*this was a true story that took place
in sioux falls, sd. an indian man was caught
having sex with a mannequin, and it saddened
and delighted me so."

man with the mannequin

they caught him there
at the pavilion
said he'd been there before
got the plastic stain to prove it
they caught him right above her
fondling the fake
sex
position you have to put
yourself in

and the testimony
was never quite clear
they've still got to
pry open her lips
to mutter
what she can't even stutter

and there he is
ugly, pulpy, red meat
on top of something
so clean
and oh my god
she's white!
that poor and innocent
mannequin
so perfect and aryan

he'll probably do hard time
get the maximum
for raping the pretty one
that dumb dummy
who tempted him some
so that when
he looked at her
he saw all the magazines
of perfect blonde girls
and beauty queens
something his red kind
will never see

--the advertisements
of sweet perfection
so for the popular
and plastic
he develops a real erection
him!
there! that man
on the mannequin!
just look at what kind of position
this plastic covered world
has bent him in

the time they shot the horses

1985
cruel summer
the year they shot the horses
on grandpa's land
the ricochet bounced
through many heads
after that
as we counted the bodies
dead in the pasture
and it must've been like
wounded knee all over
as the blood flowed
down the hill
this was not our war
this was not our kill

only one remained there
after the slaughter
one little pony
standing next to his
dead mother
and i thought of the world
in its predicted metaphor
we beat on these dead things
so much we spoiled
but never in war
unlike the caucasians
instead we just crashed
in our cars

i thought when
when will this world
stop playing
cowboys and indians?
as the wild horses run
in their barbwire fence
in the end
we just know how to break
all things innocent

mother could you have predicted?
father could you have been more vindictive?
and after all the bodies fell
some by cars
others by the alcohol
could anyone have guessed
i would still be standing there
and every winter of every year
i beat on my parent's dead chests
so much
not even the dead can rest

Rest In Peace

Vine Deloria Jr.

1933-2005

eating the dog

you were cruel like that
bone bare
crunching my teeth
with yours
eyes wild like a coyote's
i never dared to match
the gaze
and when you inhaled
your cocaine
like a wolf
you knew the fear in me

the rest of you harboured
like fleas
you made me feal mangy
many times
i tried to bite your hand
and we both wondered
who got the rabies
it was not i
it would never be me

my tribe eats dogs
and in ceremonies
--little puppies
but that's nowhere near
as cruel
as the things you did to me

like how you cut out
my little pink tongue
dog catcher
dream snatcher
because it lapped
for something true
or the way
you blackened my eyes
because they glowed
like yours never could
all because
i was dumb as a bell
loud and clumsy
i never shut up
quick enough

you killed many of my kind
as a child
like a youth in asia
a place where they still
eat dogs
but i am like them
brown and not yet broken in
but like the asians
indians don't pretend
that we kill innocence
like you
best friend
slave master
--white man

the foodstamp fights

the war began at home
like the way it always does
the wounds get more salt
when it’s done by those you love
counting the sorrows
like food stamps
one, two, three
blows to the head
one more booklet
and for sure
I’d have been dead
Momma used to get drunk
And send me to the store
Told me to make change
From the food stamps
And it was a sweet exchange
I with the sweet tooth
Their livers rotted
In the sour booze
I aged this way
Like stale beer
Every memory
Burned by the cigarette
Ashes, ashes
All the drunks
Fall down

But the children
Rise like a new battalion
And the food stamp fights
Carry on
Every month
Every year
Selling it all for beer
Going hungry
For mommy and daddy
And when our number is up
Everyone will see
We are expendable
Just another casualty of war
On the E.B.T.

spirits underneath an artificial blue sky

the boards in the house are loose
some are rotting away
others have been peeled back
the black mold
has filled their chests
there is no breathing room
but we still live here

the walls have been
cracked like smiles
by angry fists and clumsy
kid hands
i have written on these walls
an unfinished epitaph

stains mark the walls
like liver spots
some are chipped and showing
the true color underneath
i hate the color
it is too blue
as we sleep underneath
our artificial sky

no one cleans anymore
the holes have taken over
so often we disappear
no obligations
we cover them with rugs
and hideous couches
forgetting the spirits underneath

we still hold this house together
we manage to keep the doors locked
and use the antique dresser
with only so many handles
to hold onto
these wounds we ignore
plug up with tissue
hide it behind posters
and we are okay
as long as the white world
does not peek in
because we have been naked
in our savagery
for far too long

it would be better
if we still lived in teepees
there are only two holes
one on the top
in which we can escape
into the stars like smoke
instead of falling
through the ones
that are all around our souls
making us condemned
unfit to live in

Some of the things that influence me in a big way is what I am listening to
at the time that I write. Music can somehow manage to set the mood to a particular mindframe of thinking.
If i want to write something dealing with emotion, for instance--I really dive into music like Nina Simone or something like This Mortal Coil or Sarah Mclachlan.
Other times if I want my poems to have a certain kind of playfulness to them I put on a little Ani Difranco or Tori Amos. Music has always been important to my life ever since I started listening to it at the age of 13. I started off writing lyrical poems that were in the spirit of the things Billy Corgan wrote of the Smashing Pumpkins. That man is a great lyricist when he has the right influences. I hope to someday be as good with my poems. I am working on my manuscript of poetry and plan to have it finished by the new year. I have two particular places I am going to send them to, one of which I have met the person who does promotion work for a certain book press based in the midwest. I had the chance of meeting her at the Festival of Books held last month in DeadWood, SD. I tell you you never know who you're going to meet as long as you take that chance to dive into things. Below are some links to the artists who influence me. The rest you can find on my links to the side.


