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Poems from a Friend
posted in Teachings on 7th Feb, 2021KEITH JAMES HAINES
Keith Haines, an enrolled member of the Mescalero Apache tribe of south central New Mexico, was born in 1968 in Farmington, New Mexico to Jodee Yazza and Bruce Haines. When he was five years of age his biological mother passed away. Two years later, his father married Charlotte Hara, a Japanese American from Hawaii.
Growing up in New Mexico, Wyoming, and Nebraska, and spending a significant amount of time as a youth in Minnesota, Arizona, and Montana, he left home at seventeen after graduating high school to study art and literature at several universities.
Since leaving the trailer he grew up in, he has traveled extensively throughout the west and mid-west, supporting himself, among various occupations, as laborer, student, cook, pipe maker, ranch-hand, and mill worker. Keith passed away January 28, 2020; yet the legacy of his beautiful spirit through his art and poetry lives on.
Welcome. Here you will find several poems and stories I have written over the last several years, the earliest being The Dirt and the Weeds, and the latest, A Pure Blue Flame Where the Hawks Go. I am currently at work on a longer fictional piece entitled Horse of the Sun, same as the headline for this website. In addition, I have included a few pencil sketches of various subjects and plan to add several larger, more fully developed pieces when time and circumstance permit.Enjoy,Keith J. HainesPoetry
Hangover Medicine | In the Avoidance of Women | Fall Valley | The Dirt and the Weeds | On the Forest Floor | Amaranths In Dew | Poet Taking Rest | Second Note to a Past Lover | Under a Feeble Sun | This Desperate Threshhold | Nearing the Base of West Mountain | Spring Hills of Missouri | Penning Delicate Words | Summer River Wildflowers | Parched | Sweating at Meremec | Humming in the Wind | Horse Travel Through the Blues | Nectar | The Long Limbed Day | Jaguar Leaping in the Wind | Outrider
Stories
Pollen Storm Blessing | The Morning World | The Barn Where It Was Dry | A Pure Blue Flame Where the Hawks Go | Dog's Neck | Games of Chance and Get Even | Waterbug | Seven Colors of the Sun
Chap Books
The Barn Where It Was Dry, A Collection of short stories from a contemporary Native American artist
Drinking With the Women, Poems. Love, despair, and the ultimate joy of passionate living
The Dirt and the Weeds
This is my father's room.
He likes to call it his tiny box of bitter contemplation.
It rests here,
on the five hundredth and third floor
of a five hundred and three story building.
This blanket is the place where my father sits.
All but him are forbidden to rest here.
This blanket comes from the time when he lived
on the ground below,
with the dirt and the weeds,
when he held sway over the broad expanse of this area,
sitting in comfortable ease
and directing with subtle gestures of lips and fingers,
who should pull forth the sun across the sky,
who should govern the revolution of the seasons,
who should provide for the rebirth of the harvests,
and who should lead the flight of the bird across the arc of the sun
and back..It is from here
that my father once motioned for me to bend nearer his lips,
and I did so,
and he began to tell me of the time
when he lived on the ground below,
with the dirt and the weeds,
and what happened at dawn one morning
while he was preparing for the day.Long time ago, he told me,
some people who he had never seen came to him
and asked him to leave the spot where he was camped,
but he said, "No. I have been here such a long time already."
One of them then replied, "Well, old man, it is no matter.
We are a gracious people, and we have decided
that we will allow you to remain in the spot you have chosen.
But since you refuse to be displaced outward,"
he told my father,
“we shall simply displace you upward.
In addition,
we have decided that we must lay down our cement rug beneath you
and your blanket,
so if you'll step aside, please, thank you."
My father stepped aside, bewildered.
"Larry," said the man,
get your men over here and lay down a cement slab."
Turning back to my father, he said,
"As well, we have decided that we would like to
build up our walls
around you, and in so doing,
we will raise you to a place
where neither you nor your people have ever been."
"Where is that?" my father asked.
“Old man," he was told,
“prepare for your ascent into heaven. Frank?
Gather your men.
Four walls and a ceiling, please."
My father folded his blanket over the wet cement
and sat down on top of it.
"I am fine here," he said,
and the four walls and the ceiling
began to close in around him.The people who were gathered near,
becoming more and more by the minute,
then raised their hands to the sky
and summoned forth from the ground beneath my
father a powerful movement,
setting into motion the rise of a massive
four-cornered structure made of brick and steel.The tremendous rumbling caused by such an event
was said to have been felt across the plains,
where a sleeping cloud mistook the rumble for
thunder and began to pour forth its rain,
over the mountains,
where the Spine of God is said to have trembled,
through the basins,
where the fruits of the trees
were moved to fall from their branches,
and down into the sea
where the dust was shaken from the shoulder of
the land.And so began the ascension of my father
into this place called heaven.
