Ramblin Jack Elliott

Posted on February 11, 2019 by | 5 comments

 

 

One of a kind! By my reckoning, it was over fifty years ago when I first heard Jack at the Ashgrove. Amazing!

 

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Snow on Dry Creek

Posted on February 10, 2019 by | 3 comments

 

 

Light dusting this afternoon down to 2,500′ on Dry Creek. Exceeding the forecast, just shy of an inch of rain overnight and this morning. It’s wet out there.

 

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SUPER BLOOD WOLF MOON ECLIPSE 2019

Posted on February 9, 2019 by | Leave a comment

 

 

Hole in the night sky,
one last glimpse
before the eclipse—

red eye behind
a patch of clouds
and a quarter-inch
to drum upon the roof
while we sleep.

 

 

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AFTER BEFORE

Posted on February 8, 2019 by | 1 comment

 

 

Decayed trunk:
ash and smoke.
Limb wood stacked
by noon
awaiting rain—

small deed
to clear a road
for nursery rhymes—
for an old man’s claim
on another day

to warm the flesh again
and again and again.

 

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DEAD TREE BECKONING

Posted on February 7, 2019 by | Leave a comment

 

 

Too wet to plow,
cold clear sky
before dawn,
green storm
forecast on the screen—

Live Oak down,
waiting patiently
in the road
to become cordwood
close to the woodstove—

to warm flesh again
and again and again.

 

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OLANCHA

Posted on February 6, 2019 by | 1 comment

 

“Autumn in Olanche” Joseph Mancuso

 

Racing the storm
camped on Sierra peaks
leaking sparkling snowdrifts
south of Olancha’s stone huts

                    each round rock
                    a poem fit
                    for publication:

                    perfect works
                    without chimney smoke,
                    without window glass,
                    without wooden doors
                    stand open to unfriendly futures

                    marking the trail
                    like ducks
                    towards Tehachapi
                    snow plows
                    loaded with desert sand.

I imagine time
resting here
on its way West.

 

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Hard To Believe

Posted on February 5, 2019 by | 3 comments

 

 

Kevin Martini-Fuller has been taking photographs of all the poets and performers at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering since its inception in 1985. Many portraits were exhibited this year in the Wiegand Gallery at the Pioneer Hotel, headquarters for the Western Folklife Center in Elko, Nevada. I’m flattered to have been paired in the exhibit with Glenn Ohrlin (1926-2015), a NEA Fellow and friend.

I have been certainly blessed to have spent most of my life on this ranch, 31 years of which have also been associated with cowboy poetry and music, a fork in the road that has changed my life, acquainting me with many, many friends scattered across the West. Looking back, it’s hard to believe, but the emotional proof is among the hundreds of images on these gallery walls.

 

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Elko (NCPG) 2019

Posted on February 5, 2019 by | 3 comments

 

 

Bob and I left Elko Monday at 5:00 in the dark and drove straight through, stopping only for fuel, to Dry Creek ahead of last night’s storm that threatened to close Tehachapi Pass. Montgomery Pass was 4 x 4, touch and go, but we made it home by 4:30 p.m. 2.74″ total rain while we were gone.

Sunday a.m. at the Pioneer was a special treat listening to Mike Beck and Denise Withnell make Robbin’s guitar sing above the goodbyes of poets and performers leaving for home. We brought the guitar to Elko so Denise would not have to wrestle her own on the airplane. She and Dave Wilke were backing-up several Sid Marty performances. (Oh what a fine singer, songwriter and poet he is!) The Canadians were a well-represented bunch that included Ian Tyson and a spectacular new voice to Elko, Colter Wall.

WOW what a week, what a blur! Good to be home.

 

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I Found Myself in Elko

Posted on January 28, 2019 by | 4 comments


As we were leaving Cowboy Joe’s with coffee, Bob spotted me this morning in downtown Elko, on Cedar Creek’s store window—an aged portrait by Kevin Martini-Fuller with my poem “Our Time”, dedicated to our neighbors at home, Virginia and Kenny McKee.

By scanning the bar code in lower left hand corner, you can hear my recitation of the poem or see ‘Audio Poems’ in the menu above.

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Early Spring Cleaning

Posted on January 27, 2019 by | 4 comments

 

 

Between rains when we couldn’t go anywhere on the ranch, we began extricating boxes of books from the house that have been published by Dry Crik Press since 1989, including every issue of Dry Crik Review. Boxes were stashed throughout the house, office and attic that we sorted into plastic containers, now half-a-pallet in the shop—the first time that Dry Crik’s offerings have been in one spot.

Certainly not a job I relished, Robbin decided to replace the carpet in the living and dining rooms while Bob and I are in Elko. Once we started clearing the floor space, we found box after box of books that had to be dealt with. All of the Dry Crik Review issues, and Dry Crik Press publications prior to 2008, were printed in Craig Lindeman’s garage in Visalia. Craig collected leftover paper from the other print shops, and sympathetic to the cause, didn’t charge much for his work.

The books and memories were overwhelming.

 

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