This poem was spontaneously composed live on Facebook over December 8th and 9th, with eight people contributing at least one entry each of the over 140 entries and 2500 words. Those people are Sy Hoahwah, Chris Pappas, Jacob Shores-Argüello, Chris Wong, Steve Sanders, Meg Harris, Kenneth Reveiz and Paul White.

This is the first time the full recording of the poem, by Chris Pappas, has been made available. The accompanying songs (Eek and The End), provided by Saint Sparrow, were written, performed and recorded by Saint Sparrow: Erika Wilhite and Jacob Shores-Argüello.

This is such a beautiful poem. A marvel, really, of New Century process. My sincere thanks to everyone involved in the making of this poem, which inspired the POET JUICE SERIES from Mêlée Live and USPOCO BOOKS.

This is THE ORIGINAL POET JUICE.

A Note on the recording: This recording survived, in spite of my insecurities about it. The pangs of pride. At the completion of the poem, I began reciting it out loud, then recorded it over and over, trying to find the sound. I insisted that I would record the whole thing live. No editing. If I messed up, I would start again. By the time this version was captured, I had been up for three days straight and was losing my mind (ah . . .), obsessed with getting it right. It was still not right. I inadvertently omitted a few lines (some of my favorites!) toward the end and totally misread the closing line. But, finally, I couldn’t continue. Absolutely beat. I knew the first half of the recording was okay, so I posted it as Part One, thinking I would rerecord the entire poem at a later date.

Well, I recently tried several times to rerecord the poem. But the poetry gods would not make it easy. Technology problems abound. Then when I did get a track down, it sucked. I was imitating myself from the other recording. But we have a better mic now, etc. etc. (This recording was made on a webcam mic banded to a desk lamp. It is the reading depicted in POET JUICE NO. 1). I listened to the entire recording for the first time since it was made. I wept. I heard my own voice barely functioning. I remembered how important this is. A historical document. A poem. Anyway, I finally got it. This is not about me. It’s about us.

Though I might do some things different in this recording if I were making it today, this is the entire original recording from opening credits until closing. Nothing has been altered. This is the poem as I saw it then. And from that POV, it is perfect.

CP

https://videopress.com/embed/s8DG2kuJ?hd=0&autoPlay=0&permalink=0&loop=0

Since we last met I told Paul I am about sick of poetry

Since we last met I learned poetry needs voice

Sick of the splinters in my fingers, since we last met

Almost only counts in horseshoes…

Since we last met my cast iron is blacker that ever

I’ve only played horseshoes in snow since we last met

Since we’ve last met, the last snow has melted in my cup

Since we last met my cup was upside down before every rain

Horse rubbed down in sulfur

Clay pits

Horse rubbed down in blued silver

In which I was dipped by my nose, since we last met

God became island and I a swimmer, since we last met

A leaner, a ringer, a clanker, since we’ve not met.

Since we last met I learned to fly and found compass. But my map is lost.

Since those cherries of blood bloomed in my bandages, we’ve had no last calls, no needs unmet

Since we last met Wong kidnapped a steel-toed cat

It cold against my neck was like a slow dead whiskey

Since last we met the sea change came to salt

I bathed in, my ass, in a crowded bird bath. Since we last met.

And I’m horseback deaf

Sick as a green lit sky, my liver faded last we met

Since we last met my color green turned yellow, I do not know where yellow went

Yellow has no taste, no smell to speak of since the last we met

And the transplant was goo but long overdue

I fell down drinking often, but that happened long before since last we met

There were wounds to nurse and other debts to mete

you know…since last we met

Since we last met I have drank some, fallen little and forgotten much of what I hoped to remember

Since last we met I grew fond of you, I grew fond of last we met

You throw your shoes

I got addicted then I kicked and started all again, since last we met

What you have lost I found, since last we met. This is the way things seem to go each time the last we met

Met we last since Turkey Trail Ghost Woman

I measured out each of your miles in cigarettes

An hour for each 80 miles each 80 days since last we met

I remember sipping air from each your words, when last we met

And smoked my way to what I thought was home, a few times

The days since we let the horse off his cart, since we were last at the metropolitan museum of art

Whatever songs play sounded like a scar, the last we met

What is art, Jacob? you didn’t answer like you ought to last we met

The moon is hammered-silver over the midnight pits. When will we meet

Like the clouds you see on the day of Medusa’s pap smear

last time we met

Last time we met, you were a year younger. It will not be the last time we met

I bought you islay scotch. It cost too much the last we me

There were several other fees, in separate phases. Last: we met

We boiled the last rib of the frisky calf

You own the book and I know the dance. We are well met.

