Dog.

Sometimes

My mouth waters

Pavlov 

Chasing that wolf howling

Wishing this dog were not quite so evolved

Why should I chase a stick when I can run free in the wood

Drawing near to hilltops in the moons shine

But I want for it and my sniff on the trail

Makes my senses bristle

My tail rise

Beyond the trees the meadow calls

I will lay waiting as the wind rushes through the thick grass

And your smell is musk and sweetness.   

Sing Levon

The lick of this days dead 

Fire in my sweet life's belly

the circle of flames and friends 

Sing Levon 

And one more beer spilt

Knowing 

The dust will carry us home

Daddy

Mother

Sons and daughters and friends

When the illness takes you or

Bullshit forces this fucked up hand 

Death is inevitable 

How will we walk in this honored place?

Hallowed ground remembers

And we smile with this royals whisky

Kissing our tongues

Your tongue 

And the 

Lovers keep dancing

While we all lie to ourselves 

Western

Rolling through this thick

Walking bridges over streams clean, thinning air as we climb

Switchbacks of granite and soft earth

Whistling on the dark trails of sleeping pines

Some lay to the ground under thick, others watching time as it waits

Time is always waiting in the mountains

As we idiot away in awe, ambling

Snaking through and along the thin, winding stretches

Divides opening to the fall,  butter yellow in the Western Larch

Needles ready to fall

Dotting grey mountain reaching fingers of rock

Pulling me up to my spirits animal

Through tiny groves, marshy and green, mustard and dust

And the clicking hooves of the mountain goat is calling

Pheasant flutters in the trees warbling as it climbs in startle

Eagle Cap is beyond and the air is thin

Blue, soft, with jagged crevasse

I am weary good in this climb

My heart is full with hoof and my beloved Oregon

Patches of snow waiting for me

Peace is this wood, this land, this rock, this stream

And I remember my heaven is not beyond

it is here in Oregon

my home.  

The Skin

Lips stretching wide

Hello again

my mouth on yours

Kissing your air as you swallow mine 

Cliche of becoming one

Our need for sweet skin

I need this open ended game

Games of chance, fear, of happiness, loneliness

We all play this game

And we revel

Skin

I worship yours as we turn the world inside out 

You worship mine and I shudder in your delivery

bathing in you is my tactile delight

And your lips are so soft in this twilight bed

your face shines in my thighs 

I have known you so many times 

But you are an expert in this skin

You assimilate each and every inch

And I am addicted to your manna

As you are what I need 

Food, light, air 

All this skin

Full and brimming 

Photo.

Teepee trees

Purple.

She

Collect gather 

Hoarding energy on this quiet plane

Flat with hidden passage

To time again

Stories shared

All this wine and bullshit

On my earth

I will keep it sacred

The molecules we share

Yours and mine and yours

With your eyes gleaming

Telling me

Filling me

Loving me

While the trees whisper

Someday

We all transition

Transition into new being

As the atoms

Split quiet

With degradation

And in Loves humility

I am basking in you

Collecting every second

Hoarding them selfishly

Until I see you vanish

I will not believe the sentence

Killing me emotionally

Killing you physically

You are the strength

Lioness

Protecting her pride

From the questions

And the fear

Smelt run

Smelt break off in singles

This river high in it's emerald glass

The heavy line churns them out half

dead

Breaking the ribbon of scales 

I look in their silver eye and feel death

Fish breath bubbling to a stop in this ecology

Oh brother the smelt keep running in this place of pain

I am comforted in this barstool

Daddy was all over this ground

His testosterone puffed drunk 

chest out and waiting

To know him again and forgive this molested ground

He knew nothing but himself in this place 

half in the bag

Crying kids in the car

But the river keeps rising 

And I find comfort in this run to spawn 

❤️

Man with wine on bench

❤️

Our walk in spring

It is nearly spring

waiting in the damp air 

Waiting for you 

waiting

And the blossoms are open

The waterfront is calling 

The cormorants will soon go back to the ocean

I fear that you will not come

This is our place

Where we walk 

talk 

and I tell you everything

Who will I tell if you're not here for me

Who can I be self-indulgent and selfish with

Who will be the beauty in my best friend

Who will listen to my bullshit

I cannot manage the spring or myself without you

You are my heart on my sleeve

You are wings stretched

You have faith when I have none

You are my temper 

sounding board that keeps me hopeful or cynical

or laughing 

You are my best friend 

the walk can't be without you on my left

I am not that strong

Lower Breitenbush

The Apple

Clicking 

Swelling

Bright eyes flash

Wine cherry on articulate tongue

Banter jazz white hot

The Lord sings, The king swings

Snapping 

Time sits slow 

But the cadence is steady

Squeezing every minute 

A vampire for each other

Needing assimilated skin 

Wanting the warmth in your vein 

Sweet with bitter finish

Grapes and hops

Holding us in smiling cradle 

coarse tongues talk

We swing to the night 

Skin glowing 

Dancing to the bowl

And glitter is under shining skin

Lips and hands on this baby Star

Burning bright

Accepting someday death 

Saying goodbye to sweetness at the door 

Watching love enter quiet night

While our skin reflects

Smelling the jasmine tree

We drink God's body from the glass

Turning climbing

Hold tight now don't let go

We no longer have a rewind button

And the apple 

Finds my teeth 

Sinking 

Crisp flesh satisfied 

tart in blanketed being

The salt and sweat tell the tale. 

tub

DSC_0061, a photo by Linda Kay Lund on Flickr.

marriah

DSC_0068, a photo by Linda Kay Lund on Flickr.

Shaun Smith

CSC_0271, a photo by Linda Kay Lund on Flickr.

Ez and Bert

CSC_0275, a photo by Linda Kay Lund on Flickr.

Trees.

Seeing

Sleeping nude

Alisa.

Paint

Painterly things

Quiet heaven alone

In this confused morning light 

Intent in being

Being alone

Alone in suspension

Suspended in this lack of emotional time 

With confusion left crying on my shoulder

Seeping into this wool life

Clear tears full of saline and booze

And I am intent in this lonely place 

Content with this heart raped dry

It is a learned game

The game of emotional displacement 

Walls taller than I can climb

Do I even dare?

But your mouth on mine has the sweet taste of stale booze and failure

And I like it when we feel right

But love is a game I have lost

I am shit in this game

It means only pain and confusion

Making alone seem like quiet heaven

Mixed on paper

Untitled

Quiet in the high country

Floral and sun