BRINGING
by Hugh Fox

Bringing them all back, the right Andean
chemicals, prayers to the Underground
spirits, Great-Great-Great-Grandmother
Adeline Fox coming out of the Red Cedar
River, Great-Great-Great Grandfather
Sean walking over the mountains toward
our stone cabin with a pitchfork in his
hands praising Jesus, “Not long now and
He’ll be back,” The Inquisition hovering
around in the clouds as the Great-Great-
Great-Greaters make their way north into
Celticism, the latest womb-escaper, Beatrice,
coming into my workroom, “I want colored
paper, violet, I’m making violets,” as the
Weather Devil drolls on “Tomorrow, tomorrow,
tomorrow you’ll see, see, see…..,” feeling
existentially ONE as the rest of the antiquities
slither through the cracks in the windows and
drop down the chimney into the flames that
can’t/won’t touch them.

Please Fire Me
by Deborah Garrison

Here comes another alpha male,
and all the other alphas
are snorting and pawing,
kicking up puffs of acrid dust

while the silly little hens
clatter back and forth
on quivering claws and raise
a titter about the fuss.

Here comes another alpha male–
a man’s man, a dealmaker,
holds tanks of liquor,
charms them pantsless at lunch:

I’ve never been sicker.
Do I have to stare into his eyes
and sympathize? If I want my job
I do. Well I think I’m through

with the working world,
through with warming eggs
and being Zenlike in my detachment
from all things Ego.

I’d like to go
somewhere else entirely,
and I don’t mean
Europe.

Slipping the Moorings
by Chris Garrecht-Williams

Dear an hour north the trees
are already shuttered leaves

whip my face and the lake
is lashed to whitewash while

back home our initials grow
dim erosion smoothes cement

and names and your lover writes me
letters detailing your predilections

in colored pencils asking for friendship
I suppose she does you well out here

in the forest the season is brewing
and no one minds the strange

accent the new girl wears around
her neck with a cross our senses shatter

on punctuation and dropped Roman
vowels streetlights and shadows

follow sirens deep into the maze
of named streets while here a fox

has been eating chickens one by one
in the skeleton night where once

a shiv of moon grew flat on our lake
while snow fell and held the light

Stars and Stripes
by Catherine Wiley

I’ve called the cops on him,
friendly guy next door who sneaks
pork fat to my cat, cookies
to my daughter. He tends
with the vigilance of love
a red van hunkered on the curb,
paint flaked and pale U.S. flag
sealing the rear window. He sings,
then weeps when he’s had one
too many beers.

The night he swears to kill
his wife–sobs and curses
through the screen jangle me
from sleep–police come fast,
five white cars block the street,
two men vault the broken gate
to pound the door and wake
with a flashlight in his eyes
the old man whose house it is,
whose son.

Morning, I ask how she is
through the fence where she rests
an elbow; thumb caressing
her bluing cheek. She says
with disbelief that someone
called the cops, she thinks she might
know who, she’ll kick their ass.
Later in full sun and heat
a different neighbor stops.
“I wish they’d get it over with,”
she sighs, “and shoot each other so
the rest of us could sleep.”

Early Evening
By Jim Benz

After the first glass of bourbon,
sitting in the shade, smelling charcoal
turn to dust and chicken skin
to gold, the grass and weeds
don’t look so tall.

Passengers
by Denis Johnson

The world will burst like an intestine in the sun,
the dark turn to granite and the granite to a name,
but there will always be somebody riding the bus
through these intersections strewn with broken glass
among speechless women beating their little ones,
always a slow alphabet of rain
speaking of drifting and perishing to the air,
always these definite jails of light in the sky
at the wedding of this clarity and this storm
and a woman’s turning — her languid flight of hair
traveling through frame after frame of memory
where the past turns, its face sparking like emery,
to open its grace and incredible harm
over my life, and I will never die.

Instructions for Angels
by Kenneth Patchen

Take the useful events
For your tall.
Red mouth.
Blue weather.
To hell with power and hate and war

The mouth of a pretty girl…
The weather in the highest soul…
Put the tips of your fingers
On a baby man;
Teach him to be beautiful.
To hell with power and hate and war

Tell God that we like
The rain, and snow, and flowers,
And trees, and all things gentle and clean
That have growth on the earth.
White winds.
Golden fields.
To hell with power and hate and war.

HOOLA HAND
by Henry Real Bird

Today as I let go, a hoola hand into the dawn
Among silhouetted horse heads, held by a rope corral
But then, that day was many winters ago
To good horses you are drawn
I have asked that you ride the best
Of beautiful words to create images
Of life’s reflections filled with feelings of reality
Winters many may you ride the best.

As sunlight moved in the wind
Among the shadow of an ash tree
I gave the sweat lodge a drink
In the absence of memory
An ole’ feeling sprouts
In the charred remains of life
It is customary
That I have no doubts
Wishful thoughts and prayers through dreams strive
For peace in our souls
May you ride the best
Through the four different grounds
Upon our sacred mother earth.

Henry Real Bird is the current poet laureate of Montana. Right now he is riding a horse across the state of Montana handing out books of poetry. Read the story here.