To swim a mile indoors means sixty-six laps. I learned that painfully since last we met

That was a good night. Reading Georgic, playing chess.

Sweat, ungulates, dead rats and pirouettes

We were born again in the mouth of our natural predator

Last night, I called out to the small things in me, they spoke to me as if I were a child. We agreed that we had lost something between us. On this small harmony, at least, we met

Sy spun a slot wheel till his fingers bled

Jacob played a banjo, keening from a minaret

Like a bob tailed coyote on an errand

He spit out the pits and tore my dress.

Pappas and Sanders debated on the terms of bets

Players used pennies to replace the missing blackwhite pieces, since we met

Sanders slashed out the savior

I heard the stone sound of a metronome. It counted minutes till you left

Terms of bets have been long forgotten since last we met

Since last we met I through my clock out the window, not because I wanted to see time fly, but because I was tired of worrying.

I heard the horse again, and he did giddy and he did up, since last we met

In the creek, Greek Fire’s knives and cooking pot, last time we met

I drunk and falling stared police dead in the eye, since last we met

I was the interloper, clay seeping between my toes, my shoes in the gum tree, shots fired in my bones.

I haven’t bathed in the juices of half cooked meat since the last time we…

But Sy, I did so once or twice, except with some regret

I was an old man whose bones spoke of lone dogs, whole fields of grain, the woman who shot me because i was not the same, since we last met

It was the savior’s time

I am falling asleep with a cat on my chest. So I will leave and never see you all again till next…

Since we last I have taken on an antic position. I am not dissed. But since we met I have found it more useful to be mad than to be unmade. And so I say that since we met I learned that talent is not enough. “You got to have character.”

And the next

I, so lost in fields, became an inscription on the shoulder blade of a buffalo skeleton last time we met

Since then I got a bison burger from the gourmet butcher in the gas station up the road.

I, so drunk in the fields, became the ghost’s last shadow, since last we met

Since we last met I told Paul I am about sick of poetry

And huffed gas with a cyclone bat since the lassssssttttt …..

As I drove out of the fields, I saw the lights of a desperate and derelict city where people wait out doors to meet someone with change. I told him, since when met, that change is the one thing you can count on son.

Since you do not know me, you do not know my heart, that parasitic twin. I drink your whiskey and spill your gin.

Since

Barking buttocks

Last

Barking buttocks

A man in the rooms once said son I’ve spilt more whiskey than you’ve drunk! Since we met, since I saw you last, since then I told him, if you had drank more and spilt less you might’ve got here sooner. While you still had some body left.

We met.

Barking buttocks

Filled with sweat is not a pretty smell, I have learned since we met

But the spleen was cut and used with the brain to rub into the hide

Of Native lore I’ve ventured since we met. And I think you’re right on target, that on the res or not you can, not you should, but you can never forget.

God’s only ocean came up to me, and in its sea spray of voice whispered “since we last met” before it took me down

The tide rolled in and washed my feet. I thought I heard your voice, Jacob.

Into its smoky depths and pointed up and said there is no light ( it waved its breath and grunted only this is left.

I had no home in honesty anymore since we last met

Voices came from the trees, etched with their needles on their own skin, funny how the wind blew that day, how the wind met my face

They drank the curdled milk taken from the stomach of suckling fawns

They spoke in the rough tongues of the dry dung heaps, voices sewn with lace strung from the gut of the old coyote who sang my spanish name

Who have since grown long as the pines bend bowing to the wind singing, all faces are one, all religions are one and all you feel is the sting of remembrance of what awaits you’re still remains.

