Conoquenessing

A mirror image in a quiet, high lake,
Reflecting two different lives,
I've rode them both in tandem,
Collected the flotsam of my life,
Discarded what them others left behind.

It's something like a journey
With no beginning or ending place,
No trail to mark progress toward,
or away,

Only cold camps with small fires,
Fat dripping onto flames.
Cauterizing drops of blood,
Sometimes sweat,
Lighting up the night.
Burning black with an edge of brown on the stones.

Out there,
Past the edge of night
The big cats wait, patient.

The sound of pebble against pebble,
The rustle of a leaf,
Rings as harsh as Gabriel's horn.

This is where I go again,
Packing up at dawn, down at dusk,
Earlier on days of snow, old wounds.

Days look the same from the outside, but they ain't,
Nights neither.


J. T. Riebling 1997
Conoquenessing is an American Indian word - as well as the name of a place -
that means "The Valley Where Life Begins and Ends."

Coyote Welfare -

So when the fish're in we all work,
When the fish're out we drink,
Go on unemployment if we got enough time on the job,
And go elk hunting after it gets cold enough to keep the meat hung
outside without spoiling.

Three year ago I had me a nice elk cow up on the pole,
Got a coupla warm days and spoilt all the families meat for the whole
winter.

I went out late at night and shot another cow,
Dragged the spoilt old girl out and left her for the coyotes,
Didn't hurt none to feed their families too.

In late Winter, with our cash all but gone, I remembered about those
coyotes,
I took an old bedsheet and made a kinda poncho,
Went out on the ridge and wrapped myself all in white,
Waited for the coyotes with my rifle.

Hours later, when I was half froze,
They came up over the skyline,
Almost in the dark.

I shot two of the three I could see,
Sold the furs for two hunderd thirty bucks a piece,
Used the meat to bait more coyotes.

Hadn't a been for the coyotes last year weeda pretty near starved out,
Woulda had to go into town with the other Indians,
Leave our land, our home,
Go to the welfare people and eat cheese.

I druther go out to the coyotes and the elk.


J. T. Riebling 1985

Old Mother threw her stone into the moon,
Where loon and fish and beaver live.

She smelled like the breath of the trees
and secrets of May Apples.

The broken moon grew back together,
Showing off, dancing a slow dance.

Old Mother’s eyes widened and rippled closed.


J. T. Riebling 1999

Rope Dancer

The lights flicker in the streets,
And everyone is shouting, loud,
Maybe the Circus has come to town,
Papa tells me to stay inside,
Its not fair, not bein allowed to see it,
There's more hollerin' and I want to see so
I sneak out the back way,
My skin blends into the shadows,
Nobody knows I'm there,
The Circus is in town and my Papas in it,
My shiny black Papa is doin' a dance
at the end of a rope.

J. T. Riebling 1966

The Waste of a Good Ballplayer -

Four green men,
Almost aliens,
With small, sharp knives cut him,
Opened him up,
Closed him,
Took out almost everything.
Intestines - stomach - gall bladder,
Took them all out,
Like high school biology students chopping up a pink eyed rat,
Till there isn't much left.

Two white women who love almost everyone,
Stick tubing into him,
Small, shining, hollow wires,
Slipping in the veins,
Red and white cells.

After a long incoherent interlude,
Nights defending against hallucination,
The four green men return,
They cut off half his leg,
The leg that pushed him off the mound,
The leg where the power was stored,
The men in green masks take it off above the knee.

Nobody knows what they did with all the spare parts,
They just took them and went away.

After months in Cleveland, Ohio the white ladies wrapped him up,
Wrapped him in green, blue, and white cotton.
He was brought home in a white van,
Like a loaf of bread on a stainless steel tray,
Wrapped up like a loaf of bread.

He was carried into the house, his home,
Where he was cheered by a dozen people that were all waiting for him to
die,
Knowing that he was going to die,

But his strength recovered.

On weekends he watched baseball, or football, or basketball on
television,
Any kind of game where everyone had to have two legs and all their
internal organs,
When he got too excited the bag that was taped to his side would burst,
Green , slimy liquid would squirt, or ooze.
And all of us pretended that we didn't mind cleaning it up,
He minded us cleaning up after him,
It made him cry in front of all of us, at one time or another.

Without his leg he was more crippled than you or I would have been,
He had been a professional athlete.

His body, once a beautiful, powerful machine capable of outrunning the
wind, throwing an 88 mile per hour fastball and a curveball that seemed
to sail for Marrakech, had betrayed him.

The body that was once able to sweep his woman off her feet and his
children into the air,
And had been able to make love for hours and hours,
Had been butchered by the green men.

He slithered across the living room floor like a slug,
Slithered across the horribly ugly green shag wall to wall carpet that
he thought was beautiful,

The tower that had been six feet and four inches was now peering up at
children,
It was self pity but he cried too often.

He finally....
Finally........
Finally.......... gave up his strength and died.

A waste of a good ballplayer


J. T. Riebling 1986

©Copyright,  J. T. Riebling
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.