Without honor,
without truth,
without charity
or compassion,
all is consumptive
dumbshow.
We have grown fat
on the numbers since
we lost our taste
for words that matter.
Like waiting for a rain
to settle dust
and bring verdancy,
the storms will come
to cleanse this earth
and thunder verily.
courtesy Claire Palmer Photography
breaking chains by Rod McQueary
for Bill Jones, and the others.
I run, hide, backtrack, but—
They know all my tricks.
They find me, eventually,
and beat me, and haul me
to some clearing
in the jungle.
There are a dozen or so, about a squad.
With broken teeth, and battered eyes,
I can hardly tell
what they tied me to,
but I know what’s next.
It’s a dream Sauvagio said he found…
One night, while drunk, he told me—
What they did to the two GIs
one white, one black, they caught
(too bad, I think, to tell here).
Sauvagio found ‘em.
They cut ‘em down,
cut the stitches in their lips,
put back the body parts traded,
started trying to forget.
Sauvagio—
mentioned it
Once.
This dream, they chuckle,
take their time, joke with each other,
show me the knife, and laugh
this dream. I mean to show ‘em
I’m no goddamn girl,
I’m no goddamn kid anymore
for the Corps, for my Country,
for my family.
I’m 2612933
and I pray
God, ogod, ogod
let me die now.
Jesus, it hurts
don’t let ‘em see.
Please,
don’t let ‘em see
I’m weeping.
Covered with sweat, panting
shaking with fear, and fatigue
I wake again, exhausted.
Last night, April 25, 1991
they came again.
It’s not good jungle.
It’s not very hot, but—
it’s the same squad.
I know them all.
I am astounded to see I’m holding
a 60. I don’t want a 60, it’s heavy,
it’s slow,
no extra barrel,
no glove,
the link belt is too short for this work.
I get a 16 50 shot banana.
I like a 16,
they don’t kick, just sort of flinch,
spit fire fling copper,
jitter left from the ejector throwing cases right.
The tall one is close, smiling,
shows me his knife again.
I pop him, tentative-like to see what he’ll do.
One neat little 5.56 hole between his eyebrows.
His hat flies off,
his skull blows up,
(Who you gonna crucify now, asshole?).
He falls down dead.
I shoot them all.
Last one runs
I’m calm now, doing business,
shooting good now.
I let him run a ways, then shoot him
in the butt to knock him down
just because I can, and
‘cause I got a few things to tell this bastard.
For Con, whose dreams are green
and stink
and are so evil
his mind won’t record them.
I going to tell this bastard
for Bill, for Joe, and the others
who NEED so bad to let it go, and can’t,
for our families, who tryandtryandtry
to understand, and can’t.
I’m going to tell this bastard
for poor Artie and the second 58
who folded
early
whose names are on no Black Wall List
…anywhere.
I’m going to tell this bastard
for all the wives and parents, who sent
men
and got animals back
and for them who will neverNeverNEVER
see justice in this world.
I’m going to tell this bastard,
M-16 barrel jammed up his goddamn
nose,
I’m going to tell this bastard
…Joke’s over.
© 1993 Rod McQueary
BLOOD TRAILS
Dry Crik Press
FIVE DAYS HOME by Bill Jones
My father and I
Sit in the shade
Of a chinaberry tree
Talk softly of the last good war.
A time of ration cards
And Gold Star Mothers.
“A uniform meant free drinks
And a lot more,”
My father says.
“But they kept me training pilots
Stateside…
And wouldn’t let me go.”
In the lower pasture
A phantom chopper whines
Rotors thrash hot wind
As it wobbles upward
With another half-dead cargo.
I blink the image away
“I won’t ask if you killed anyone.”
My father says,
“Because I don’t want to know.”
Just as well, I think angrily,
My personal count is a little hazy.
Like the pregnant woman at Gio Linh
(She never should have run)
Zapped by a battery of howitzers
Raising puzzling questions.