They gathered sweat from the horses they’d ridden. They cut themselves and drew their blood into cups. They collected the bones of small animals and wrapped them all in skin. As if some magic poltice would make you come again..

My angles are sharp enough to break an eagle’s beak

The old skins blew away, the wind wrapped them around the old willow, we thought we should follow after them, capture what we once had. No we thought our future is clothed in skins, what we want still remains

To be etched in the skin of the living. Remember me, softly fades the memory. But the image still remains.

He knows how to skin bats that Shores

Brought in from the cave the last saw him disappearing into the small black circle of light in darkness, echoing wait for me.

Long ago the burning moonshine has been drunk up but still, the still remains

A black faced deer in the moonlight of a hunt;

a white faced deer in the blacklight of a dance

By the firelight we wait. For the elders to follow.

Yucca leaves were pounded for the fibers of dreams

Without you, I cannot go to the circle of fire or help the women with the hides, I am the shadow of myself, since last we met.

And smoke was squeezed through the fiber in shapes that became clouds became constellations became gods and all the rest.

I knew the clouds of the forest were fingers of ghosts, instead I made a small hand from the burnt cedar of my fire, it reached back and scraped my grandfathers spine

I became a wriggling stirup out of the ancient past

On liberty we depend. In liberty we, on the thinking thereof, defend the idea that we are for our brothers. When so contrary a play is now obvious for anyone not girdled in clouds or memories or anything else awfully subtle that well-minded people ally in front of the cameras day in and out again and again. The ticker never stops. Everyday is news day, for the justly thought of himself.

Unhanded us

On liberty I leaned my knife, my bandaged arm, my walking stick. Bones talked to me then. Said I was somehow whole. Oh how they didn’t know I was milk-fed from the moon, that I was the smell of burning hair that followed you

Followed me into the briar patch at sunrise for breakfast of berries. On belgian waffles the ranger tosses to all the newbies. But you only heave your guts from your heals and back for the very first night. After that. You begin to begin.

Begin to begin, the robins rattled in the high pines. I was blue as juniper, unwise and foxed. Still I knew what the mountains had made for me. I stayed on my back let the robins begin, begin to begin

I had but a mouse trail to follow you

With a morning gin from the fresh plucked berries of Eve’s eve before she left I mean. That silly discussion with her man about whether to work apart in sin or tempt the tempter, he would not dare approach the weaker, fare when standing all about are the men.

I got Greek on Him

I got Costa Rican on Him

I got Comanche on Him

When he woke up we had won. I noticed the eyes weren’t different. The walk the same. Since we met last nothing had changed. The war could not be over. It’s just a trick. He’ll hide for a thousand years or so and when we forget, right at that moment, he will pounce! And say ah ha! Got to church you little shits or I’m gonna get you!

Grandmother knew better than to talk to us that way. She silently carved the knife on the old whetstone. Don’t be like you grandfather she said. And we stood still as she split the air between us.

Afraid to move we stayed for just long enough for her to get distracted in the olives and we made for the garage through the broken screen door. We took out the strong box full of promises he had earned giving out hope at a time it was scarce.

Those promises were hairy stars and thunder tellers wrapped in snake skin

And I saw nothing inside of them but the bleach of bones and eyes of old mothers loving them

Just make sure the undertaker’s out of the room during the delivery.

Just make sure the undertaker’s out of the room during the delivery.

Just make sure the gold is sucked from the fillings in their teeth, that the moons been painted, that all we’ve come to dream has been told

Since we last met I told Paul I am about sick of poetry

I told him we should let this all be and come back in a year or two and see what has sprigged, what is growing from what we planted when we thought we were pilgrims. For a minute.

I slept beside the creek and carried a pocket knife into my dream

And I saw myself there getting the killer loose and whispering you’d better go now I think I hear the dogs.

And the dead dancer on the short horse

And the crippled toad on the mushroom stool

And the bees’s mother on the bear flying across the bird’s face

All the small ones knew they were both, the dancer and the toad, destined to be something bigger. [Lunch for an army.

