circling the wagons

you have
to find some clarity

when facing a

burnt out sun

when eight and half

planets refuse to circle

the wagons, and comet

turns metal

into piled rustbucket - there is

water somewhere (out there)

to be harvested, to be

invested in

nothing

will be, can be spared - not

country nor concubine

heartless as it

sounds

tin-man just got

the ax...

bkmackenzie

copyrighted 2011

posted for Magpie Tales

inception

i.

i am in a room

with a view on three sides

up against a wall

on the other

i hold a

fear of falling

so i

jump

ii.

the hallway

is eternal and deliberate

i am dressed

as an admiral

decorated

i wear slacks navy blue

i cannot

swim

iii.

there is a

woman, she walks

past me

nods her head

she conveys a message

i am sworn

to keep

righteously unraveled

iv.

time stops

its march forward

its face looks

to me for help, i have

forgotten

how to get home

i go to my

room

bkmackenzie

copyrighted 2011

dog days of summer

she nuzzled me
this morning with her licorice nose

she reminded me that

prolonged prone positioning

would be a defeat

to Newton's gravitational pull

ignore the stiff

ascension was written

in her young eyes

an instinctive un-domestication

charted - centered 

into the mapping of each iris

the one left reflecting Canis Minor

the right Canis Major

signaling

summer had rolled herself over

layering humidity, heat

and sweat

like a seven layer dip

only somewhat quenchable

with a top-self margarita

blended then poured fully into a salt-ringed Saturn-ed

glass - stemmed and strawed

these are

the dog days of summer

and August stands to be their

master - but Indy was bent on

having her day - pawing incessantly at

the hand that feeds her,

licking any lingering

dip layered on my face, for

she knows she is master here

unrelenting to taking

"No" as a correct answer

unmovable in reinforcing

her godlike status, denying

acceptance of any homo sapien form

of climatic excusablity - especially to 

one pointing straight at

a rival canis

rising she knew

she had me - then again

this canis maximus

knew she had me

at first site

bkmackenzie

copyrighted 2011

posted for Magpie Tales

and d'Verse Open Link Night...

Indy is the young dog we adopted in April...she is black and about two years old.  She is named after the Hindu God Indra and of course Indy car racing...( that is Tootie behind her) ...bkm

Politico

there
is a sweatlodge
of controversy, a
parliment
of parities around the corner
juxtapositioned
right
between some ivories
and

a congressional barstool

god knows
Politico has a presence
every note tapped
wired

booze

and bull flows

floods the discussion

of candidates, amid

massaging

of assurances

indication

is every-where, a party's

future served up as

indictment

hors d'oeuvres

serve it up, serve it up- let's party!
echos

the man of

independent means - i'm all in.   let's hear

It had to be you

bkmackenzie

copyrighted 2011

slavic shoes

my great grandfather

wore slavic shoes

he brought them from

the old country along with a slavic name

and a slavic wife

they were known

as Joseph and Mary surname

ending in (wicz)

they had five children

they wore american shoes - shoes

they shared, shoes that

knew walking and working

one child was named Joseph his

name ending in (vich) -

he married Grace

she made Joe leave his shoes

on the porch, wash his

hands and go to mass on Sundays

she sat in the back

seat of the car, wore her

Sunday shoes,  and

she wore her

babushka

Joseph was my

grandfather - gave me a maiden

name no one could pronounce

correctly - so i was

set on changing it first chance -

as a grandfather

he walked a lot, laughed

a lot and when Grace was dying

he got drunk and cried

yet, he passed down

a name and a pair of

shoes i could never

walk in - they were too big for me

like his slavic heart

bkmackenzie

copyrighted 2011

The church is St. Peter and Paul in Gilman MN - my grandfather helped to construct this church as well as all the parishioners - all my Slavic ancestors are buried there bearing two different versions of name - binding the old world to the new..

posted for d'Verse - Shoes....

textbook toiletries

three reasons

to teach poetry

are

  understand it

  learn it

  quantify it

as a changing

world

projects its evolutionary

expansion and retraction

reacting

not to the meter or the  line break chapter

but to the thoughts

triggered that simultaneously

trigger thinking

not form for the formless

but the less

saying more and the more

discarded

even rendered

useless -

useless

like the teaching of it

based on textbook

toiletries

bkmackenzie

copyrighted 2011

climate change

i spread climate
all over the floor

then scrabbled to mop up the mud

with human emotion

the improbable had become probable;

you sitting there, clinging

to a wet rock,

what could i do but open
the icebox door

its polar ice cap restored balance

and returned our world

to the familar

then i made love to strawberry jam

and the crackers between your toes

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

a june bug in july

it was a june bug
in july
i had a conversation with
as lightening cracked
open a humid Bowling Green sky

when i went
on to ask him why?
why? -  he beat himself so - against
a bulb, frosted, that
held no feeling
for him, no feeling for his try
but i could see he had
already fallen
already died
died, an-ni-hil-ated in a self lost to unyielding
obsession...a true soul lie

but the night
calmed itself down, way down - and i left
Bowling Green, i left the you (in i)
and a june bug -
dead - to the obsessions of july


bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

this one is quite old but is my favorite Bug Poem - grew up with several June Bugs....buzzing

posted for the imaginary garden with real toads - bugs

for Miss Meggie

Let us gather words
spin them into sorrow
weave them into weeping.

Let us use all the colors
of the earth; dye them into cloth
reflective  of a life lived full, free,

freer now to dance
in the tapesty
of the wind, breathing
in the eternal

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

This is for my Meggie - my 13 year old Border Collie - who has left us this day July 15th, 2011
Border Collies have always been my Heros and Heroines - there is nothing like them for spirit and drive.  

