the love of a good pine last white pine
lightning’s staggers can’t get at it but I will climb
I the lost ox of hawks highland farm
I the two I lube stuff hands
I the one hand pulled back bow string
I the arm muscle dedicated to the hay bale heave ho
I the eyes boxed by pine like shackled ones
I the mouth that shut down I won’t shut down no more
I the tongue scoured by beer’s freckles and pebbles
I the ear keen to silk and thorn coyote moan
I push them from the drum to the dream of golden wine
I open mouth wide for rushed sun now I sing the bird’s dawn salt now
I sing the song of the pine like a barrel now a gun of green now
I climb like a honey bear I slam into what there is
I love you all I eat your footfall I thaw my spine now
I ask you to remember lips moving now
remember this lips moving now
one day in a dark room dance to my lips moving now
I sing of the north of Wisconsin not far from the glitter lakes
near the paper mill factory take a left at the dead deer take a right at the shotgun
I sing of Ladysmith Wisconsin of Rusk County gusted down
all my house encased in ice grandpa of the eaves grandpa of the trees
the whisker white as pain the white welfare check
the green food stamp grey of on its way to black
grey beards grey gravels grey groans
ten below with wind chill rinds of getting ground down leaves
snow braided to snow in a wavy trick you up funny car hot rod hey
I leave my belt’s last hole I leave for holelessness
and the icicle wanting the ground
I go find a nail I find ice I pound another hole lord I do pound down
oh extra gravy oh gristle oh hamhock oh tipped cups of flame
before the robin reads the hinge in the drawl of falling leaves
before more snow gathers in butcher packages along the fall lines of your arms
for ice and deer hunts make you impossible
hey white pine I climb I drink I sing I gun I clamber climb
I bark like a sore tooth dog now
the robin’s brain is the squirrel’s I have a squirrel’s driving tail
I have a white rabbit’s foot my knuckle is the size of why the squirrel can’t find
what the squirrel clawed through earth to save
the lost on me merriment of snow in wind
silence like ketchup pushed to the back of the fridge
my fish out of water tipsiness my load of cayenne
my feel oh I am feeling each punch of wind
I get a little drunk on cans of PBR and start the climb
I am come to get drunk and give and receive green
of numb and soup and gristle and fire I sing
this coyote’s mournful bubbling this won’t you come to me
canned corn and canned beans heat them on the stove
fool them into thinking sweaty day sun be be
ink dragged out of paper by the oil in a donut left on the Ladysmith News
if you want to find me drive north till you need chains on the tires
look for the beard and eye look for the chocolate bearclaw fat on the Ladysmith News
sad report of the break in at the school and the damage that was done
the new bridge out on county H coming along nice
Danielle Izkepski arrested for bad checks
my elbow sore from leaning I look out at a ghost
snow braids and forks my hand in love with my chin
the soup trying Spanish the snow flakes approach in one inch pieces
the horse in his flurry house snorts once and runs
the deer bones the red plastic bat the chewed on by my collie ball
deerflies and houseflies all incidentals erased arrested by light out babble snow
winter cold junks me for a while I sat in the red engine of falling leaves
said I’d take the ride to where leaves go
now I ask the window please what craft is this white sheet?
and will it show me past Worden’s farm?
