CATFISH MCDARIS

 

Ox-Eye Sunflowers

 

The wildflowers that grew along the railroad tracks, 

dividing the old celery fields of West Milwaukee

different flowers grew each summer, purple cone-

flowers, ox-eye sunflowers, blue lobelia, Jacob’s ladder, 

and black-eyed Susan, their seeds mostly planted by birds

and animals, wild crazy red, yellow, and orange sunflowers 

green stalks and roots war snaked down through the black 

goo creosote coated railroad ties, home in New Mexico it 

was mostly prickly pear and yucca I’ve seen Van Gogh’s 

sunflowers in Arles, none compare to my beautiful nostalgia. 

 

Licorice And Potato Chips

 

Autumn stalks and leaves are dry potato chips,

grape vines are black and red licorice,

tree branches reach up like starving children

 

When you see the sun, dance hard it will rain,

you can never love more than one person or

plant, take small steps and drink lots of water 

 

Stick to Spanish dagger roots and flowers, 

wheat grain and blanco corn tortillas,

prickly pear tuna and serrano and poblano,

sip Copper Canyon sotol and aguardiente.

 

Leaves In Quebec

 

Gray black clouds full of dirt

streaked tears and blood weep

onto yellow withered crops

 

Farmers sob for their hungry families

they are forced to leave home to find

work in factories they scrape and toil

 

Years mountain like golden maple

leaves in Quebec or snowflakes on

a Tucumcari coyote

 

The heart is a prison clock measuring

life and death

 

Gardens grow and wilt and make

love to the rain plants whispering poetry.

 

CATFISH MCDARIS

 

CATFISH MCDARIS won the Thelonius Monk Award in 2015. His work is at the Special Archives Collection at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is listed in Wikipedia. His ancestors were related to Wilma Mankiller from the Cherokee Nation. Currently he’s selling wigs in a dangerous neighborhood in Milwaukee.