Art Goodtimes of Norwood won a Colorado Council on the Arts poetry fellowship 29 years ago and served two years as Western Slope Poet Laureate. His most recent book is Looking South to Lone Cone: the Cloud Acre Poems (Sedona, AZ: Western Eye Press, 2013).
Poems
Skinning the Elk
“There’s a whole lot of life in these animals”
George nods, almost like a prayer
as I hold the hoofed leg
steady for the knife
Mist rising from the gutted belly
Skin still warm
Tempered steel peels back
thick hide. Fur
The dark meat of the interior
Secret organs slide steaming into full moonlight
on the bed of Greenbank’s battered pickup
I can’t stop peering
into the glazed crystal
of those antlered eyes
Two perfect rivets
welded to the girder of that
skeletal moment when
the bullet’s magic
cut life short
Later
after the carcass is hung
in a cottonwood tree
I go inside to wash my hands
But the blood won’t come off
And there’s no mistake
I am marked for life
I wear the elk’s tattoo
As its meat becomes my meat
& its blood stains my blood
Spirit leaping
from shape to shape
Copyright 13018 [2018 CE] Art Goodtimes
This poem was first published in the anthology Wingbone: Poetry From Colorado, eds. Janice Hays and Pamela Haines (Colorado Springs: Sudden Jungle Press, 1986).
At the Gate
—for Budada
It’s not that I hate
tradition
Just the opposite
I’m all tangled up
in the quirks & muons
of the historical record
As a peripatetic youth
I walked the Latin of Catullus
Odi et amo
Chanted the chorus of frogs
with Aristophanes
βρεκεκεκὲξ κοὰξ κοάξ
Like Hopkins I did my penance
before the twisted ivy altars
of the Academy
Memorized the classics
Ran gangs as a literary felon
chained to the West’s Lit tsunamis
Homer. Vergil. Dylan. Yeats
’Til I found the hovering bird gods
Now I try to
do like Sappho did
Dare to sing like a Clipper ship
in a time of triremes
To be blown by the Wind
in all its gusts
& bombogenesis
Following ahead
of the 8-ball of rhyme
but hoping to weave behind
a thread of spun gut argot
felt through the poked fabric
of our Sanskrit scifi street slang
And may we too be led into
the deep Apollonian temptation of
unstrung high peak epiphanies
Copyright 13018 [2018 CE] Art Goodtimes
After Li Po
The birds
have long lifted up
as a flock & flown
Only a lonely Cloud floats by
The Two of us
lost in our looking
the Mountain & I
Copyright 13018 [2018 CE] Art Goodtimes
This poem has been widely performed, and has appeared in the Montrose Mirror, the Four Corners Free Press and the Telluride Watch.
Learning to Smile
"I follow Freud's opinion that at birth there is no consciousness, accordingly,
there can be no awareness or conscious experience ... Thus it is rare
to find the smiling response before the third month of life."
—Rene Spitz, The First Year of Life:
A Psychoanalytic Study of Normal and Deviant
Development of Object Relations
Floating in the sac
I sucked the blood of my mother's cigarettes
Her breath fed me
When kicking in her belly I began
to make my move, they rushed her
fast car & sirens
to a monolith of brick
Laid her flat on a gurney
& wheeled her helpless
into the sterile room of deliveries
We both felt the sudden vertigo
the whirl & loss
as the anaesthetic took effect
Unconscious
drugged into dreams
she was made to push me
out of the house her body had been
Unconscious
I slid head-first
into the assault of their bright lights
forceps, antiseptics
A masked man held me captive
upside down
Too soon his rubber gloves
cut the cord that pumped me
mother's air mixed with blood
Too soon
My face turning blue
asphyxiated, brain throbbing
until those brusque hands
hung me by my heels
& slapped the life into me
Still groggy from the drugs
was it any wonder that I cried out
howling at the world?
Raw atmosphere jammed my lungs
Silver nitrate burnt into my eyes
I was born craving nicotine
& the smell of her skin
But they hauled me away
to be tagged, guarded
& quarantined
My own father, criminal with germs
allowed only a peek through glass
at his first-born son
There in the nursery
tended by strange, masked women
I was given a blanket to calm my fear
So my first bond was made
with impersonal cloth
First comfort found in hugging the material
close around me
as later in times of stress I would grab hold
of objects as though they
could help soothe the loss & aching
There in the arms of obstetrics
my heart dangling from the thread of
its own frightened beat, I slept
& slept & slept
My body retreating into shock
that instinctual safety valve
releasing me
from the merciless onslaught of
modern technology
And then they wondered
why I cried
when they hauled me back
to the birthsmell of the Mother
Why I couldn't focus
& look her in the eye
Why it was months
before I learned
to smile
Copyright 13018 [2018 CE] Art Goodtimes
This poem has been widely performed and was first published in a chapbook co-authored with Judyth Hill, Altar of the Ordinary (Farmington, NM: Yoo Hoo Press, 1993).