How do I mark her?
One and a half? Two?
“Drop 100 meters,” I whisper.
“Fire for effect.”
“Roger that,” the RTO replies.
Arm in arm
My father and I
Walk awkwardly toward supper
And the 6 O’clock news.
The chopper drones
Tilts plexiglass nose
To a hospital ship.
The woman at Gio Linh
Seeing her chance
Dashes like a sprinter
Legs pumping furiously
For a stand of scrub oaks
Behind the barn.
“It’s a shame,” my father says
Climbing the back steps,
“You didn’t get to serve
In a real
War.”
© 1993 Bill Jones
BLOOD TRAILS
Dry Crik Press
lander evening by Rod McQueary
from Gloria
Bill used to mention
Vietnam sometimes—
Snippets of story
I heard but never
felt.
He might have been describing Mars or
Disneyland
It was an untouchable
Part of his past.
Last October
Our pastor told the Bishop
About Bill’s poetry.
While he was here, he
dropped by.
Bill did his funny ones
Two or three
And mentioned in passing
He had written some
Serious Poems
About his war.
The Bishop asked to hear one, so
Bill went away and came
Back with
“Body Burning Detail”,
Halfway through it
He broke down.
I just remember him
Sitting there
Shaking,
His agony
His anguish
Pouring down his face
And suddenly
For me
It was real.
I could feel
with my heart
and soul
What he could never
Describe.
I think
I began to
Understand.
from the Bishop
I have a natural connection
With Bill
My Great-Aunt was born
near the ranch where
He works.
I like cowboys
Love Poetry,
enjoyed his story
about coming to Lander
to Recover.
He recited some funny poems,
We laughed and laughed.
It’s all great.
Then Bill said
There is something I’ve never
Read before. I wonder
if it would be all right.
He took it out
began to read.
It became quiet
By the time he had to stop
We all were weeping.
When it was over
We sat and talked
and prayed.
I have used Bill’s poem
Several times
Since then,
and I carry it with me.
from Bill
I almost couldn’t get through
“Body Burning Detail.”
I tried
But I couldn’t
Speak.
The Bishop said
I’m so sorry
so sorry,
You don’t have to
finish it
and I said
Yes I do
Yes
I do
© 1993 Rod McQueary
BLOOD TRAILS
Dry Crik Press
THE BODY BURNING DETAIL by Bill Jones
Three soldiers from the North
Burned for reasons
Of sanitation.
Arms shrunk to seal flippers
Charred buttocks thrust skyward
They burned for five days.
It was hard to swallow
Difficult to eat
With the sweet smoke of seared
Flesh, like fog,
Everywhere.
Twenty-five years later
They burn still.
Across seas of time
The faint unwelcome odor
Rises in odd places.
With a load of leaves
At the city dump
A floating wisp of smoke
From the burning soldiers
Mingles with the stench
Of household garbage.
Once, while watching young boys
Kick a soccer ball,
The Death Smell filled my lungs.
As I ran, choking
Panic unfolded
Fluttering wings
Of fear and remorse.
A narrow escape.
A letter, snatched from the flames
The day we burned them
Is hidden away
In a shoebox
With gag birthday cards,
Buttons, string, rubber bands.
A letter from home?
The Oriental words,
Delicately formed,
Are still a mystery.
© 1993 Bill Jones
BLOOD TRAILS
Dry Crik Press
Casualty of drought and time,
no shaded bed in the tangle of dead limbs,
no burnished fruit to harvest—
but its temporary grace in death
teeters beneath the heavens.
What histories yet reside,
what sights saved within its centuries of rings,
of native talk recorded lest
forgotten of wilder beasts and men
teetering beneath the heavens?
I see myself reflected
kindly, a lifetime rooted in the same place
that I’m thankfully becoming
in a harvest of verses penned
that teeters beneath the heavens.