And the fodder in an old camp

since we last met

I could lick the water here / Paul — tho don’t want to say dive in

Dive in Paul, fall face first into your reflection. Paul, slapwater slap. Slapwater slap.

Water sez “EY! Watch da surface!” & Paul sez “brbrbbrbbrb” & “pshhhh” & “IIIIIIIIIIIIII”

What is this fear of driving still doing] on? It’s super fucked up my face with cold wind! My herpes! My neck! My bad memory or two is the only holes I have to look through. There’s an old African at the other end of airline drive who’s here today (he showed up for once) to tell me about the garden. He says looka here! See this putty knife? That’s the garden. See this here – soft taco. That’s your grandfathers body. And this your daddy! See he so much more further away. Now you all the way over there, leanin against the wall Paul… (intercom) mr white your cars ready. Special today: no mirror!

The line below started the whole thing.  Sy Hoahwah wrote it to me in a Facebook chat. I posted it on my Facebook wall and people started posting lines after it. The momentum picked up and up and up. The only rule implied was “no rules.”

Since we last met I told Paul I am about sick of poetry

December 8, 2010 at 11:26pm

Chris Pappas Since we last met I learned poetry needs voice

December 8, 2010 at 11:27pm

Jacob Shores-Argüello Sick of the splinters in my fingers, since we last met

December 8, 2010 at 11:29pm

Meg Harris almost only counts in horseshoes…

December 8, 2010 at 11:32pm

Sy Hoahwah Since we last met my cast iron is blacker that ever

December 8, 2010 at 11:33pm

Chris Pappas I’ve only played horseshoes in snow since we last met

December 8, 2010 at 11:35pm

Jacob Shores-Argüello Since we’ve last met, the last snow has melted in my cup

December 8, 2010 at 11:36pm

Chris Pappas Since we last met my cup was upside down before every rain

December 8, 2010 at 11:37pm

Sy Hoahwah horse rubbed down in sulfur

December 8, 2010 at 11:39pm

Meg Harris clay pits

December 8, 2010 at 11:41pm

Jacob Shores-Argüello horse rubbed down in blued silver

December 8, 2010 at 11:41pm

Chris Pappas in which I was dipped by my nose, since we last met

December 8, 2010 at 11:42pm

Jacob Shores-Argüello God became island and I a swimmer, since we last met

December 8, 2010 at 11:44pm

Meg Harris A leaner, a ringer, a clanker, since we’ve not met.

December 8, 2010 at 11:45pm

Chris Pappas Since we last met I learned to fly and found compass. But my map is lost.

December 8, 2010 at 11:45pm

Jacob Shores-Argüello Since those cherries of blood bloomed in my bandages, we’ve had no last calls, no needs unmet

December 8, 2010 at 11:48pm

Sy Hoahwah Since we last met Wong kidnapped a steel-toed cat

December 8, 2010 at 11:48pm

Chris Wong It cold against my neck was like a slow dead whiskey

December 8, 2010 at 11:49pm

Chris Wong Since last we met the sea change came to salt

December 8, 2010 at 11:50pm

Chris Pappas I bathed in, my ass, in a crowded bird bath. Since we last met.

December 8, 2010 at 11:50pm

Sy Hoahwah And I’m horseback deaf

December 8, 2010 at 11:51pm

Chris Wong Sick as a green lit sky, my liver faded last we met

December 8, 2010 at 11:51pm

Jacob Shores-Argüello Since we last met my color green turned yellow, I do not know where yellow went

December 8, 2010 at 11:51pm

Chris Wong Yellow has no taste, no smell to speak of since the last we met

December 8, 2010 at 11:51pm

Chris Pappas And the transplant was goo but long overdue

December 8, 2010 at 11:52pm

Chris Wong I fell down drinking often, but that happened long before since last we met

December 8, 2010 at 11:52pm

Chris Wong There were wounds to nurse and other debts to mete

December 8, 2010 at 11:53pm

Chris Wong you know…since last we met

December 8, 2010 at 11:53pm

Chris Pappas Since we last met I have drank some, fallen little and forgotten much of what I hoped to remember

December 8, 2010 at 11:53pm

Jacob Shores-Argüello Since last we met I grew fond of you, I grew fond of last we met

December 8, 2010 at 11:53pm

Meg Harris you throw your shoes.