Seeing Bear
Walking Petersburg Creek
the Tlingit's Seetkah Heenuk'w
across the Wrangel Narrows
from the mud-flat sloughs of Mitkof Island
I pass the last cabin
last sign
last mark on the map
& come upon brown steaming mounds of berry scat
Piles of gutted humpies, half-chewed, fins still twitching
Through skunk cabbage rank with growth
& devil's club waiting in ambush
its honed thorns prickly with menace
I skirt innocent gooseberries
expecting the worst
prepared around each bend for some dark hulk
swatting fish
& the ultimate terror of Ursus horribilis
Thick groves of old growth
soak up light
& squeeze out shapes.
The stab of strange limbs
Flicker of breeze
No quick exit out this maze of Sitka spruce
Tangled arctic bog
Muskeg carnivorous with quivering insects
caught in the sundew's last embrace
Lost in this still untamed Alaskan bush
where two-leggeds have no more weight
than the meat they carry on their bones
Puffing my tin whistle like a Webelos
Clapping hands
Singing out of dread not joy
I keep seeing the hundred hides of Death
its snout hairy
fangs bristling
about to attack
Shadows leap out at me from the bush
Startled. Hungry
Rearing up on hind legs
So near I can smell their panic
wild as fish breath
Murder growling in their fierce gaze
To run or play dead?
Bruin gone berserk & bounding towards me
Slashed muscle
The snapped arm ripped from its socket
Claws long as Bowie knives
Eyes like smoking volcanoes
Its bulk crushing me into the earth
Seeing hot flash
my whole life engraved on a salmonberry
ground to pulp
in the molars of a steel-trap jaw
Truth is
walking that trail
I meet no one
Neither grizzly nor deer
Not even a mouse munching lichen
The air is crisp
Clouds huddled against nameless peaks
Perhaps
for the first time in my life
I am alone
with the dark shape of myself
Copyright 13018 [2018 CE] Art Goodtimes
This poem has been widely performed and was first published in a chapbook co-authored with Judyth Hill, Altar of the Ordinary (Farmington, NM: Yoo Hoo Press, 1993).
The Art of Getting Lost
Okay, so there’s this hippie
hitchhiking on the highway to Crested Butte
Up pulls a Winnebago
with Texas plates
and the tinted window rolls down
Excuse me, pilgrim
Could you tell me the way
to the nearest wilderness mall
parking lot?
HHHHHHey, man -- get lost!
But before you lose it
look closely
because
it's not so much you losing it
as the place that takes you away
It's slickrock deer trail thick with juniper
takes you away
It's Mancos shale wild strawberry avalanche chute
takes you away
And suddenly olla kala panta rei
your're just another
neopagan zenmother Budada
Learning pandemonium
Toking pure chaos
Cougar in the headlights
takes you away
Hairstreak in the rabbitbrush
takes you away
Or maybe it's at a table over breakfast
where some resort town waitron
Venus Kali clone takes you away
And falling in love
you lose it
Take Luna in the mushrooms & quackgrass
Rolling in it on Sheep Mountain
that first green-eyed summer
Or take that infamous hike we took
to the San Miguel Canyon petroglyph
that scribed a hoop in the earth
& led us back to our beginnings
Remember
you can't lose
what you haven't found
Crouching for shelter from Shandoka's lightning & ice
Clambering hands & knees up Lone Cone scree
One minute next-to-death
& then
born again & again & again
Rio Grande cliff shelf narrowing to goat hold
Uncompahgre's Tabeguache pine scratched by bear
Getting so lost
you find yourself
Toad kachina grotto vision on Nuvatik-ya-ovi
the San Francisco Peaks
takes you away
Big Sur hot spring crotch-of-the-redwood full moon pool
takes you away
Pacific Rim combers in a Salt Point storm slamming down fists
takes you away
Letting go
enough
not to panic
but to play it like a tune
whistled & hummed
as a hymn to the Mother
Easy bro, Haleakala's charm
takes you away
Yo, eating mangos & making love
in the sea cave at Kalalau
takes you away
This IS my religion
I believe in being lost
And everything I find on the way
esta milagro
& what finds me
I try to field
Adventure not predicament
Chasing chaos
just as much as calm
The only straight lines in the headwaters
are the rifle's scope
& the map's compass
So, scram pathfinders. Surveyors. Engineers
Gimme the loon's zigzag walk
Let me lose it
I know how to use it!
