The Valley

Padraig Rooney

The Jewlim hordes appeared on piebald ponies
and fought pitched battles with Cribud tribes.
Superior arms, stones, decided the outcome.
Economies of stone and open-faced quarries
brought uneasy peace to the fertile valley.
The half-caste and merchant class converted.
The Jewlims believed in cutting off the ears
of subject peoples in honour of their god.
A new tolerance reigned. Trade flourished.
They settled down to barter stone for stone.
Cribuds were animists who taught that stones
had soul: the Jewlim quarries caused offence.
Cribud anchorites who lived in caves
codified their laws and sowed rebellion.
Man-made penetrations were strictly taboo.
Dust was sacred, precious stones revered
and fossils read for signs of afterlife.
They taught that sex with slaves enriched
the lineage and kept the peace (uneasy).
Children's names derived from Crib, a tongue
employed in rites of passage, courtly speech.
Cribud dead, embalmed with stones, were buried
in passage graves along the fertile valley.
Pidgins took the place of classic tongues,
the glottal stop died out, a minor creole
become a major language based on clicks
that colonized the estuaries and hampered trade.
The classic language rallied, died again.
Holy men appeared among the people
who farmed the delta mud and used the stones
from ransacked royal tombs as barter. Slaves
were sent to quarry hills where anchorites
protected passage graves of Cribud dead.
The Jewlims now believed in cutting off
the tongues of subject peoples. Clicks died out.
A class of scribes emerged who wrote on stones.
They taught that sex with slaves was wrong.
The half-castes converted, merchants thrived.
Uneasy peace returned. The valley flourished.

garden sprites

t rasa

glancing through
dawn window
first sip

jesus
in neighbor's garden
not even sunday

but about time
she’s sent
so many invitations

closer look
from back porch
image changes

is it krishna
mohammed

from back fence
wind-draped
trash bag
on peeing
fountain sprite

walking back
i see

shadow figure
in my yard

closer yet
it looks like me

it is

i stop

look away
glance back

tumbleweed
on shrub

stand-off

t rasa

my last glance
you were pastured
fenced
no longer at stud

grazing
banal grass
no longer breathing
my air

i would sooner
have killed you
were i able
to spare the blood

but even at risk
of a trampled gate
it's better this way
than dying

Sylvester

t rasa

Syl stops by when hunts go bad,
has his own feral name I'd guess.
Abides mine for random perch head,
chicken bone.

He glides perception's field and copse,
pads shadow lines for heat,
leaves himself in mewings
beneath barn floors,
under bales.

Last night I heard him
in a howling brawl. This morning,
dried blood, shred ear
shows he still holds his ground.

I crack two eggs,
wish him pale moons, health,
long shadows.

Dealing

t rasa

Tonight, a waxing gibbous,
thermometer at seven below
and a big-assed boulder
hell-bent for Mars.

Forty years ago,
I could have used a stiff reminder
of my ephemeral tenure here.
Now, reminders surround me

like Pandora's plagues.
I awake with the feeling
of a gun at my head,
cringing into daylight.

I blame the preacher,
Disney, Santa and rabbit eggs.
Mom and dad
had a hand there too.

I shake it off by noon
reading Stephen Wolfram
with no hope of comprehension.
That seems the trick.

Fill up my mind
with the incomprehensible,
crowd the known into the void.
Safe to the next dawn.