give my wrinkles to the mandolining pine for I am its grandson and this is true
though some days I do stand out along the falling leaves
they do brush against me I do throw my arm out like the fret of a guitar
the maple leaves do strum my arm veins the leaves do play Hank Williams
with me on me for me to toe me tiny tiny bird above above avow
frost window I have as eye sumac I eye as candle
let us burn bone and all and climb to the pine’s open arms
to the natural broken place where bullets blue jays and rut bucks slide around
let us slop ourselves like rut bucks in and in
choke the suet I laid in a net down I pound net and fat to the birch
how you pound the dead for life dear downie woodpecker
I am the grandson of a lumberjack I have a lot to learn
I want a garden I can swing at for green I want a cow and a calf
s of cow milk and double-a eye of calf hollerings
I want blue thread for when things rip I want to shake hands with a
I got the d.t.s chainsaw wash with diesel eat boiled potatoes smell of gas still on
I want some metal to bake things I want the dog to know my joy
I want raw honey and raw milk cheese I want a letter from you
ink pushed out of the L in love you did not wash the honey from your hand
your smell dropped a rag in my ave maria room
your hair fell like basil on my jesus house
I want knee deep silence I want my old man knees to ache a little not a lot
enough to say now look up for the geese are going now look up for the moon is
pulling teeth out of the heads of hammerhead sharks days by car away
I am a man in a farm house landlocked and a liar a crier and a fighter
a new foal blinking snow out of the eye
I run my mouth open the dog his tongue showing runs too
we cool our eyes with snow I pull down my thirst in icicles
chew the ice carrot ice microphone throw one to the dog
he sniffs what he thinks is a bone and strong see his teeth snap it too easily
see his ears go down see his eyes look at me like I said veterinarian
to sleep to sleep I sing to keep my teeth in good with my tongue
dead truck out to pasture throw snow balls at it
get the deep woof of a ball on rusty steel
everything has a job the truck keeps muscle on my arm
the dog says a deer walked past this spot the snow says the same by scars
and I walk the block three miles around
past the Dowd’s and the Worden’s and the abandoned farm
and I walk against cold and I walk for ice that melts
walk on the roman numerals of crows descending
in the halved Bartlett pears of doe and buck track
in the melon and matchstick of the blackbear descending
deer live until November old November oh November air
all lead and kicked with men drunk then shaky
then floaty then weavy they aim and fire
all day snow milks me for I am no bolder than the calf in the pen
we worry and wait out our hungers the same
ask the sun to gold mine us ask the moon to cast us unbroken
eyes do twice the job of hands eyes do nicely
but I get weak in hand I hide a cow’s hunger for grass and drink
I look for the woodcutting gloves again I tingle and numb and go maddeningly warm
the birches tune to crackling the river kicks soft in the seat of its pants
the woods is a well might outswing harmonium fetching fell fell place
the wood furnace is a white and red shatter of wind shined beams
the rabbit in the chicken cage her tin of water freezes in one hour
she knows to drink hard then wait
the chickens are escaped gears from grandfather clocks
they puff up hunker down whir like low battery cars or the end of time
the chickens are time yeah yeah yeah
the white pine life by sun and rain and wind my climb by it I claim it
though the tree does not know me from an owl with a rabbit in
cottontail rabbit eaten whole in one swooping down
I get aggressive and say your vinyl chins are mine
your starchy cheeks are mine your fish bone body mine
your shucked brown needle bone your lime old green breath mine
I learned to kiss girls by kissing just caught fish pillows and pines
any gold I panned was sun filleting pine the first five girls were
bluegills goosestuffed rectangles and pines
see me blow smoke rings
a goose has no pride proud he jerks into the v and is gone
I have watched them trying out their wings jolly jolly is my second name
pines on left aspen on right black and blue
the stars goopy fresh they snap back off out
duck and goose and star at dusk ride on pencil lead rubber bands and petroleum
their loping circles their callings and hits on deep bog lakes
their deep skissing sounds they are very fast and proud
I sing hot no no I sing a high dance of saws and ancestor jacks
for my grandfather thickened his soup with his grandfather’s jacket
worn to a fade in the hoppes fields of Germany
and how he broke at noon to tank beer how he cut things wrong after
my grandpa was an axe and river man hungry from birth till the day he died
he killed things smooth and easy as the river water before storm
rode the river logs mill bound like a rodeo star
before railroads rivers were gonna have to be straight enough
he had to prod the logs like cattle he was a cowboy of agua
his horse was timber his Rocniante was a log and going down stream
see about a table pound in as a house wall where children yes one old day
his first wife was river rapids his second wife was bumpy rides
his third wife was white pine his fourth wife was Monica
his fifth wife was shakiness his sixth wife was fish guts my my
half grandpa quarter goose quarter pine whiten now wink at the milk bucket I ay
he was out on a log jam he pulled the right log then the logs liked him
