It has been said that poetry is the journal of a life lived either well or painfully. I know that because I'm the one that just now said it. The poetry here was written between 1968 and 1998. It covers a life lived in nearly ten cities, seven states, six wives and a lifestyle that maintained itself through all of those. My life has been called a tragedy, a comedy, a soap opera gone wrong and a great cryin' in yer beer country song. I've gained and lost weight, been in accidents, been carjacked, done drugs, quit doing drugs, been drunk, fallen in love, been abused, broken bodyparts, both mine and others, laughed sometimes, cried often, beaten my head against the wall, attempted suicide, seen oceans, run nekkid in forests, climbed mountains, lived in deserts, watched a whole shitload of TV, cried in the wilderness, talked to the Goddess and the Spirits, made friends with hawks and squirrels and bears, rediscovered by native religion, played on the internet only to discover, with some dismay, that I was born to be a computer nerd, got caught in the web, had homocide attempted against me, twice, had kidney stones and gall stones and drove over sharp stones that cut my tires. I remained a hippy, true to the cause, laughed often and easily even though my life was miserable and I was constantly depressed. but, I like to spread it around. After all, why should I be the only one entitled to my misery.
Ron Leming, May 23, 1999, Amarillo, TX

SHAMAN

Sitting, quietly thinking,
silvery spring rains,
water my lonely trees.
Rain...
falling endlessly,
infinite loneliness
in this shining night.
On this night, rain in the forest
feels what I feel.
"Shaman?"
"Away".
The sky brightens,
the song of the owl is darkly heard.
My tree's leaves fall silently,
and lie as they fall.
My mind in winter, grasps the sky,
My eyes devour the clouds.
Clouds stop by from time to season,
to rest me from the day.
"Shaman?"
"Away!"
The morning sun...
Flowers chase it after rain.
So soon to live and no way to know it,
babies fight outside.
The sound of nature's young life,
heard away.
A long forgotten hurt,
my absent wife's brush,
a vase that dressed a flower,
a short time in summer.
"Shaman..."
I have always known I would take this road,
but yesterday,
I did not know it would be today.

DEATH

I am Death, you said to me
sliding your warm fingers
down my cheeks, down my neck,
into my chest.
Your slender hands took root there,
spread tendrils into pumping veins,
through muscles working,
trapping my heart in chambers and webs,
of white, smoking fingers.
I am Death, you said to me,
as the flesh of your face
crackled into curling, Autumn leaves,
blowing away in whirlwinds,
against the howling sky.
And I screamed,
the loam of my heart torn from my chest,
churning in the white, laughing roots,
against the rushing sun.

DEATH (Part Two)

Hot whirlwinds of noon sun,
of sand and electric dust...
slide down my throat,
cake and choke in my lungs...
fill my brain with yellow grit.
We sit in the cupped palm of a hill summit,
our bodies turned wood and rooted
among boulderteeth, turned stone
and sharp in the fiery air.
She is turned from me in her pain...
and I lean helplessly against a dying oak.
My mind is numb from the climb...
burned and suffocated
in the desert heat.
I want to reach out to her...
But my legs and arms are blind worms,
cold roots burrowing from the day.
I can feel the age and branches
of the tree weighing through the trunk...
Now weighing on my shoulders
rusting my skin to bark.
My hurting fills me-becoming-oak...
and I try to speak with her,
to smile and comfort her,
but my mouth is filled with bitter sap,
is covered with bark.
The velvet noon roars away...
We are seperate storms...

ON THAT DAY

Fatal flaws enter the sunset
as she turns her head away.
Snapshots from a family album
wither and burn and die...
Colours faded,
floors swept clean...
She has gone with the dust
floating aimlessly
in empty air...

TOMBSTONE

Years...years ago...ere my dreams
Yes, every poet is a fool...
Yes, yes, I grant the debt of love...
You see this pebblestone...
It used to be my heart...

TARNISHED

No, no, not for my sanity...
Nobody loves all the time...
Not for you the brightly planned...
Now you have left your newbourne pride...
Charm'd with the drink that love composes...
I received the girl from Summer...
Count not her broken pledges as a crime...

SEPPUKU HAIKU
My love in Winter
So new and clear
Till sunlight melted the ice

CHILD

Child am I,
and dreamer,
gentle teddy bear,
who once was dressed
in velvet and gold
of the finest.
Abandoned now,
unclothed and alone,
seams ripping to shreds,
stuffing bleeding out
onto the dusty floor,
your footsteps,
grinding it in.

TELL TALE SIGN

And with this thought in mind,
wind ripples on the snow like sand,
the sun plays freeze and thaw with hearts
fingering her name in the windowpane frost,
unguent air drifts scented flowers,
priceless gold and crystal teardrops,
whatever the case may be.
If I could build love into a mountain,
if you do not trust, even those who were,
and are sincere, not to take from you,
thoughts, recurrent in their wheels,
sweetly, keenly, cuts the blade,
to melt in the soft dew of your kiss,
roses in the dark will not blossom,
the word suggests itself as I gaze
at your slit eyes and pursed lips,
I put a rose into the sky for you,
you should be telling me not to be afraid,
all times precious in my life,
fate and luck conspired,
and yet I wouldn't trade.
You are as relentless in destroying me,
as the incoming waves,
sinking through the sky,
and we're human now, only in name,
I would go there and see it all.

for Jenn

She is the sun on a mountain in summer,
the shine on a seashell washed to the sand,
footprints in the glistening snow untouched,
the sparkling gurgle in a baby's tiny laughter,
the yellow glow on a single daisy in the desert,
the pink afterlight of sudden lightning,
the bellyrumble of surprising thunder,
the fluffseeds of dandelions blown in the wind.
She is the purr of a kitten well sated,
the soft of a rabbit sleeping in hand,
the secret laughter and song of a child at play,
the first touch of pleasure in the morning,
the warm scent of coffee in spring rain,
the crackling of hearthfire in winter,
the glow of embers in the cookstove at bedtime.
She is the spinning of the world,
the clouds that caress the sky,
the velvet darkness of nightblack stars.
She is the soulmate of forever,
the love that never dies.