Little passion in the dry,
hard hills and dust trails—
little fire in the leaves
of sycamores and willows
preparing to undress.
No foreplay sure,
no long-range rain,
we feed more hay
and wait with cows
growing thinner
in the cold,
sucked down
by growing babies.
We taste the air and search for sign:
manes and tails and moon dog rings—
our annual drama of hackneyed details
we bury our hearts and heads within
instead of the direction of a nation
without honor or integrity—
in God we Trust.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2019
Tagged photography, poetry, politics, rain, weather
For days, nothing to say,
as we wait for rain, like always
in the dust we stir,
both wild and tame.
Cow trails deep and soft,
Chinese scrolls of pad and hoof
pressed into silent verse
moving freely in the dark.
Coyote, bobcat, rattlesnake,
bear, deer and mountain lion
leave their poetry at night
to be erased each day.
Fat and happy bovine string
of shiny-hided flesh upon their hay
somewhere wrapped in a dusty haze
awaiting rain
apart from the appetites of men
and women like them, hungry for more
ground addicted to water wasted
raising crops.
Good company, these young heifers
who can read our minds and hearts—
perceptive beings who trust in us
that we prefer
oblivious to the ravenous
machine designed to incorporate
everything with promises of hay
until we’re gone.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2019
Tagged Mom and Pop's, photography, poetry, Small Farms, water
Moonrise, mottled skies,
jigsaw clouds like islands
floating between us and the space
old eyes need to find sanity,
but tonight’s fractured skyscape
is enough.
Bob has been waiting for this cow to calve for a week, checking her and her tribe of first-calf heifers in the evenings. I am impressed with the iPhone’s ability to capture a wide range of light, and if held still, its sharpness. He’s also captured the maternal instincts of this new mother #8118, a Hereford-Angus X cow, with her fresh Wagyu X calf – exactly what we’re looking for in replacement heifers.
IO
On the horns of an infant moon,
the creek shrinks and pools
between sycamores and live oaks
as babies come to first-time mothers
bringing the bear tracks downcanyon
on the scent of spent placentas.
Black progeny of the river nymph –
white heifer driven madly by Hera’s
gadfly Oestrus to cross continents
and populate Asia – find maternity
perplexing at first. Yet, lick and nuzzle
the stumbling wet struggle to stand,
suckle and rest that enflames instinct
in all flesh. Worthy timeless worship,
no better mother ever than a cow.
“IO” is included in POEMS FROM DRY CREEK, Starhaven, 2008.
Posted in Photographs, Poems 2019, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, cows, IO, iPhone photo, photography, poetry, Wagyu X
© drycrikjournal.com
Laugh when you can—
there are enough unfunny days.
Let irony dance nakedly,
hand in hand
with the unspoken,
mundane truths
that squirm
beneath the flesh of humans
dying for confirmation.
We have become too serious
for our own good—
too holy,
too righteous
to be believed as real
representations of this nation
wrought from imperfect men,
and women, trying to forget
their sins—and I among them.
Let the wild calculations
of hawk and coyote confirm
our impetuous natures
to gain a better sense
of humor—
of who we truly are.
(click image to enlarge July 2012 photo of Cooper’s Hawk)
Followers of the blog and and Facebook friends may be bored with our photographs of cattle, but it’s the most exiting time of year for us and our crew as the weather changes. It’s essential that we keep our eyes on our coming two-year old heifers that are having their first Wagyu X calves by recording their tag numbers and any other information that will help inform us as to whether they’ll make the cow herd or not—and to a less anxious degree, our second-calf heifers as well.
The twin bull calves from cow #3054, a mature six year old cow, appear to be sired by our Black Granite bull from Tehama Angus Ranch, spitting images of him at this stage of their short lives. We think that she can raise them both.
Posted in Photographs, Ranch Journal
Tagged Calves, cows, poetry, Tehama Angus Ranch, twin calves, Wagyu X, weather
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