December 8, 2010 at 11:53pm

Chris Wong I got addicted then I kicked and started all again, since last we met

December 8, 2010 at 11:54pm

Chris Wong What you have lost I found, since last we met. This is the way things seem to go each time the last we met

December 8, 2010 at 11:54pm

Sy Hoahwah Met we last since Turkey Trail Ghost Woman

December 8, 2010 at 11:55pm

Chris Wong I measured out each of your miles in cigarettes

December 8, 2010 at 11:55pm

Chris Wong An hour for each 80 miles each 80 days since last we met

December 8, 2010 at 11:55pm

Chris Wong I remember sipping air from each your words, when last we met

December 8, 2010 at 11:56pm

Chris Pappas And smoked my way to what I thought was home, a few times

December 8, 2010 at 11:56pm

Jacob Shores-Argüello the days since we let the horse off his cart, since we were last at the metropolitan museum of art

December 8, 2010 at 11:56pm

Chris Wong Whatever songs play sounded like a scar, the last we met

December 8, 2010 at 11:57pm

Chris Wong What is art, Jacob? you didn’t answer like you ought to last we met

December 8, 2010 at 11:57pm

Meg Harris the moon is hammered-silver over the midnight pits. When will we meet?

December 8, 2010 at 11:57pm

Sy Hoahwah like the clouds you see on the day of Medusa’s pap smear

last time we met

December 8, 2010 at 11:58pm

Jacob Shores-Argüello Last time we met, you were a year younger. It will not be the last time we met

December 8, 2010 at 11:58pm

Chris Wong I bought you islay scotch. It cost too much the last we met

December 8, 2010 at 11:58pm

Chris Wong There were several other fees, in separate phases. Last: we met

December 8, 2010 at 11:59pm

Sy Hoahwah we boiled the last rib of the frisky calf

December 8, 2010 at 11:59pm

Meg Harris you own the book and I know the dance. We are well met.

December 9, 2010 at 12:00am

Steve Sanders To swim a mile indoors means sixty-six laps. I learned that painfully since last we met.

December 9, 2010 at 12:00am

Chris Wong That was a good night. Reading Georgic, playing chess.

December 9, 2010 at 12:00am

Chris Wong Sweat, ungulates, dead rats and pirouettes

December 9, 2010 at 12:01am

Sy Hoahwah We were born again in the mouth of our natural predator

December 9, 2010 at 12:01am

Jacob Shores-Argüello Last night, I called out to the small things in me, they spoke to me as if I were a child. We agreed that we had lost something between us. On this small harmony, at least, we met

December 9, 2010 at 12:01am

Chris Wong Sy spun a slot wheel till his fingers bled

December 9, 2010 at 12:02am

Chris Wong Jacob played a banjo, keening from a minaret

December 9, 2010 at 12:03am

Sy Hoahwah like a bob tailed coyote on an errand

December 9, 2010 at 12:03am

Meg Harris He spit out the pits and tore my dress.

December 9, 2010 at 12:03am

Chris Wong Pappas and Sanders debated on the terms of bets

December 9, 2010 at 12:03am

Jacob Shores-Argüello Players used pennies to replace the missing blackwhite pieces, since we met

December 9, 2010 at 12:04am

Sy Hoahwah Sanders slashed out the savior

December 9, 2010 at 12:04am

Chris Wong I heard the stone sound of a metronome. It counted minutes till you left

December 9, 2010 at 12:05am

Steve Sanders Terms of bets have been long forgotten since last we met

December 9, 2010 at 12:06am

Chris Pappas Since last we met I through my clock out the window, not because I wanted to see time fly, but because I was tired of worrying.

