sunlight moved inside the thousand specks of dust
in a cheap hotel in oceanside
your cigarette smoke awoke me
pulsing toward the half opened window
you were never there
the blood on the whiskey bottle was mine
years later I have still have the words you gave me
thank you
i have gone toward those who are lost
and found your footprints
even at the edge
of nothing…
for my uncles
icici, Croatia
procession
ascending the darkness of a winter night
a lone bird
the song in its mouth
resembling string or something torn from a scream
flies across the moon face
tonight is the last night for so many
their strewn shadows extending from africa to gaza
one large moving presence across
our faces
as leaves blown from another world….
fragment
yesterday on track 13
at the vienna train station
where years ago people were herded in train cars
for the gas chambers of dachau
Strange lights appeared in the passageways
i am far from the wind embraced plains of Oklahoma
each leaf undulating in sunlight a memoried soul
that cannot be lost
drinking the water of an eternity
we yearn to remember
filled with song.
in memorium
for mike Austin
cherokee austrian brother
/ / / / / / / /
Im playing solitaire with a pearl handled card deck
While it rains at an outside bar in groom texas
Lightning cracks between the plains and a day lit moon
Following three days of anger and desolation
A wind flares damp against my face
the amazonian rain forest the yanomami women are selling
Their bodies as prostitutes so their warriors
Can afford guns and ammunition to fight the goldminers
On a plane between bangkok and manila last september
A drunk and pungent american is staring at my long hair
Colonists all smell the same
On any given day i can spit in any direction and hit one
Its cold and dusty on cerrilos road in santa fe
I havent spoken to anyone in six days
At a taco stand a kid in a military suit asks me
If im someone
Shit
I didnt even know i was there
It is said that noah sent two ravens out into the flooded world
They never returned
I met them in the red light district in amsterdam last year
Disguised as defrocked monks
I told them i was flying away from America
The told me they were still flying away from the arc…..
ponticella, italy
the wolf texts
For whom does the world have a name
It is named by those who do not know the world
Names exist so that people will not feel lost
In a world that is lost to them already
In a clearing place i taste its sweet passage
There are flying things beyond the fires of men
They keep their arms as if they are wings
These men are nothing but bones singing to their sorrow….
san lazzaro di savena, Italy
Lance Henson (mahagodomiutzhetomitoneotsistsistas) was raised in the Cheyenne Nation of Oklahoma, by his grandparents. A recent recipient of the Ostana International Prize in Italy for his translations of Cheyenne poetry, he has forty-three books published. He directs a literary project in Europe, Words from the Edge, which brings poets from endangered tribes to read their work in five consenting nations.
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