Crows Mouth

foolscrow :: hutterites :: 04.2005 ::

in sisseton, s.d.,
hutterites line up
like gingham crows
for doctor appointments
every thursday : mostly girls,
old women and the men
who drive them to town.
the men go for whiskey
or tractor parts or both
while they wait to collect
the women and stop
last of all
at the pharmacy where
the charge account is ::
:::: in sisseton, s.d., the ghost of
a lakota medicine man
frank fools crow watches
the hutterites
and the indians
file out from
the liquor store : equal
in this above
all else, even
religion ::
sitting in his pickup,
invisible to this night-turning world,
he makes his
willow stick prayer
to end all war :
to end all car wrecks
on the pine ridge road :
to end all drunken
self-destruction that even
the sundance cannot
atone ::
the hutterites :
knowing nothing of
ghosts anymore : head back
to their dirt-road
communes : peasants
after a fashion who
have forgotten
who they are :
much less
who they were :::
:::: amen, ancestors, to
fools crow's prayer :
face like old
cottonwood bark : hewn
by a century's
hard resplendent wind :::

legacy ::

this is all we have
left : and not even
our names but only
an old shed town
up on
henry hudson's bay :
where inuit shamans
breathe ice and live
in corrugated
isolation
with the salt wind
and whales ::
this is all we
have left :: and not
even that :::

vision :: sisseton, s.d. :: 2005

across a dakota century
sitting bull's murdered
straight-razor grace
sliced in half the moon's
cool reliquary of my sins ::
what else could he do ::
it felt better afterward
like unexpected
hope : or
some muscular sundance
nirvana (but I'm
only imagining now
and he said not to) :: but
I remember his brown
ghost face from
way back before I
was born as
a wandering cowboy's
child :: we
have spoken often :
sitting bull and I :
mythic as he is : and
I knew no fear :: only
remorse
compunction
dusty tears
from the back road
I traveled
to get here ::
I consider these tears
gifts bestowed
for the sake of gifts ::
a taste of the sacred pipe
that was his to offer
from his very own
hands : resurrected :::

ghostwheel :: everyone made holy again ::

juniper moon

climbs a daylit crescent

as crazyhorse

charges custer on

the bighorn's greasy

grass ::

black elk

was there : a

relic of

ourselves and

everyone made holy : again :: and so

the juniper

ghostwheel

brings blessings of

montana : sweet medicine :

a daylit moon ::

and custer : for you :

no fond

farewell

except your

blood and civilwar

longhair : mythic

shadows on

the crowded ground :::

heat lightning :: crazyhorse :: ghostdance :: kansas

heat lightning

on the yellowdust horizon

this april evening in

the prairie's middle distance west

of wichita ::

there : where riders

scattered horses : memorized ghosts of

hickok cody black kettle big foot

lean bear whitside crazyhorse custer

settle a few scores ::

they meet the wall of rain

as it comes in :

epic

earth-changing

sacred ::

out where the oil wells

churn night and day

in reno county :::

and then they are

gone ::

custer (naked : bloody : hair shorn)

turns and rides back

for montana : cody

for wyoming : the rest

for their own

constellations :: until :

in the prairie west

of wichita : look :

ghostdancers

heat lightning

a glimpse of souls

returned from

the rainy night certainty of

disintegration :::

amen

* * *

kansas

2005 : an

infinite nation

dances

as foretold :

wovoka :::

white antelope :: rain oratorio ::

in these prairie relic clouds
the rain of suffering:
the rain of forgiveness:
from ghost to ghost
from heaven to earth
a silent exchange: a
common recognition ::
a relic of ourselves
never interred or
left to the wind and foxes: so
bring us back
even a century
from now ::
for we are only stolen
scalps teeth skulls
ears genitals hands : but
ghost to nameless ghost
we will know this
memorized place again :
shallow as
a battlefield grave :::

* * *
Summer Storm by Montana artist Russell Chatham

dakota blizzard :: hickok's requiem

above the infinite blue
promised land
the sun: painted white
by a tide of snow ::
high above the ghostwheel prairie,
day and all its muted
recognitions
touch the shoulder of night ::
turning east,
blinded by snow
the moon leaves
shadows traversing
our bivouacked enemies: like us:
trapped and cold ::
like cody & hickok:
trapped in their cordial
chicago guilt:
if that is the unpleasant
word ::
in any event, they
weren't there to
save us or even to
witness our slow
grave-thawed
disintegration :::
wild bill: ask
for fresh hoyles: keep
your back to the rear
wall in case
some feathered ghost
should appear
there in heaven ::
no one you know:
but you never
can be too careful
these days ::: ask
billy the kid
if he's where
you're at
now

moonlight :: cody :::

walking with

the snowblind moon

remember the relics

of the resurrected ancients ::

legends bibles myths

riddles from

these hills above the juniper:

the desert of endless vision ::

walking with

the blind-owl hunter's moon

remember the theft

of the vision:

cody hickok wildwest:

a pornography

of bullets: rope tricks:

prancing ghost stallions :: like

sitting bull's that danced

when the shots

that killed him

cracked open

an eternity of myths

legends

bibles :: and their heroes:

cody & hickok: [deceased:

in requiem whiteface]

bullets

rope ::

a limited engagement

[back from the badlands!]

in madison square garden:

so forever now

an absence of

moonlight :::

washita :: black kettle :: custer

only the stones

stay on earth

forever :: and

a relic of

myself:

disintegrated :::

Instinct :: relic

relic of night:

relic of moon:

relic of indigo heaven ::

sweet medicine:

dakota prophet ::

old earth has passed away

leaving signs of contradiction

on cave walls:

canyon cutoffs:

in the memory of owls

and panthers :: wovoka:

dance: if only

for what will

follow :::