Words of Acadiana

  This ol’ desert   Burned me down  To ashes and smoke  Every sliver of hope  Fell out of my grasp  Then with her monsoonal magic  She slowly began rebuilding me  Dust in my DNA  Creosote in my marrow  My spine, ocotillo  Stretching in the transformative sun Reaching out to the turquoise sky above  Buried my bones in the dirt at night  My hair was a golden grassland  Bending to the winds  As they moved through me  Changed  Forever  To the point that I can’t escape her  And I’m pretty sure I never want to  Left the old me  To decay in the sun  Ashes to ashes  Dust to dust  Living to shed my skin  Serpentine 

  Driving ‘round this town   In a beat up ol’ Mercedes  Don’t know if it’s heaven I’m after  Or if I’m headin’ into Hades  Waylon and Willie singing from the airwaves  People here prosper  Or send themselves to early graves  Legs stickin’ to the seats  Sweat hanging off my brow  Gotta find a little relief from the heat  Gotta make it outta here somehow  Might not always be right  But been through enough wrong  Got some poems in me  And honey I could write a song  Desert beats you up  The air it sucks at your soul  Then the rains come in And somehow you feel whole  This monsoonal moisture  It falls from the sky  Everything hangin’ on a prayer  As I bow my head and cry  A release becomes relief  Gotta wrap yourself in faith here  No matter your belief  Energies playing off your thoughts  Manifesting into being  Feel it in my bones  Even it’s nothing I am seeing  Shapeshifters and skin walkers Roam the land at night  Like Apache warriors on horseback  Kicking up some fright  “Roll me up a

  Out here in the desert   Searching for treasures beneath the sand Suddenly it hits me while I’m digging  That the treasure’s already in my hand  As my sepia tears Cascade down my face  They make mud of the dust on my face  And it’s in this place  I find solace  And in this place  I make a promise  To always be on the same side of me  He smiles with his eyes of blue  I come unglued  Forgetting about the past Those times weren’t meant to last  And it’s in this place  I soar above  And in this place  I find the love  Lacking for so long  Deep within myself  Ocotillos bloom  Sparrows fly  And the only thing I care about is the sky  Clouds of white  Skies so blue  And all I want to do  Is just spend this time with you  And it’s in this place  I feel    His grace And in this place  Sun shines on my face  High desert realizations  Manifestations  Of the hard work I’ve put in  In trying to be my own best friend  So when the thunder threatens from above I’m reminded of the love And it’s in th

 As the sun cleansed me  And the winds shifted me  I swung my bloodied sword  Patinaed by my demons  They never stood a chance  Anointed by Mother Earth  Risen with Father Sky  The transcendent high desert  Forged a new version of me  Stripped to the bone  Exposed and silent  The dust formed new lungs  My breath, the wind  My hair made of golden grasses  I am the desert  She is me  As I circle myself with salt  Of long ago dried up sea  I dare a mother fucker  You’ll fuck around to find out  Creatures like me endure  We go on for eons  Beyond even  My spine of ocotillo  Waits for the perfect moment to bloom  Gloriously against the turquoise sky  I laid dormant  Silently sorting my energy  Now I am once again burst to life  Monsoonal rains  Course through my veins  Red Red Red   (Written in Marfa TX)