Coyote's Children

Feeding the Gray Mare

—Poetry by Michael Dwayne Smith, 

Apple Valley, CA
—Public Domain Photos Courtesy
of Joe Nolan, Stockton, CA

 

 

DAYBREAK

These mornings
my aim is to go outside

& take the world literally,
simply, genuine—

blue jay sipping from
water pooled beside a sprinkler,

my grey mare giving me the ol’ side-eye.

Of course
I am bum-rushed by life’s fear & anxiety.
Of course
I am ashamed of the secrets I have kept

(I so wanted to give them each away.)

Waking comes earlier every day.
Am I in a hurry for someone, something?

To make morning tea means time & care.
To drink invites sitting—

reverent gaze into desert hills
from our front porch,

horse whinny and birdsong
all the annotation I require. 

 

 

 

 

SCARCITY

Young couplets branch,
ripe with flowering fruit.

A turn, and then dry leaves
parachute to the ground,

ochre, carmine, plain shoe
brown. Scarcity begets plenty,

plenty a flamboyance,
a splendor, light, the sun the

basis for its being, ours, the
concealment of absence, the

nothing, which always prevails. 

 

 

 

 

DIVINATIONS

A Polaroid portrait, Janie’s buoyant smile,
eyes closed, head tilt dramatic into empty sky,
a fading creased survivor from 1974—
I place this on a table beside the handful of

multicolor river stones pocketed on an Arizona
reservation in 2004. I pick up a pen, pause,
listening, allegro moderato, Sibelius, Violin
Concerto in D Minor. A Sunday morning rises

inside me, days and years and rainstorms, a
slender white vase holding a single sunflower.
Back in my apartment, 1979, I am furiously
painting in dreamy afternoon sunshine, and Janie

does not suspect, for neither do I, that I am
painting the rugged road through treacherous
mountain terrain that leads me first to madness,
then to divorce, now to this window overlooking

an amiable grass, a venerable mulberry tree,
these six chattering ravens on a lax fence. 

 

 

 

 

REDEMPTION

Even at St. Hilary’s Episcopal they
peer over hymnals like I’m my father’s ghost,

shrink from my Peace be with you hugs like
leery children. O charming, sun-bleached

adobe, cloistered church, how am I not my Self,
sacramental tears not real enough,

little poems inaudible. Thus, I pray solo,
Sundays. Afterward, with a whisky, I spin

Monk again, to testify in high fidelity,
putting down what I will pick up, as lovely

untroubled Bonnie glides around the house
watching over a simmering soup,

resurrecting in me an angelic, dissonant smile,
as in Who needs anyone else’s heaven?

 

 

 

LOST LETTER TO EMILY

Everyone here is drinking beer, big whooping clouds
passing over, Mojave sun microwaving us all,
everything
hot to the touch, so the beer gets warm fast, meaning

Jimmie & Vero & all that crowd are gulping
Modelos,
letting out circus-tent laughs on the picnic grass
here by
the stables. I’m keenly watching horses stroll,
mostly, or

yipping when I stroke their necks. Last night
Jimmie’s
sister, Tina, found me on the back porch of my little
faux-adobe duplex & full-on kissed my stray mouth.
I have

missed her & it was a gift. I’ve missed you, too, but
differently, like a ghost limb. Tina split this morning
with ass-hat photographer you-know-who. No 

surprise, that.

Remember him hitting on you, after your broken
ankle
bareback riding the Narrows? He’s still got the scar—
man, I was proud of you. I am now quitted on the
warm

beers & have started on a bottle of bourbon. Yes, 

the Heaven Hill Green. Yes, still having that same
dream:
summer in San Gabriel Valley orange groves,
scooting

around on the banana seat of my Schwinn Sting-
Ray,
& Jesus steps out from behind a tree to say, That,
right there, that’s the poem, right now, in your 

mongrel head!

 

 

 

GHOST CHASING

As if I am a boy again, the moon following me
everywhere, like light reflected in my mother’s

green eyes, or the still surface of Silverwood Lake
at midnight. “No one alive is alone,” according

to Helen, perpetually upbeat, but her opinion
counts less because she is so much prettier than

the rest of us. Still, she has a point. I’ve lived in
Alaska’s birch cathedrals, late of the great state

of Americans trying to get away from everything,
but Hey, surprise! People already live there, and

runaways are just toting their problems around
to splash on unsuspecting souls. I’ve tried to run

away from you, too, but of course give in. I keep
a photo of you in my wallet—your beaming

face right after I kissed you. Your death is a
perplexing beauty: this welcome obligation to

cinematic memory, emotional mythos, flights of
stairs in my sleep that lead through lusty shadow

or flowery grief, nights slightly longer, mirrorless
halls full of doors randomly locked or unlocked,

rooms empty of ghosts, but still I feel the delicate
warmth of a wood fire from some chamber or other,

catch feints of ember and ash, and so I search on,
resolute, calm, moon watching through a window.

 

 

 

LONGING IS FIERCE

if you’re a windy tree.
The forgiven grove is closed.

Done for
like the rowdy horse on your father’s farm.

Gallop storm, gallop empire, gallop vinegar sky—
the King’s shoulders are broken,

blessings bent like pounded nails
in the long-broken tree,

redemption barking, moon-lidded, hounded by
October
down in the Paiute caves among some pines.

We are all become Coyote’s children
living in a muddy ditch.

Palestine sparrows nest around it.
We are disappeared.

____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

Whenever the pressure of our complex city life thins my blood and numbs my brain, I seek relief in the trail; and when I hear the coyote wailing to the yellow dawn, my cares fall from me—I am happy.

—Hamlin Garland

____________________

A big Medusa welcome to Newcomer Michael Dwayne Smith, who haunts many literary houses, including Bending Genres, The Cortland Review, Gargoyle, Third Wednesday, Heavy Feather Review, Monkeybicycle, and Chiron Review. Author of four books, recipient of the Hinderaker Poetry Prize, the Polonsky Prize for fiction, and multiple Pushcart Prize/Best of the Net nominations, he lives near a Mojave Desert ghost town with his family and rescued horses. Again, welcome to the Kitchen, Michael, and don’t be a stranger!

____________________

—Medusa

 

 

 

Michael Dwayne Smith

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A reminder that
Modesto-Stanislaus Poetry Center
presents a workshop today, 1pm;

and tonight, 4-8pm, Placerville
authors will sign books at the
Third Saturday Artwalk.
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When mares give you the side-eye...