December 9, 2010 at 12:06am

Jacob Shores-Argüello I heard the horse again, and he did giddy and he did up, since last we met

December 9, 2010 at 12:07am

Sy Hoahwah In the creek, Greek Fire’s knives and cooking pot, last time we met

December 9, 2010 at 12:07am

Chris Wong I drunk and falling stared police dead in the eye, since last we met

December 9, 2010 at 12:08am

Meg Harris I was the interloper, clay seeping between my toes, my shoes in the gum tree, shots fired in my bones.

December 9, 2010 at 12:08am

Sy Hoahwah I haven’t bathed in the juices of half cooked meat since the last time we…

December 9, 2010 at 12:10am

Chris Wong But Sy, I did so once or twice, except with some regret

December 9, 2010 at 12:11am

Jacob Shores-Argüello I was an old man whose bones spoke of lone dogs, whole fields of grain, the woman who shot me because i was not the same, since we last met

December 9, 2010 at 12:11am

Steve Sanders it was the savior’s time

December 9, 2010 at 12:11am

Chris Wong I am falling asleep with a cat on my chest. So I will leave and never see you all again till next…

December 9, 2010 at 12:12am

Chris Pappas Since we last I have taken on an antic position. I am not dissed. But since we met I have found it more useful to be mad than to be unmade. And so I say that since we met I learned that talent is not enough. “You got to have character.”

December 9, 2010 at 12:13am

Steve Sanders and the next

December 9, 2010 at 12:14am

Sy Hoahwah I, so lost in fields, became an inscription on the shoulder blade of a buffalo skeleton last time we met

December 9, 2010 at 12:14am

Chris Pappas Since then I got a bison burger from the gourmet butcher in the gas station up the road.

December 9, 2010 at 12:15am

Jacob Shores-Argüello I, so drunk in the fields, became the ghost’s last shadow, since last we met

December 9, 2010 at 12:15am

Jacob Shores-Argüello Since we last met I told Paul I am about sick of poetry

December 9, 2010 at 12:17am

Sy Hoahwah and huffed gas with a cyclone bat since the lassssssttttt …..

December 9, 2010 at 12:17am

Chris Pappas As I drove out of the fields, I saw the lights of a desperate and derelict city where people wait out doors to meet someone with change. I told him, since when met, that change is the one thing you can count on son.

December 9, 2010 at 12:17am

Meg Harris since you do not know me, you do not know my heart, that parasitic twin. I drink your whiskey and spill your gin.

December 9, 2010 at 12:18am

Jacob Shores-Argüello since

December 9, 2010 at 12:20am

Sy Hoahwah barking buttocks

December 9, 2010 at 12:21am

Jacob Shores-Argüello last

December 9, 2010 at 12:22am

Sy Hoahwah Barking buttocks

December 9, 2010 at 12:22am

Chris Pappas A man in the rooms once said son I’ve spilt more whiskey than you’ve drunk! Since we met, since I saw you last, since then I told him, if you had drank more and spilt less you might’ve got here sooner. While you still had some body left.

December 9, 2010 at 12:22am

Meg Harris we met.

December 9, 2010 at 12:24am

Sy Hoahwah barking buttocks

December 9, 2010 at 12:24am

Chris Pappas filled with sweat is not a pretty smell, I have learned since we met

December 9, 2010 at 12:25am

Sy Hoahwah But the spleen was cut and used with the brain to rub into the hide

December 9, 2010 at 12:27am

Chris Pappas of Native lore I’ve ventured since we met. And I think you’re right on target, that on the res or not you can, not you should, but you can never forget.

December 9, 2010 at 12:28am

Jacob Shores-Argüello God’s only ocean came up to me, and in its sea spray of voice whispered “since we last met” before it took me down

December 9, 2010 at 12:33am

Meg Harris the tide rolled in and washed my feet. I thought I heard your voice, Jacob.

December 9, 2010 at 12:34am

Chris Pappas into its smoky depths and pointed up and said there is no light ( it waved its breath and grunted only this is left.