Copyright 13018 [2018 CE] Art Goodtimes
This poem has been widely performed, annually at the Headwaters Conference at Western State Colorado University, and was first published in The Geography of Hope: Poets of Colorado’s Western Slope ed. David J. Rothman (Crested Butte, CO: Conundrum Press, 1998).
Hu
Linnaeus wrote
“The first step of science
is to know one thing from another”
but taking the world apart
demands the even greater chne
of putting it all together again
Which is
the creative yth
of poet, dancer, worldmaker
In his last years
Linnaeus suffered a stroke
& it is said he who named & classified
all the known species
flora & fauna, of his day
forgot even his own name
Copyright 13018 [2018 CE] Art Goodtimes
This poem has been widely performed and was first published in the anthology Earth First! Campfire Poems (Tucson, AZ: Feral Press, 1998).
Head On, Off & Still Running
You see, we are all sentenced to die.
—Steve Clark
“Poor Cagney imitations,” a friend calls them, this talking
through teeth locked shut with pins to repair a broken jaw
“Sub-candylar fracture” the doc says, glancing at the x-rays
that glow with shadows lit up from behind, invisible blades
knifing through my skull. No chance, really. Shooting
round a corner in Glenwood Canyon, narrow two-lane
serpentine, the asphalt damp with snow. They'd been drinking
“Skunked,” the fellow said, when I awoke to lights, a blur of
flashing red & blackness. Cars stopped. My windshield
shattered. A maze of flying cracks throbbing inside my head
“Are you alright?” Who was this helpful stranger
asking questions? “All wrong,” I told myself. A dream
An accidental movie that suddenly I'd become the star of
Extras dabbing at blood like makeup on my face. Sirens &
police. Later, at the county wrecking yard, when I saw
what remained of Betzi's limegreen Rabbit, fender
accordioned to dash, I almost burst out laughing, giddy
as a child fumbling for the cookie jar, caught red-handed
but given a second chance. One never escapes death
but after each fresh attempt, when, almost taken
swiftly away, then alert as razor blades, we mark
the kiss of life, so easily unnoticed amid the neon &
the noise -- that moment at which we greet each guest
or deny them, as they come round the corner, arms
outstretched, longing for our embrace. Even with
teeth clenched, jaws shut, tongue entrapped in bone
I find I can talk. Words slip through all barriers. Party
once again to the amazement of speech, I touch earth
rebounding, free to sing through the mended hoop of these hard
teeth that still, for a bit longer, bite down on the world
Copyright 13018 [2018 CE] Art Goodtimes
This poem has been widely performed and was first published in Embracing the Earth (Berkeley, CA: Homeward Press, 1984).
Neruda
El que no comprende el amor, no sabe nada sobre el pueblo.
—Oswaldo de la Vega
Allende slain. Cut down by machineguns
They call it suicide, but the world knows
better. And Neruda doubles up. He too dies
his heart broken, the revolution in ashes
Even the stones of Machu Picchu are helpless
as the tanks of the Junta trample Santiago
Repression floods in under the poet's feet
His last works ruined. River diverted
from their banks. Compañeros tortured
in the makeshift prison of a soccer stadium
They chop off the folksinger's fingers
but he still sings. Victor Jara
blood weeping from his palms. His voice
booming fearless & defiant. So they shoot him
In Spain they sent Lorca to the firing
squad. In Russia Mayakovsky shot himself
But in Chile, Neruda, Neruda, red windmill
of the Andes. He is all heart & it crumples
at the news. Allende slain. The revolution
in ashes. A lifetime's work turned to
rubble. But not washed out. No. Never!
For the mountains, wind & rivers go on
grinding wheat between stones, struggling
as the people struggle, to match the rhythm
of his outstretched arms & even in death
he still sings. Neruda. Neruda!
Copyright 13018 [2018 CE] Art Goodtimes
This poem has been widely performed and was first published in Embracing the Earth (Berkeley: Homeward Press, 1984).
Roadkill Coyote
Sprawls across the centerline
Backleg broken. Round glazed
eyes glassy as marbles
Unwavering, unblinking
as the world rolls by
now unnoticed or maybe
all seen & thus merely
unremarkable. No fudge
or flinch of instinct. Just
the cold last look of it all
I turn the car around &
go back to the body. Drag her
off the road. Steam rises
when I stroke her flanks
The jaw locked open. Canine
teeth menacing even in death
I take out my knife, sing
a death song & thanking coyote
I cut off her tail
fur too beautiful to bury
& then pull her hind end
deeper into the rabbitbrush
beside the highway’s shoulder
All the way home, down
the canyon & up Norwood Hill
singing her
back into the mystery
Copyright 13018 [2018 CE] Art Goodtimes
This poem has been widely performed and was first published in The Geography of Hope: Poets of Colorado’s Western Slope, ed. David J. Rothman (Crested Butte, CO: Conundrum Press, 1998).