Now,
when I sit with him,
he likes to tell me that he is still able,
when he closes his eyes,
to hear the weeds in the wind,
blowing their music close to the ground.Copyright © Horse of the Sun and Keith Haines 1999-2002. All Rights Reserved.
On the Forest Floor
Now,
even the most gentle of female rains
brings down the early dogwood
blossoms,
once white,
now stained pink and red
as if bruised and wounded,
sent to the forest floor
to bleed quietly in the shade.The petals are dirty
are cut and bleeding,
and looking closely,
their hurt faces plead into mine.But what can I do?
I gather a handful,
six or seven,
and begin to shout around about the glory of these
fallen criers of
Spring’s army of joy,
naming the days of their bannered and heralded births,
touting the courage of first blossoms,
and going on about their short lives of timeless purity.Afterward,
I let the petals drop from my fingers,
watch them come to rest
on last Autumn’s leaves,
now dead one full season
and resting with new stories
of the Winterfor the telling to
the freshly fallen dead
of Spring’s army of joy.
Amaranths In Dew
I am a whisperer of the moment,
a piner at the edge of gardens,
a drunk gaper of endless petals,in whose curves
I see the hearts
of potential lovers,wet amaranths
in dew.
Poet Taking Rest
My lover,
I admire the length
and grace
of your well-shaped hands,
delicate wings of the butterfly
pressed tightly together
in prayer,
and in between them,
my only thin asylum
of brief repose.
Second Note to a Past Lover
I do not think of it as folly
to spend all my time dreaming
of your touch,
but I do suffer terrible embarrassment from
those who would say I am
foolishly enamoured with one
whom I am not familiar with
in the least.Nevertheless,
I will continue
to persist in this behavior,
foolish as it may appear to
those lacking in any sense
of romantic abandon, and
it would be to them that I
would simply say that I take
extreme pleasure in the
weaving of this thought of silk
through the 10,000 crests of
the waters
that separate us.
This Desperate Threshhold
At this desperate threshold,
look how white my knuckles –I can’t face wine,
not like I used to.
Not anymore.Oh,
my most admired romancer
of the most strange and terrible nights,
where will I turn
if not to your sopping invitation?You have pulled me too far apart,
at my own request –
I could not ask you
to pull me back together.I have sought out your freeing waters,
often as I could,
for more than a century,
but I have grown weary
of raising your implements to my lips.Understand,
I have loved you more
than I have loved my women.At this desperate threshold,
my friend,
look how white my knuckles,
but look how clear my eyes.
Nearing the Base of West Mountain
In the foothills to the East
there is pollen.I am coming in the pollen.
The pollen falls upon my hair
and streams across my eyes,and in my hair
there is a breeze.
Spring Hills of Missouri
Over endless lakeside hills,
unfolding forests
show spring blossoms,
white lace
airing
among the dogwood
and the plum.
Penning Delicate Words
What fine silk
moves through these trembling
fingertips
but
what an array of dusty stallions
courses through my wrist.A timeless dripping sun
labors over me,
yet
I do not sweat as I pen these delicate
words for you.
Summer River Wildflowers
At riverside,
in the waning days of summer,
I part eight blossoms
from their stems.Later,
wearing the flowers,
I stand waist-deep
in Summer River,
gathering drifting leaves
from beyond Summer River’s bluffs.
Fall Valley
Out here,
all my crushes
are on
divine
sugar maple forests.It’s Fall.
Devastated,
I roam the valley
for a
Summer flower.
Parched
These three desperate throats,
in the wake of such a malignant sun,
where
in this endless brown valley
can we find wine?(These horses are but ashy silhouettes).
What a shabby and dissolute arrangement
has been laid out for us!
Is there left a cool breast
to appeal to?Oh, our dry and tongueless bellow!
Sweating at Meremec
What is there that can restrain joy?
Not me!
These pores on my back-
with what joy they sweat!What a time this is
to radiate with expansiveness and light.
These people around me,
these fine days we are spending together,
such laughter!Under these trees,
in this universe,
we are so small,
yet with joy look how long and wide we reach,
and how deep!
Humming In the Wind
All day
Beneath the hot sun
I thought of you.Thought of how
My love for you is likeTen thousand bright blossoms
Humming in the wind.