many arms of a windmill monster oh they used him the river fed his bits to
the fish the fish unzipped him to the bone sang him thin
if I could go back I would Paul Bunyan my gramps from the logs
throw him up into the big dipper like a hay bale
Bill I’d a thrown you high got you drunk on off milk and lack of oxygen
you’d a died softly for a couple thousand years
I’d a leaned my head back and pushed you higher on your hammerhead shark fed swing
you’d a hit the moon sand box hard the sky woulda snowed your hitting
and lo with a wrongheaded joy for broken fathers and fathers of fathers
passed out in wet hoppes fields for you and you I sing
I am a river man I am a snowshoe man I am a pulping man
I have come from the rib of a coyote I have come from bill’s syrup
I have come from the shying squirrel I have come from the dog eye squint
I plunge hands into diesel gas and saps and birthing cows
I kiss the ant and hump the wind I rip the cones and bomb the crows
I beard up and pickle-can trout I oil the toboggan I mine spuds I sheathe tin snips
the tools for horse shoes are shut up in a plastic box
grandpa go down easy now
the famous sawtooth of the northern pike fish
the sturgeons lick their sawtooth chops
birds of fresh water they fly in silver suits they cut water
their whole damn body wing
the taters go into paper bags down cellar they go
to hope against rot and the likewise of softening
the fat on the meat stays the bones go for soup then to the dog
I run on whiskey and lacquered sap I run on coon shyness
I run on lichen and loon eggs I run on late night northern lights
aurora albino cigar puff of the dead and gones
I run on your voice saying ice saying snow
I run on your kiss lined with mine and you and me are not
woebegone for sure though we are a lake of tugs and rough yeses
late autumn and I am a diesel truck astronaut
late autumn and I am a slaughter house worker
late autumn and I am having trouble with r’s
so fluff about some slip on the cow tongue
say wed which is what I do to the maple’s vowels
to the wind dressed in asbestos towels and wings
young geese pierced by get up and go
gone as the love of a woman whose shadow I farm for cranberries
my love for the color of cranberries explains my deep love for beets
beets with onions beets with rye bread beets with herring beets with brandy
I love beets and point beer I love beets and Leinenkugels
I love beets and bourbon I love eagles and venison
beets and anything after beet eating I talk tough for days
the seasawing of river water and blood in me I love
in cold water his bits fell and fish came for him in swift bodies they couldn’t help
for lack of woman he courted the pine well before Monica
stepped out of the snow started taking swings at his every bone
he brought daffodils to the trunk of the pine
climbed and came down carved his name in a heart on the bark
bill and pine forever he unzipped the red bark
looked over his shoulder at an owl tiring a branch
he put his chin on his shoulder like he pressed a fiddle down
and a one two a one and a two oh he banged out a rift
sang a family out of the barks of ravings and pines
the chickadee the chickadeedeedee that sound that infant’s body
that scrap of thirstiness broke through his skin
from this bust I spring and green I fetter I pine for
Rusk county shops boarded up ply wood and black plastic bags
everybody you see just cried one beat up Pontiac
tail pipe sparking man behind the wheel stomach thick with beets
beard wide as the beaver tail eyes wanting a bar
I’ll just go down to the 211 for one I’ll just buy a bar mirror plaque of
Dale’s number 3 a great white beard of snow like Dale’s no. 3 car’s shrapnel
snow fondles a hard river sneak a touch snow glowers from a hard stop sign
it isn’t anything I can’t shoot with a .410
then a hard left the shop where you could buy
some kind of cross or angel boarded up
the dream of you kissing me I am talking about Danielle selling ceramic angels
in the shop that’s dead and gone her kiss was a washing machine
add the blinker click to the nothing the dream of kissing you again
it gets bad enough I have to whistle something churning loud
pine at the black point of the day moon onion snow onion snow garlic snow bone
snow dog god is what it is but I lean for more
the pines will blind you if you walk into them open eyed
real penance you have to pay you have to walk into a pine eyes shut
arms up like a rock up a stream if I bust you out of jail will you kiss
when tire tread meets gravel a crow feels a pinch in its pumpkin seed tongue
my cow alone at home eats snow she winces from cold
I am walking into a bar I am walking into pine hurts and loves
my lips stop now you dance the pine dance now
you kiss the pine for who among us has not kissed a sparkler
I am running out of July I am writing my name in the air
the blue light stays sticks then it’s gone
Rusk County white farm black chimney
the blue hammerhead shark of smoke by by
my hand rubs the grease and steam from the window
here I am eyes red as milk dropped in wine
I haven’t clipped my fingernails for a long time
my beard smells like smoke and maple syrup
I am pretty poor wave hello to me keep walking
there’s a place up ahead an abandoned farm
a pine growing up through the kitchen floor leave it there
I can sell you the nails to build around
there should be a bay window in your heart so I can see how you work
what you love there’s leftover soup in here you’re welcome to
this poem is owed to Bill Detra in this I’ve been thinking of
one pine the whole time my mother sits under it snapping beans
into a bowl full of snapped green beans