December 9, 2010 at 12:34am

Sy Hoahwah I had no home in honesty anymore since we last met

December 9, 2010 at 12:34am

Jacob Shores-Argüello Voices came from the trees, etched with their needles on their own skin, funny how the wind blew that day, how the wind met my face

December 9, 2010 at 12:35am

Sy Hoahwah they drank the curdled milk taken from the stomach of suckling fawns

December 9, 2010 at 12:37am

Jacob Shores-Argüello they spoke in the rough tongues of the dry dung heaps, voices sewn with lace strung from the gut of the old coyote who sang my spanish name

December 9, 2010 at 12:38am

Chris Pappas who have since grown long as the pines bend bowing to the wind singing, all faces are one, all religions are one and all you feel is the sting of remembrance of what awaits you’re still remains.

December 9, 2010 at 12:39am

Meg Harris they gathered sweat from the horses they’d ridden. They cut themselves and drew their blood into cups. They collected the bones of small animals and wrapped them all in skin. As if some magic poltice would make you come again..

December 9, 2010 at 12:40am

Sy Hoahwah My angles are sharp enough to break an eagle’s beak

December 9, 2010 at 12:41am

Jacob Shores-Argüello the old skins blew away, the wind wrapped them around the old willow, we thought we should follow after them, capture what we once had. No we thought our future is clothed in skins, what we want still remains

December 9, 2010 at 12:43am

Chris Pappas to be etched in the skin of the living. Remember me, softly fades the memory. But the image still remains.

December 9, 2010 at 12:44am

Sy Hoahwah He knows how to skin bats that Shores

December 9, 2010 at 12:46am

Chris Pappas brought in from the cave the last saw him disappearing into the small black circle of light in darkness, echoing wait for me.

December 9, 2010 at 12:48am

Jacob Shores-Argüello Long ago the burning moonshine has been drunk up but still, the still remains

December 9, 2010 at 12:49am ·

Sy Hoahwah a black faced deer in the moonlight of a hunt;

a white faced deer in the blacklight of a dance

December 9, 2010 at 12:50am

Chris Pappas by the firelight we wait. For the elders to follow.

December 9, 2010 at 12:52am

Sy Hoahwah Yucca leaves were pounded for the fibers of dreams

December 9, 2010 at 12:54am

Meg Harris Without you, I cannot go to the circle of fire or help the women with the hides, I am the shadow of myself, since last we met.

December 9, 2010 at 12:55am

Chris Pappas And smoke was squeezed through the fiber in shapes that became clouds became constellations became gods and all the rest.

December 9, 2010 at 12:57am

Jacob Shores-Argüello I knew the clouds of the forest were fingers of ghosts, instead I made a small hand from the burnt cedar of my fire, it reached back and scraped my grandfathers spine

December 9, 2010 at 12:58am

Sy Hoahwah I became a wriggling stirup out of the ancient past

December 9, 2010 at 1:03am

Chris Pappas On liberty we depend. In liberty we, on the thinking thereof, defend the idea that we are for our brothers. When so contrary a play is now obvious for anyone not girdled in clouds or memories or anything else awfully subtle that well-minded people ally in front of the cameras day in and out again and again. The ticker never stops. Everyday is news day, for the justly thought of himself.

December 9, 2010 at 1:05am

Sy Hoahwah Unhanded us

December 9, 2010 at 1:06am

Jacob Shores-Argüello On liberty I leaned my knife, my bandaged arm, my walking stick. Bones talked to me then. Said I was somehow whole. Oh how they didn’t know I was milk-fed from the moon, that I was the smell of burning hair that followed you

December 9, 2010 at 1:08am

Chris Pappas followed me into the briar patch at sunrise for breakfast of berries. On belgian waffles the ranger tosses to all the newbies. But you only heave your guts from your heals and back for the very first night. After that. You begin to begin.

December 9, 2010 at 1:10am

Jacob Shores-Argüello Begin to begin, the robins rattled in the high pines. I was blue as juniper, unwise and foxed. Still I knew what the mountains had made for me. I stayed on my back let the robins begin, begin to begin

December 9, 2010 at 1:12am

Sy Hoahwah I had but a mouse trail to follow you

December 9, 2010 at 1:15am

Chris Pappas with a morning gin from the fresh plucked berries of Eve’s eve before she left I mean. That silly discussion with her man about whether to work apart in sin or tempt the tempter, he would not dare approach the weaker, fare when standing all about are the men.