Horse Travel Through the Blues
My blue gaze rides
toward
her breast
like dusk
moves
between mountains:deeper,
wetter,
greener,
coller,
roaming and
loping
with heavy melancholia.This
is
the nature
of horse travel through the blues,
stepping through rivers,
noting the shorelines
flowered
and
hung,
bending in the saddle
to part blossom
from stem -true and desperate acts
performed
at dusk
during a cool and
loveless
summer.
Nectar
Isn't love, too,
proclaimed to be at it's most
dangerous
when new,
like the poison of a
young snake?And which is the greater danger?
Love, leaning nearby, musky and aromatic,
or the capable length of a snake?From either tongue
drips nectar from the body
like dew
from the bud.
The Long Limbed Day
She is a lean figure
curved against the window,
a limber boiugh
hung heavy with foliage in the sun,
lithe body drawn from
the sinew and supple muscle
of the
slender
forest deer.In her bare arms
and in her naked shoulders
I witness the
heightened
and tightened
awareness of a doe's limbs, prepared
at any instant
to bound off in a tremendous
single
leap
nine feet long
perhaps,
to go stretching into the
long limbed day,
young
strong
beautiful
forever.Yes.
Oh,
yes, yes, yes.
Jaguar Leaping in the Wind
My muse,
you
have liberated me from the rocks!Long reacher,
high stretcher,
you unfurl your body
a silk ribbon of skin
licking the midday wind,
and I look,oh how I look!
Woman,
it is a poet's duty,
aye,
a poet's pleasure,
to sing the tips of your fingers as claws,
the breadth of your hands as mitts,
the length of your limbs
outstretched and roaring
from your bosom,
as those of a jaguar in hunger
leaping from the rocks
toward
the hot neck of the sun.
Outrider
I unsheath
from my boot
3,000 wet tongues,
grim bladed
butterflies
sent out to riot in
the night,wing tips dark as hot razors
stained with the blood
of
a
long
haired
poet.I unsheath
these wet things,
hold them level
at sea,
one man standing
against
all comers,long haired, doublebraided,
point taken,
praying for hope against
the bellowing
sea
of
the
East.Copyright © Horse of the Sun and Keith Haines 1999-2002. All Rights Reserved.
Hangover Medicine
Coyote had been drinking too much whiskey when he left
the place where the group was camped.
He left because he wanted to go make pee.
He invited those who wished to attend
to come along.
Everybody said, "No!"
So coyote began to wander off
by himself
to go make his pee in private.
Then he turned around and told the others that
when his pee hardened,
it would become a solid lump of pure white gold,
but the others were wise to his tricks,
and so they said, "No! No way! Even we don't believe
you can turn your pee into riches.
Go along in your own peculiar way,
Coyote,
and make your pee without bothering us anymore.”So Coyote went along the tree line until
he found a nice clearing to put forth his water,
but he decided to rest
for a while before doing this,
and he passed out beneath the tree
he had been leaning on,
forgetting all about the necessity of putting out
the liquor he had poured into his belly.Next morning,
Coyote awoke with a pain in his innards.
"What is the trouble here?" he said,
"ohhh, why does my body ache so?"
He rubbed his belly all over and made several chants,
but nothing helped the aches go away.
Finally,
he got angry and grabbed hold of his member
and began to swing it around and choke it, saying,
"Look! What is wrong with me?
I feel so awful!
Help make me better!
Send the troublemaker who is giving me hell in my body
out your little hole so I can punish him!
Do it!"
Coyote flung his penis around
and threw it against some trees,he even caressed it and encouraged it to perform,
but not a thing was forthcoming.
He began to feel even worse,
but he was not worried yet.
He put some lotion on his member to heal the sores
and tucked it away in his pants.That is when he began talking to his anus.
"See here!" said Coyote to his anus,
"I have maligned and injured my own member
over this pain I feel in my body.
No matter what I do,
my penis,
my favorite,
won't even help rid me of my discomfort.
Help me, anus,
help me to expel the troublemaker at work in my body."
So saying,
Coyote dug a hole,
pulled down his trousers,
and squatted.
He began to strain with all his might.
He grunted. He waited.
He implored his anus to do its best,
and his face grew more red with each try.
Finally,
he grew tired from so much effort and rolled over onto his belly,
cursing his body for the weakness it showed
in expelling this nemesis from within him.By this time
Coyote could hardly move from the pain,
and his lower lip began to tremble,
and he could do nothing but try to cry.
He stayed that way for a while,
trying to cry,
but no tears came out either,
and he felt worse than ever.
He stayed that way for two whole days.After that,
he felt better,
and he got up and began moving around again.Copyright © Horse of the Sun and Keith Haines 1999-2002. All Rights Reserved.
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