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Kurt Schweigman Page 3
Chief Spotted Elk Death Pose &
The Pawn Shop Receipt
Cradled in snow
frozen generations
Lakota kids crying
in the back seat
of a rusted nest
one-eyed Chevy
like baby birds
mouths open
end of civilization
on the ice bone wind
splintered mixed bloods
pretending to be ghosts
meanwhile
Website medicine men
medicine women
purchase herbs
tinctures of ointments
at health food stores
sporting ponytails
braided so perfect
fixing up sure-fired
remedy
to get into the souls
of a mid-life crisis America
stealing ceremony
along the way
Cradled in snow
frozen fast food wrappers
the new generation fed
parked near the pawn shop
wind whipping
clear plastic bag
is answer
to question of
shattered drivers side
window
Cradled in snow
pattern cloth and silk
diligently intertwined
for a ribbon shirt
of the red bandana protest
1970 something on “The Knee”
awaits the pawn shop
next to K-mart
in 100 years
this ribbon shirt will sit proud
in the Smithsonian
alongside
Little Big Horn war shirts
Cradled in snow
frozen tears
church above
mass burial ground
magpie on tombstone
its wings tired
mourns rape of a mountain
four great white grandfathers
then rape of another mountain
some Polish sculptor’s
vision of
the greatest Lakota warrior
Tasunke Witko (Crazy Horse)
who never had
his image
trapped
inside a glass photography plate
Cradled in snow
December 29, 1890
Chief Spotted Elk
frozen corpse
death pose photo
carved in my mind
as sounds
of a pawn shop
cash register
eats and pukes money
uniformed cashier
writes earnestly
on a small notepad
soldier of sales
he stops and asks for
my signature
which I give then receive
cash loan
he initials the paper
tears it off
he keeps the original
mine is a copy
I am then handed
my newest treaty
Blue Spiral Notebook
Bright blue Black Hills lake
shining silver streams
curled into tributaries
rolling tan soil fields
covered with smooth snow
icicle lines horizontal
a Lakota red road vertical
Take my offering of pen
upon your pureness
within your winter
your season of cracking trees
under the blue sky
until spring brings
curled silver streams
holding it all together
until my young daughter
finds this blue notebook
many years from now
past my death
in a dust covered
cardboard box
on a forgotten
closet shelf
© Copyright, 2016, Kurt
Schweigman. |