Coyote ate up all the animals
Crow ate up all the birds
Pike ate up all the fish
Grasshopper ate up all the crops
So when Yaitse
That pasty-faced monster
Ate up the rainclouds
And the sun went crazy everywhere?
Nothing to eat but bones, we had
Nothing to drink but tears.
The tree grew up overnight, the first anyone knew
Was sunrise and passengers tumbling from cars gawking
At that tree, its lower branches wreathed in fog,
Its upper branches gathering the fog into
Towering clouds. Crow winged out of the sun, squawking,
And drove the dogs away from the tree,
And we danced, we danced down the sun and the fog,
We danced the concrete into dust, the dust into the sea.
Continue reading
The Constitution of the United States (A Limerick Cycle)
Preamble and Article I
Preamble
The Union we hereby decree
Shall be Just, Blessed, Tranquil, and Free.
We establish, ordain it,
And herein explain it,
Presuming you all will agree.
Article I.
Section 1.
The power for all Legislating,
Resolving, and also Debating,
Inheres in the Senate
And the Representat-
ives, as we’re herein designating.
Section 2.
Representatives each State supplies
Proportionally to its size.
(There’s provision for Slaves
And for Indian braves,
But that language no longer applies.)
Representatives serve for the space
Of two years, then must run a new race.
If one of them dies
Their Governor supplies
Us another to serve in his place.
Amid the high stratus clouds
In the house made of dawn
In the house that was raised at dawn,
Upon the road lit by the dawn,
Talking God needs a singer, and I am he!
He walks, and it is my feet that walk;
My limbs are become his limbs,
My body, his body,
My mind, his mind,
And he speaks, and it is my voice that speaks;
And the fierce plumes of his plumed helmet,
They nod above my head, above his head.
Beautiful what lies before him, which lies also before me;
Beautiful what comes behind him, and also behind me;
Beautiful, all that lies below, all that rises above,
Beautiful, everything on every side, beautiful!
As his voice is sacred, and of the most sacred, as pollen, and is beautiful,
So does my voice become most sacred, and beautiful,
And thus in beauty it is done;
In beauty it is done.
She called out that one’s name,
Four times she called Nayenezgani, Kill-Ogre,
And the canyon walls answered back,
And the rocks heard it.
She called out that one’s name,
Four times she called Tobadischini, Water-Child,
And the canyon walls answered back,
And the water heard it.
“Now you are part of this place.
“The rocks have heard your name,
“The water has heard it.
“Here you will always have a place.”
Yaitse said:
I see the footprints
Running here and there.
Give them to me,
Those two skinny boys!
White Shell Woman said:
The prints like little feet,
I make them with my fist’s edge,
Scatter them all around the place.
It’s better than living alone.
Changing Woman said:
Go back to the mountains, Yaitse,
Break your teeth on stones.
There’s nothing for you here,
Nothing you have not ruined.
Stumbling through the grounds at sunrise,
With dew-damp pollen clinging to my ragged pants cuffs
And having left all my friends behind,
I found myself here.
Beauty amazes me!
Charms hanging in the doorway!
Beauty amazes me!
I’ll dance with the altar-cloth!
Beautiful all that lies before me!
Beautiful all that creeps up behind!
Beautiful, every side I turn to!
I turn, and turn, and turn!
So here I am wandering around
In the house of happiness,
In the house of long life
That no one enters alive.
Four days ago
These women dreamed in the sunlight
And now there are babies
Wriggling at their breasts.
Four days ago
These were babies crying
And now they are running everywhere
Playing huntsman.
Four days ago
These were boys playing
And now they practice shooting
And ask about their father.
Changing Woman said:
Such a dream I had.
The Sun himself took me as I slept!
I would not have thought him
Such a careful lover.
White Shell Woman said:
I slept, and as I slept
Old Sun, that sly fucker,
Came down and slipped it in me.
I woke still wet.
(a found poem, from the works of Washington Matthews)
It has lasted eight days before
the four singers,
after long and tedious instruction by the shaman,
come out
to sing this song.
Five hundred people are, perhaps, assembled
to witness the public ceremonies
of the night;
some have come
from the most distant parts
of the wide
Navajo
territory; all are preparedto hold their vigil until dawn.
A score or more of critics are in the audience
who know the song by heart and are
alert to discover errors.
It is a long song,
and consists almost exclusively of
meaningless
or archaic
vocableswhich convey no idea to
the mind of the singer. Yet not
onesyllable
may be forgotten
ormisplaced.
Ifthe slightest error is made,
it is at once proclaimed by the assembled critics,
the fruitless ceremony comes to an end, and
the five hundred disappointed spectators
disperse.
But
fortunatelythey are not as particular with all their songs
as they are
with this.
Bag of Anything 