“You are not a wolf
And this is the land of wolves now….”
Sicario the film 2015.Long before winter these ones sent
Their tracks looking for you….The black dog sits among you
Its crimson eyes turned toward youThey will ask you to come out
Whether by your stench of hatred or evil fearThey sit in the blackness where you sleep
They will rise as darkness to enshroud you
They know who you are…..
We are among you
Even now….
Dog soldier poem for enemies.
Mahago domiutz tsistsistas
Hotomitoneo
June 30.20
Life is not itself
It is a long journey
It is the world’s dream of us
The footprints that have led away are our own
We watched them leaving
In the silences that have taught us to be still
While the wind howled…..
It is not itself
We sit in its dampened rooms
Born so far away from ourselves
Looking back over our winged shoulders
Where the long journey began….
Painting with words
For Paul klee
From the stronghold
June13.20
The Bounty Hunters
Nah he in eh woh ha doh
Ehoi yah ja oh gnaw ni dot
Edo no vo oh komeh eh tista
Nah moghda Veho
Davi idon ha aht ighiv
Hoiv ay ya dnot neuts
Eyo sidon he tista
I feel them out there
They sit under a dark sky
Waiting for coyote or Indian
Or black man
Night holds its fist in their eyes
The prairie now grown darker
Turns its face away….
Dog soldier poem
For Robbie McMurtry, Chantel Moore, Sarah Circling Bear, Zachery Bear Heels,
Jacqueline Slayers, George Floyd, Mahivist Goodblanket….a list too long to publish here.
From the stronghold
Lance henson
Cheyenne nation of Oklahoma
June 6, 20
Here
Here is a place where nothing can die
Darkness that lives beneath the leaves
We bring our nights there without knowing
We bring our fear there before the singing begins
We bring our silent names there hoping we are forgiven
We bring our hands there scented of a river
We bring our prayers that hide and watch us
The landscape where we have held the loose feathers
Of a fallen bird
And awakened in the land of the unseen
Here is a place where nothing can die….
Sunday24may20
Bologna
What has seen you
What has seen you
Saw you a long time ago
It comes back to watch you
Though sometimes you are missing
It waits with its one breath
Listening to itself so it can remember
Often when it arrives it sounds
Like smoke
Or a burning leaf
Sometimes it sounds like its hand on your window glass
The eyes in its hand closed but for one eye
The one that remembers you….
Relative
From the dead zone texts
In continuance
Wed20may20
Dead Zone Poem One
a soft rain caresses
unmarked graves
In a field of death in the Amazon
A dark heron stands on one leg
Among the dampened toys
And feathers of prayer
left there….
dead zone poem one
Bologna Italy
Five Poems for Ritsos
I first read your words in an Oklahoma
rainstorm in 1968
Now I am here with
Drifting birds in sea wind
Water jars of clay
Cretan knives
Small poems on the handles
And a photograph
Women in black holding
Their diminished dreams
In their aprons
A mauve light upon your weathered face
In the prison where
Your bowl of watered grains
Rotted under the windowed moon
Your resistance an ochre
Color of grace
Rises again
In this troubled time
As a tolling bell
Bursting upon the eternal sea wind
My brother
Nothing can defeat the human heart…
14 july 2009
Island of Crete
At the well of solitude
At the well of solitude
Where the dead and the living link hands
At the side of an abandoned road
We see when the clouds open and the sun
shines through
They are smiling….
Whispering of windows shuttered
On an unknown plain….
The ones with ghosted eyes
stand
Within our dreamtime
to watch….
the bones melt on the window pane…
And the one song that has followed us
All this way…
Is playing….
Poem for not turning away
Bologna 14 apr 20
Troubador
Found a thousand butterflies in the icicles
A single tear in the willowed rain
Found a veterans broken whistle in the worn pocket of a sad refrain
Moved us beyond ourselves to this clearing place
Where moonlight in our souls remain
Prine…..
Sing to us justice
Sing to us peace….
Sing to us again….
Bologna 9.april.20
Lance speaks his dog soldier poems
Courtesy @persisabella on Instagram
