Cowboy Social Club, Near Price, Utah
Perfect nesting holes,
eroded dots, line up like
train windows
ready to pull out,
down the canyon to
Glenwood Springs,
hauling basalt and
gypsum, sulfur and
copper in
trade for Doc Holiday’s guns.
Two hundred train cars
worth of ore for one dead
slinger’s guns,
but that’s what it’s worth
to retire weapons,
old or new,
wild, wild, West, indeed.
Crazy old lady
Winchester
spent her gun money fixing
a haunted
house in San Jose over
and over,
to drive away ghosts
from all the guns her
father made
that killed souls, good and evil,
buffaloes
(oft’ by Springfields) that
ushered in our mess.
Brine Kit
Breathe, swallow, carry two slippery-boxed
pies the Tuesday before familial accent
adds the din of sins past so thick
it sprays stench into antique wood.
Shrunken, frozen pomegranates signal
the ground is ripe for future success:
being large-German-glass-ornament-sized
fruits to sour the gums, test fillings.
Feather-tipped sea oats shake, November
winds tug leaves onto the frosty surface.
Sleepy afternoon robs time, the most
valuable commodity when it’s running out.
Leaning bush remains,
friends scurry to reunite
keen on connection.
One Part Awareness
They tie ribbons to tap
the Healing Tree for luck.
When a child falls ill, the
community conjures ancient
rituals and prayer to support
all kinds of difficulties. We
now do almost nothing by
group design, so Bob
strode regally through a random
Galway scene: huskers aplenty,
diverse acts, most good, visions
of floating ribbons danced over
the heads of guitarist, juggler,
Joni-style lyrical balladeerette,
imploring an ear for poverty, injustice,
or church controlled women subjected
to slave status, then evil is transformed,
lured from the dark by lit movement,
trust, touch. Ruined castles on Lough
Comb, the eugenics of a fresh breeze,
mock river dance, real river dance,
infused by the luck, though acquired by
the good cheer of those Bob doesn’t know,
lifts him to the highly creative plane where
love flows, surrounding the summoned
with the healing they desperately need.
Appearing stage left, Maree McGaw
Doug Stuber founded and is one of five editors of Poems from the Heron Clan. The anthology is about the diversity of ideas from poets around the world. He taught creative writing and English in Rochester, New York, and at Chonnam National University, in Gwangju S. Korea where he edited the Gwangju News. Chronic Observer his ninth poetry book, was published in 2019, by Finishing Line Press. For 20 years in numerous bands he toured as a bass guitarist, singer, songwriter.
feature photo by Clem Onojeghuo
Fevers of the Mind 