack’s Bar
Fell in a lake
Relationship with memory,
the dark star
“Deadwood Dick,
Rider of the Lugubrious Hills”
Disaster
(Now, isn’t that rich)
Beautiful white devil of the Yellow
Stone, Heroine of Whoop-up,
In the melodramatic role
Calamity Jane she expounds
(Tight as a three-leg goat)
Billings, Montana, Gazette.
Daughter of Janie & Wild Will
Exclusive. Mother’s secret diary.
her confessions. her letters.
The real Calamity Jane for one dime only
Her deeds and miscredits
*
Student asks, “Are clouds
running from or chasing the moon?”
“With your mind, what have you fathomed?” replies Master.
Basic fears never materialize
Wherever the body travels
Hometown strangers send it back
of characters she once was
As in the Noh play, when the lover
Arrives at noon to find no reflection
Alive, she collects change of dreams
after the lust is gone
They can meet in different parts
previous world
Shadows lengthen
in anticipation of shades
*
Replace the word power with ...
The costume of one’s sex.
Passion for male clothes
and companionship
a paradox-mask.
“Pard we will meet again
in the Happy Hunting Ground
to part no more,” the stone signature,
written, not in letters, but in her
where signatures of all things
can never be erased, ceased
the afterglow
gun
Imaginary
*
Hog ranch on the outskirts
Institute for Ladies and Gayeties
to accept her
sleep as his access to her pleasure
exhibit her
exclusively
cow-craft
Bill she thinks she is.
And discovers the cruelty
of identities, difference
*
Forces of air into peaceful
movements; sound
(gentle and
directional)
reveals
the deep
vertebral column
They weave sashes and blankets
Swap stories
migrations over imaginations
orchestrated
held in irons for that which they depend upon
one custodian must bear
the water jar
must gather
clay, shape and fire
beside the power
behind the prayer of ocean
will draw water from the distant
moon without end
until the sky is dry
her eyes
witness
herself
*
A door above
your head left ajar
for the emergence
of far-off planets
echoing eloquence
toward bottom.
They switch the date of death
to coincide with Bill’s
and bury her by his side
Which animals befriend her?
the cat, the kite, the mule:
stubborn, hunter, stray
Le Diable Blanc
at the Number 10 Saloon
Mount Moriah
broken light and grasses
chilled in winter glass
a double sunset
That you choose to destroy, but save
instead, is the purest act of Love.