Straight Ahead: 23

Straight Ahead: 23

You give thought to buying a new bedroll,
search online bargains... check range rifles,
long Google map rocky rivers, saddlebags,
J.M. Capriola buckaroo ropes. Decade eight:
to each dream, a broke-windows dusty motel.

Straight Ahead: 22

Straight Ahead: 22

Afternoon and a sweet alfalfa wind comes
across the irrigation canal... out of the northwest.
Pretty baby is baking chocolate chip cookies,
fudge-nut brownies, talking lilac-quilts.
Oh, vows of spring-lush Russian olive trees.

Straight Ahead: 21

Straight Ahead: 21

Wolf-gray clouds, knees almost buckling
on uphills, memory of cup-bottom tea leaves,
blood-curses of a corduroy-'n-wool necromancer....
Bone dice... you shamble into an eighth decade.
Ghosts shadow-jab, growl, Compose yourself. 

Straight Ahead: 20

Straight Ahead: 20

Six-days beard, Leaving Cheyenne
on a CD player, you're a dust devil.
Sagebrush evening, cloud-drift horizon,
memory: newlyweds in a barb wire shack...
happiness of go-hard days, strawberry nights.