City Indians~

~sometimes it's a hard knock life~

You carve from my moon skin a mellifluous composition

ink crow wings brush the arc of my spine

sienna lips color my pale face with kisses

shaping me with the warm earth of your mouth

 

Once, I tried to worship you, and you said

Ain’t gonna laugh in your face, cause you’re young and the only Indian you had to dream was Jay Silverheels, but get over all that feather headdress and teepee typecasting.  This ain’t a movie, this is our life. Now get over here, pale face woman, and kiss me like you would any man.”

and you drank the reverence out of my mouth

 

Once I whispered ‘Native American’ your way, and you frowned, and said

No, lil ninja chick, I’m a Indian, a reservation Indian, a city Indian,  them new labels don’t change a damn thing, excuse nothing, makes nothing alright.  But you’re a baby and still believe in ideologies, so I forgive you. Just drop all the politically correct trash with me, baby. Today I ain’t no more than your city Indian.

and you laughed, but it had a bite, an edge I would learn

to evade

 

You came calling on your woman

disheveled and high on liquid golds

fallen deep into the concrete and the alloy

beguiled

vulpine

I learned love isn’t always flowers

sometimes it’s delivered in a fist

 

Once I tried to save you, and you said

You’re as crazy and as lost as me, so just live it with me, baby, walk it with me, whatever this is we’re making. Don’t go tryin’ to hide the bottles and I won’t trash your razors. Made for each other, ain’t we?

and you smiled, but the eyes gave everything away

 

Black coffee moments

swirled through obdurate stretches of hazy existence

sometimes it was your big boy hands that broke everything

sometimes it was my indifference to it all

 

Once I tried to bend to your rage, and you said

Go! Leave! Why you stay when I break you?  You like the color of the bruises, girl? The blood and broken bones? This all you ever known?

and you shattered  a fine curve of rib, but weeping all the while

 

I was flowers in a vase of tricolored moods

drowned deep in the sedulous domicile of your skin delights

gilded in your mountains shape

my eclipse

lost in the raven blues of your waterfall hair

 

Once I tried to love you, and you said

You love me like you’d love a broken toy. You love like a girl with nothing to lose.  You lost something a long time ago and you ain’t gonna find it in me. What I lost, I ain’t gonna find it in you. The things we lost, well, they are gone, wichinchala.

and your mood was whimsical, tender

but your fingers like steel around my own

 

Your beauty rolls me like poppy tea

honey mouth full of the sweetest stings

my arch curves with such vapid need

to fit the grooves of all the contours of your bite

and sometimes I will whisper

Bite me not to hard my Eagle, for you’ve filled me with a voracious appetite, no longer so easily appeased.

 

A thousand times I left you in my dreams

slipped your capture

saying

Wastewalake, but I can no longer watch you die.

but only in those dreams

for I knew my fate was buried deep inside your big boy hands

the day I witnessed  what you could have been

standing

on a mesa

at Window Rock

with the sun in your hair

and life in your eyes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

{written in the Summer of 1988}

first publication copyright:2005vssmd/pa inc.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

 

excerpt from

 

 

 

 

Author's Note

~life is a series of choices~neither good nor bad~they are what they are~lessons to be learned and hopefully learned well on this crazy little journey called life~

Reviews

[FireWoman]

What amazes me more than anything is that he knew he was broken and damned in this life, and chose to stay the path. Stubborn City Indian... You knew what you knew, and were doubly stubborn.
It was never you he fought, but his past & I think you realized that. Glad you got a glimpse of him on his higher plane. Amazing and sad, hugs.

[Maurice]

A very powerful write. The way you handle the subject expertly is amazing.

[Brad]

unbelievable, eSS, i know the story behind the myth...which makes this that much more endearing...these are little films of your past...enjoying every one

[Amy Bumpas]

Yes, the the journey of life, learned or not, we must go through
it to truly live. A story of love, the man blunt, and seemed at times
not to have a conscious, and said and done what he meant.
Harsh he was...the woman tender, full of compassion, forgiveness...
so different they are.

I love this line:I learned love isn’t always flowers

sometimes it’s delivered in a fist
You are so right on that one...everything isn't perfect
as a flower.

[My Fair Lady]

Wrapping my arms around you.

[Robin]

page by page ~ and here we are ~

[David W Moore III]

even in your ostensibly straight forward pieces, you manage to remain enigmatic, giving the reader freedom to veer off on so many tangents that each piece is an adventure. I wish i could layer half the depth of flavors, you cook thease repasts with.

[Hello, Goodbye]

Truly amazing stuff...

[Emily B]

just wow

[David W Moore III]

oh so evocative, the abuse, the constant effort to ameliorate, meeting a rock, but under the rock built by pressure and heat, a diamond, but can you ever get to it, will you survive the mining, and how does that change you?
As ever, Selene, your poems cannot be read just once. Those were my first impressions, but i know not my last as I delve ever deeper into this piece. Thanks!

[Ed Hart]

we survived; we got all the way to here; now we echo words, and the children hear; now we have these moments, and i cherish the play of you