I Love you Miss Meggie

collections

the porthole
of deportation can deliver
a shard of tears
or
a shoebox
full of tormented
souls

a collection
versed in
broken time pieces
and still life
chambers - bound

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011


Posted for Magpie Tales.

"what are you?"

you asked me to walk with you to the river
you carried a brown bottle and a message
tri-folded between the pages of a magazine
tucked securely inside your plaid fannel shirt - i followed

close behind you stepping into each step
you left in the grass and dirt

at the rivers edge we sipped from that brown bottle, laughed
out loud at the disgusting photos,  you kissed me
once, only once - then stared quietly straight out
to the river  - "what are you.. you asked
a stone or a twig?

what do you mean a stone or a twig

"you know a stone falls into the river and settles where it lies, a
twig is carried with the flow of the river never knowing where it
will wind up in the end -
so what are you, a stone or a twig?"

well then i guess i am a twig, i said

you kissed me again - then  watched helplessly
as i floated away -
you still carry that message
after all these years

tri-folded and
securely tucked

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for One Shot Wednesday

Painting is call "Spirit of the Rum River"  by Mary Ann Cleary - I grew up sitting by this rivers edge in Minnesota....

laughing Buddhas

i.

  walk

through dimension

 a world

worn wisdom;  bone of my bones - word without word

passing off

illusion as

life

ii.

standing

on a continental divide

drawing in

east to west

a pendulum rests

stilling time to Tao

iii.

movement

fades between

the ribs

of my ancestors and the ghosts

of laughing

Buddhas

bkmackenzie

copyrighted 2011

Posted for One Shoot Sunday...Photo by Neil Alexander

the aftermath of goodness

In the aftermath of goodness,
there is shouting throughout the streets
a crowd gathers near a clock-tower of a radical
difference in time,
and you spot a light
of indecent exposure
in a gated window where
promise lives; it is morning in a marketplace
of the dove flying past descent
hell bent on a crumb
of bread among the
ripened and the celebrated hate

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for One Stop Poetry - Celebrating Leonard Cohen

baptism

i stepped into
a church
looking for God -  throughout
the pews were
christians baring huge holes where
their hearts once were - strung together
like beads on a necklace

the preacher
stood up-  the altar
crumbled - he cried out "in the name of the
father" 

"amen"  - came from the heartless

"in the name of the
son"

"amen"

"in the name of the holy spirit"

"amen"

the organ began to melt
and the hymns moved to undecipherable
upon key -
yet the congregation kept
mouthing the word

a child walked
down the aisle straight towards me
in one hand he carried the
last candle
with flame - in the other a sacred heart

he asked why i came - i told
him i was seeking God - he said

he is not here - follow me

i asked him where he was going -

to starbucks he said   -  what do you drink? i asked

he replied - Water  - i said - me too.

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

an evening with charles bukowski

i spent the evening
collecting beer bottles with
charles bukowski  - i wanted
to learn how to be a great poet, maybe
a writer someone wanted to
read..or remember

i asked, don't whores drink
out of beer bottles -
he said,  they drink
out of whatever you shove into their f...king mouth

he added, you have to be
careful where you step around here -  the streets
are full of piss; i know
i have slept in it, but
then there

is poetry
in piss,  piss and the
music of these whores.  there
is music in hell, just ask satan.   listen and you
can hear it - up there
coming from that window  - some
whore is getting paid good
f...king money
for singing
like that  - then

she will buy some beer, throw
her bottles in the gutter here - drunks
will  piss on them
poets
will collect them, recycle them -

it all has redeemable
value, nothing
is wasted - not yet, but i'm working on it

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

fly

don't move feathered
or backward in blue - there

is a crack
 - step beyond the furrow
of fear - let your soul 

fly...

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

its all symbolic

its symbolic
the air, the rain

you can toss it (symbol) or
be in communion with
it

as it

symbolic the slant in which i sign my name
symbolic the falling
of stars from
a sun, an omens run long past phases or a cosmic constellations pull

it is (i believe) symbolic --- too...
that crazed silent
stare consorted into symbolic
words - characters bled on stone palette
into beaten hide - that so slowly yielded life selfless
to a Holy, Holy kill (willed killing)

while
you who read - a-loud, loud, long
for what appears a super symbolic soul
to your right, your left hand
straining to
hear -  dancing in symbol, a rosed tattoo
between wrist and wrath -  you
with medal, squared, across
your chest

but if;  if
ALL symbols were placed
in a book or sacred verse,  placed within pages without referenced
numerology acting as angelic host
or guardian - would
a
lost humanity we be? - and who then
would see the wind in a face
that will not look
straight
into another -  an eye to eye

symbolically checked, cheeked flush.   what of?  revealed

thought
incapable of a lips voice - is that too,  all symbolic?

life?, creation? - death?

diamonded
or green - or a distance etched black hole in drawn out
white
symbolic?
-  all this scratching and
rant

all symbolism?  is it (at hand)

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011

Posted for One Shot Wednesday

flip side

i met him
on the flip side
of a
mercury dime

he was seated at a table in the rear of the restaurant
a candlelit
table for two
in a solitaire arrangement
(i have always been drawn
to the symbolic)


he looked like
a god - asked me
to have a sit - proving
to be a gentleman

dinner? was all
he said
why not? i replied

i ordered a bagel
with cream cheese
he ordered
the fresh catch of the day

i took note
as bacharach sat
down to
the keyboard -
started playing
"a message to michael"
warwick at
her best

i began
questioning the
messenger as
to time
and date stamp on the bar tab

he reassured me
all are blind
to times passage - when there are
gods
involved - enjoy, he said
your bagel i mean -  applying
a little cream cheese

i asked warwick
to sing
the B side, noticing both burt

and the god
had disappeared

bkmackenzie
copyrighted 2011