December 9, 2010 at 1:15am

Sy Hoahwah I got Greek on Him

I got Costa Rican on Him

I got Comanche on Him

December 9, 2010 at 1:16am

Chris Pappas When he woke up we had won. I noticed the eyes weren’t different. The walk the same. Since we met last nothing had changed. The war could not be over. It’s just a trick. He’ll hide for a thousand years or so and when we forget, right at that moment, he will pounce! And say ah ha! Got to church you little shits or I’m gonna get you!

December 9, 2010 at 1:23am

Jacob Shores-Argüello Grandmother knew better than to talk to us that way. She silently carved the knife on the old whetstone. Don’t be like you grandfather she said. And we stood still as she split the air between us.

December 9, 2010 at 1:25am

Chris Pappas Afraid to move we stayed for just long enough for her to get distracted in the olives and we made for the garage through the broken screen door. We took out the strong box full of promises he had earned giving out hope at a time it was scarce.

December 9, 2010 at 1:27am

Sy Hoahwah Those promises were hairy stars and thunder tellers wrapped in snake skin

December 9, 2010 at 1:30am

Jacob Shores-Argüello And I saw nothing inside of them but the bleach of bones and eyes of old mothers loving them

December 9, 2010 at 1:34am

Chris Pappas Just make sure the undertaker’s out of the room during the delivery.

December 9, 2010 at 1:35am

Chris Pappas Just make sure the undertaker’s out of the room during the delivery.

December 9, 2010 at 1:35am

Jacob Shores-Argüello Just make sure the gold is sucked from the fillings in their teeth, that the moons been painted, that all we’ve come to dream has been told

December 9, 2010 at 1:36am

Jacob Shores-Argüello Since we last met I told Paul I am about sick of poetry

December 9, 2010 at 1:37am

Chris Pappas I told him we should let this all be and come back in a year or two and see what has sprigged, what is growing from what we planted when we thought we were pilgrims. For a minute.

December 9, 2010 at 1:39am

Sy Hoahwah I slept beside the creek and carried a pocket knife into my dream

December 9, 2010 at 1:39am

Chris Pappas and I saw myself there getting the killer loose and whispering you’d better go now I think I hear the dogs.

December 9, 2010 at 1:40am

Sy Hoahwah and the dead dancer on the short horse

December 9, 2010 at 1:42am

Chris Pappas and the crippled toad on the mushroom stool

December 9, 2010 at 1:43am

Sy Hoahwah and the bees’s mother on the bear flying across the bird’s face

December 9, 2010 at 1:45am

Chris Pappas All the small ones knew they were both, the dancer and the toad, destined to be something bigger. Lunch for an army.

December 9, 2010 at 2:01am

Sy Hoahwah and the fodder in an old camp

since we last met

December 9, 2010 at 2:03am

Kenneth Reveiz i could lick the water here / Paul — tho don’t want to say dive in

December 9, 2010 at 2:04am

Jacob Shores-Argüello Dive in Paul, fall face first into your reflection. Paul, slapwater slap. Slapwater slap.

December 9, 2010 at 2:10am

Kenneth Reveiz Water sez “EY! Watch da surface!” & Paul sez “brbrbbrbbrb” & “pshhhh” & “IIIIIIIIIIIIII”

December 9, 2010 at 2:14am

Paul White What is this fear of driving still doing on? It’s super fucked up my face with cold wind! My herpes! My neck! My bad memory or two is the only holes I have to look through. There’s an old African at the other end of airline drive who’s here today (he showed up for once) to tell me about the garden. He says looka here! See this putty knife? That’s the garden. See this here – soft taco. That’s your grandfathers body. And this your daddy! See he so much more further away. Now you all the way over there, leanin against the wall Paul… (intercom) mr white your cars ready. Special today: no mirror!

December 9, 2010 at 3:21am

The original poem can still be viewed on Facebook here:

http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=182488301767889&id=1844244225