cowboypoetrypress

by Laura Jean Schneider

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at the campfire’s edge
where light falls into silence    
we cherish our dark
that gives life to your secret
and leaves mine forever dead

Tyson West is a is a traditional western poet whose aesthetic continually shape shifts. He watches the Northwest with veiled and hooded lynx eyes, broods among the conifers and quarrels with Coyote. He has a degree in history, but writes a variety of poetry styles, and has written a series of poems around Spokane Garry who is our local magical Indian. One of Tyson’s Western poems was published in Spoke Magazine called “Floorshow”, which is based on a picture of a 1922 floorshow in the Davenport Hotel which photo you can find on line. He lives in the middle of Eastern Washington, which is definitely cowboy country. There are two Washingtons, Eastern and Western, and they are as different as a Mocah Mint Latte with organic goats milk and black boiled coffee at a chuck wagon fire.

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Who We Are

1.
We are the Wampum Belt-
Open at both Ends –
Still
Weaving Our Story.

We are the Sacred Drum.
That- Resilient Beat-
Pulsating
Within Mother Earth.

We are the 7th Fire-
Ignited by our past -Carrying the
Light
For our Future.

We are the Cedar Basket,
Sewn from the Roots of the Universe-
Forever
Expanding Our Spirit.

2.
We are the Survivors
& Revivers.

The Relations of the Forest-
& Educated by the Sun.

We Rise- like the sturdy Green Cornfields –
That Kiss the Cranberry Dawn.

We are the Deep Red Ocean-
Flowing within the Arteries –
Of Turtle Island.

3.
And-Yes.

We Swam through the Blood Soaked Tears-
Traversed the Wave over 500 Years.

The Unmarked Graves have Scarred our Dreams-
Long Walks & Trails- across the Icy Streams.

Those Boarding Schools and Reservations-
Malefic Schemes to encourage Limitations.

Mountains of Pain Shielded by a Smile-
Sometimes Surviving – means living in Denial.

Lethal Storms- Rain down like Shattered Glass,
Broken like Treaties – Amnesia of the Past.

Hair & Language- detached by foreign Hands-
But they both Return –as should Usurped Lands .

Our History & Journey- Carved from a Shell-
They do Not spill Oil-only Mark our Life’s Trail.

The tribe of Human Beings -is Who we Are-
Because All of Us- Revolve around the Same Star.

A Ceremony of Condolence –Is how We All Must Begin-
This is life’s Round Dance – a Circle with no End.

Larry Spotted Crow Mann is a writer, performer, Nipmuck cultural educator and citizen of the Nipmuck tribe of Massachusetts. He serves as the Drum Keeper of the Tribe which is a sacred trust. Their group is known as the Quabbin Lake Singers. He travels throughout the United States and Canada to schools, colleges, pow wows and other organizations sharing the music, culture and history of Nipmuck people. He has also given lectures at universities throughout New England on issues ranging from Native American Sovereignty to Identity.

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Cowgirls Factory Blues

Rising before the electric rooster crows,
Before the sun hugs the earth,
Ella slides out of bed
With an aching hip
Giving old Whiskey Breath a nudge
As he grunts and swears
In the same ritual every morning
For the past forty years as
She sets the chipped porcelain kettle
On the flame
To brew a morning cup
Sweetly reminding Larry
To fetch his own damn vittles, dear,
Feeding her leftover biscuits and bland gravy
To the little doggies
Before riding away in a dusty Mustang
To that brick and steel hold
Where she lassos washers and bolts
Head counting and time keeping
To the beat of her own twang
Until the workers in the factory embrace
Mosey out of the gate, single file,
Roaming free through the night,
While Ella stretches and cracks and creaks,
Thankful for her short journey home
After a wearisome day
On the urban range
That trounces too many spirits
Before the final ride off into the sunset

Denise Janikowski-Krewal is a Midwestern poet and writer of short fiction. She currently lives in the Milwaukee, WI area, and can be found at “the lost beat”where she collaborates with her cousin and fiction writer Tom Janikowski.

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Retreat From The Willamette

by Rodney Nelson

a family I knew began to go apart

when mother and daughter moved to Cascadia

                     dark little mountain hamlet

                     of woe in the rain oh woe

father and son remained at what was left of home

and in the bowling alley no one had to talk

and the river was up and had to get higher

but what did it have to do with the family

who reunited every weekend in a

                     dark little mountain hamlet

                     of woe in the rain oh woe

a Mormon-redneck town or just redneck-Mormon

of work and no chatter where the pine trees were high

and still growing on yew-ess twenty all the way

and the family had nothing to add either

as they waited out the fall of Sunday in that

                     dark little mountain hamlet

                     of woe in the rain oh woe