Nina Simone
PJ Harvey
Rachael Yamagata
This Mortal Coil
Sarah McLachlan
Ani Difranco

I have decided to update some links. Some people already know who they are. I just wanted to post them so anyone who wants to know will know what I like to read and what's been influencing me lately. Also I'd like to put here what i've been watching and I recommend these movies to all.

The Hours
Sylvia
Girl, Interrupted
Monster
Boys Don't Cry
Foxfire

These are just some of the movies I own and as you can see I have a thing for
*Based on a True Story* themes

out of the maggot comes a fly

i flew out
out of you dear faggot
in which twenty years
i have rotted
being ashamed
coiled and wrinkled
like an uncut penis
and there was a buzz
the noise
that rang in my head
there was a soul flowering
rising from things dead
born out of the limbs
of a relative
i have your eyes
your nose
and a lord's forehead
i am of the flies.
my eyes red
dry and cracked
with a thousand images
of just one thing
unfocused

and my tongue
it laps for you
but the acid
destroys the words
so i eat them
what kind of maggot was i?
brown and low to the ground
i cared not to fly

and if i ever find a love
someone who could help me rot
i think i'd rather not
because even sweet love
roses and chocolate
spoils
to the spoils
of every war
of every lover
and then i am born.
to swarm
over every silver white cloud
--the shell
of which angels are born
and i black them out

and i swarm
over every baby
i could've possibly bore
to the olden skin
i could be at home in
i feast them out
making everything
a new buzzing wing
so it flies away
and where do i stay?
in the fly that flies
or in the maggot that remains

Congratulations to me!
My poem Japanese Gardens
has been picked up to be published
in an anthology due out next year.

sardine

everytime i'm drunk
i become
like the chicken of the sea
everything real
goes out with the yellow leak
my body like a tin can junk car
like the kind my grandpa
used to sleep in
every car i see
i want it to be my coffin
just hammer in the nails
so i won't get free
accidents
have always been my thing

in my suicides
i've tried to cut it with a razor
and drown it in the river
but all i get is foam
many years of drinking
but still only foam

i am playing go fish
like my grandpa
and niether one of us
has anything to give
it's a red herring
this inherent thing
because granpa is dead now
like the sardines
he used to eat
and i still remember the smell
of them rotting
-those fish who made me afraid of dying

with their eyes always open
no lids but the old tins
and their mouths a big gaping O
like a witness
to a terrible crime
and it was
because i live in a time
when grandpas
die alone
as they waste away on rivers of beer
thinking it would take them somewhere
but it was all just foam

cherry

cherry, cherry
that's what they called me
ever since
the blood was made to flow
like the time that boy hit me
and made it come out of my nose
he wanted me
to be weak like a girl

they used to call me cherry
because one day
someone dressed me up
like a little doll
i stood four feet tall
but still it was a long fall
as they knocked me
to the floor
they were sickened by me
as i did a twirl
for them, for them
it was always for them
the ones who lost their
innocence at the stem

and i was green
at first
and then red
blood blooming
because i wouldn't
do what they said

cherry
before i reached
the age of maturity
because one night
i met a man
and was he sweet like family
or just another stranger with candy?
i cannot tell
i do not remember
such chokecherry things

but we shared
a bed that night
and he unwrapped us
like a tampon
just me and him
with only a blanket on
and i could go on
but i'd just as well
would like to stop there

i never was very tough
they called me cherry
because faggot
was a word
that just wasn't enough

sauerkraut

like cabbage i opened up to him,
just a kid
but my fear became like folds
and i was in full bloom to him
my dreams
like sauerkraut
pickled up
in old mason jars
and stored in a closet
where no sun could get to

for years i lived like that
until i was ripe enough
to pass on
the bodysnatch
but
no garden will ever be made
from me
for i will not let anyone
reap for what i have sowed
instead i keep it inside
tasting it

like blood in my mouth

like sauerkraut

sulking in my own juice

love's ghost dance

i have armoured myself
from the bows and arrows
used my breast plate
to the fullest
but the irony of this world
always has a bullet

my love
you became my ghost shirt
but you wouldn't allow the dance
and so i became vulnerable
to love's early death

lies are light as feathers
when they've gone unknown
but my headdress
became heavy
as i carried the burden
knowing
i'd lose you

so i hung myself
with my own horse
but the family tree
though branched and heavy
will not hold me