The Orphaned Iguana

Walking through the park today I saw a homeless man lying prostrate on a picnic table, pockets turned inside out an earring ripped from his ear. Beside the man sat an orphaned iguana.

The iguana called to me, “hey asshole, someone rolled my old man. I think he’s dead.” I walked towards him and sure enough the iguana was right.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked the lizard, “fucked if I know” was his reply.

I gently picked up the iguana and began walking.

Walking past a dumpster I chucked him in.

Colby, Kansas

The night is vacant

photo by hungrybison

No moon glint on hardened tear
No thought to the void

Crazy-assed old man
Walking on the earth leaking
An empty beer can

Remington 12 gauge
The dilapidated barn
A hole blown straight through

Long, deep and jagged
Torn, stained clothes in plastic bags
The starving dog eats

Lost, Colby Kansas
A “Spanish omelet” with toast
consciousness at last

Injun Incorporated

Lies sold as ceremony,

photo by hungrybison

“traditions” dreamt up by white men in suits,
sold prepackaged,

and branded,
to “new age injuns”.

Salvation,

like fuck,

is but a word.

Souls piled high,
like the bones and skulls gathered from the prairie.
Piled high,
to be ground into powder.

Bone Thin

A diamondback rattler,

photo by hungrybison

a buzzards’ feast day,
a wasteland of grass.

The body will be where it fell to the earth,
crumpled like old leather,
the place where life ended,
will be marked,
with the stench of the decay.

Hides and tongues for
back east,
that’s gone,
so is the myth,
and the desire.

Stretches of abandoned roads,
on which the snakes sun themselves, are lined with dried up weeds ,
and fences where coyotes are hung by their necks.

Under what was once,

a swatch of blue,
now turned white,
comes the sound of rolling thunder,
the forewarning,
an oncoming storm.

The trailers,
and run down,
bone thin remains of dreamers,
lie in peril.

Consequence

He lives with the consequence,

photo by hungrybison

the uncensored horror,
the raving subconscious,
on and on, unrelenting, unending.

The fragile shellshocked minds of frail warriors who’s dreams have become nightmares,
who’s nightmares became monologues.

He lives with the consequence.

The Circus for the Gullible

photo by hungrybison

It’s the circus for the gullible.

This is where it’s all happening.

Where the buzzards are circling.
Where clicks echo down alleyways.
Where TV clowns dress as politicians,
and rule like self appointed gods.

Where TV is your neighbor, your friend, your therapist, your advisor, your prescriber, your teacher, your preacher, and the new Oracle of Delphi.

This is where its all happening.

Where fists unclench.
Where songs of protest soften.
Where nothing is as big as celebrity.

Peyote

Peyote,

Photo by Hungrybison

my oasis in the desert,

intense,

beautiful, wild,

sometimes disturbing.

Extreme euphoric, spiritual,

and bringer of clarity.

 

Sit with me on the prairie, amongst the emptiness.

I want to ask you,

what is the taste of red?

Why does your brother have a black aura?

Jesus,

Your heart is ice cold.

You have beautiful eyes,

and you are cute,

but you are obviously an elitist.

Go fuck yourself.

You are hardly an “observer”,

any notion you may have of being one is imagined.

This is now part of you.

You’re like the bull’s skull that floats on the breeze.

Which is better:

the short sharp burst of psychotic realisation,

or the mind numbing dullness of the everyday?

The action or the thought?

The talking about God or the talking to God?

This, where we sit was stolen,

in an era of madness.

An era of greed,

when magic became superstition,

when ritual became frivolous.

You were not part of that world,

now is your time.

Now is your time,

it is your turn,

the new gold rush.

There is a treasure you want to acquire,

no matter how much you destroy it or extinguish its value.

Look! There’s a goddamn thunderstorm under those rocks,

under this earth are a thousand angry souls,

waiting for their time.

The skin on my hands is starting to look like the bark,

of an old knurled cottonwood.

There are stars in the green liquid,

and the haloes of angles circling within the cries of the coyote.

The Inevitable Mire of Horse Shit

Drowning in despair,

photo by Hungrybison

the inevitable mire of horse shit.

Let us retire to your room,

let me sink my iron into the warmth of your flesh.

Our being together,

soothes me, in its outlandishness.

My equilibrium is gone,

my eyesight blurred.

Is there an alter to kneel before?

My anxiety is displaced by whiskey,

and a fondness for the congregation

of the abused.

A cross, a desperate sign of optimism.

I should not be interfered with,

I should be afforded a tolerance.

I’m dying, I need a place,

to draw my last breaths.

I need to get out of this cold,

this numbing Montanan brace.

A futile hope for a reprieve,

before my flesh rots from its frame.

A cross, a desperate sign of optimism.

Was I not true?

Was I not a decent man?

Should I not be assured of my place in Heaven?

fuck.

Sleep eternal awaits for me,

for my unabated surrender.

The Strap

A secret joy in the adrenaline rush of guilt,

the  memory of a strap.

Photo by Hungrybison

A savage mixture of sweat and blood,

a gentle kiss,

a sigh of relief.

Crow Killer

Dapiek Absoraka

photo by hungrybison

 

Her remains and those of the unborn child,

he discovered.

 

Revenge against the Crow,

the killers of his wife.

 

His vengeance,

as unforgiving as the grizzly,

as cruel as the wilderness.

 

A mortal conflict between the solitary man and a nation.

 

The blood began to flow.

The wrath of Depiak Absoraka

appeared upon the plains.

 

A slain Crow warrior lies

scalped and stripped bare.

Ripped from his side, his liver,

consumed by his killer,

“The Crow Killer”,

Depiak Absoraka