Bleeding The Rocky River

Poems by
Doug Paugh

A Collaboration - was written in a garage in Fredonia, New

York on Saturday, September 29, 2007 by Doug Paugh
and Gerry Crinnin. All other poems were written by Doug
Paugh between 2001 and 2015.

All Rights Reserved 2015

May not be reproduced in whole or in part without written

permission from the author.

listen: theres a hell of a good universe next door; lets

go
ee cummings

A collaboration: By Doug Paugh and Gerry Crinnin

9/29/2007
For Alan Weber
#1
Thats all it is
Its all phlegm Jack
a pack of Choke
from a deep seam
But hes still got it
from 15 years ago
when he sat down and
had a beer with his kids
a dream from still life
moving in and out of the heir,
breathed time

a ginger-haired girl,
a curvy character who listens
to the meadow and urges
music from starry eyes
Arabic sounds of America

#2
The day tasted of cake,
dark orange autumn
a season of giving. Sweet.
a color inside flavor.
Now the laundry holds hands
and the leaves tumble, dry
the wind kisses clean
cars of the near-by symmetry
Death is an inflection
of the purest soon ago lives
live it. taste it.
Come it without detours
No matter where they lead your
past.

#3

Hes making me needle

the threads of decision
and Im not good at sewing
so Im swearing, waving
my arms and legs as I can
I can do other things
But how can you top heaven.

#4

Night is a strong contender

the boxer of the days
someone else lived and Im
still feeling the smoke-center
take down
of each afternoon
Want some?
#5
Your turn to start.
What begins is often never ending
but what never becomes
dies in the heart and falls,
bad blood in the ankles.
So step carefully.

#6
The mouse is tiny

but her baby is smaller

How huge is pain?
#7
This is us having a good day:
Beer, smoke?
A partnership of high times
Is as level as it gets.
Want some? More?
#8
I love this nothing
and there nothing
as serious as love.

#9
The blues accompany us.
They fall into our souls and

rise us, but even tall

has its limits, and with rhythm
galore well find them.
Searching Companions, just
dont let go when the grip is on.
#10
Have you ever been connected
to that lifting feeling?
Dont even the lowest
have their risings of not being noticed?

#11
Its enough that clouds
are white combs untangling
the haloes of morning and

our faces smudged clean.

#12
Look, this is meant for making
if your recipe is. You can smoke it
all day, but enjoyment is
short-term, a leaf of ashes.
This makes all of us over
Whatever years were given
break into star ingredients
and wonder, how wordly,
or keep on moving.

The Old Barn

Old barn retires
on hillside.
New shed handles the
old farms load.

Blisters and busted

knuckles are replaced
by how well one can
sell acreage.
Along the outside,
classic vehicles rust.
Heavy equipment
grows lighter as metal
like the money that once
made the farm work
vanishes.
All that used to be is
now all it can be.
No floors inside that old
barn anymore. Boards
all broken with age, farmer
by inflation.
Has all he can do to manage
the walker.
_______

The Fields
Shingles from a once
sturdy farmhouse
filter rain where the earth
grows loose.
All that had plant and
harvest is now dead
and flat
til the trees
back by the brook give
the eyes a good climb.
Rats nest back in the left
help the snakes
survive. As long as there is
rodent, there is
kill. The deer
have no corn to eat
or hide in,
no wheat to bake
in the farmers bread

and the passerby likes it

that way.
Fences go up around
a survey, while the works to sell
off portions looks back
to the brook.
You can see if anything sold
Between those rocks.
_______

Past The Fields

Brings me back
to the old barn.
The months have
brought the farmer
to sell all but ten
acres for he and his
wife of almost

sixty years. The worn

farmhouse stood
so many generations
like a statue of
esteem, now sets
a single wide
where the children
bring their young
to see the grandfolks
on week-ends and
holidays. The farmer,
even in his weekness
does odd jobs on
the side. Says hes still
one hell of a carpenter.
A pond fills the emptiness
the corn left and the barn has
just too much pride to fall.
_______

The World Goes On

The world goes on
With or without you.
In a proud, circular dance,
The breeze at my feet,
Life is a cold heat I feel
As I read poems to the almost

Daily rants that burn

Within my skin. Stepping down
This ladder upward,
All sanity lost to ease
The pain. If there is a God
Id like to meet him,
All faces gone, and thank
Him, uncostly praises
As the air chills me, foot to

Skull, I pull the songs

Of my ignorance to chest
This new dance Ill call
Freedom.

Free Concert
Kessler came in the mail today.
Free Concert in the halls
of my heart for years to come.
I know I dont miss alone,
but I wish we could speak.
I have new poems to read, a book
of my own on the way
some day soon,

I hope.
Retired the Grand
Concourse, all bent up
at corners.
Pages used as an old Jews breath.
I wont be the only misser, I know,
but I wish we could talk.
I have new songs to still him,
his own voice still in my head.
Songs and poems, poems and songs.
Damn! I sure do miss him a beer.
_______

Talons Of Plumefield
sod day.
tearing the goo

with a cane
tip isnt the way of it.
the blue
finch escaping the swoop
of a red tail,
clumped, clay dirt,
fills the six buckets
and six other buckets
besides. Someday,
the feather holders will rip
talon gardens of their own, bursting
in Plumefield
colors.
_______
At The Lake
Relationships dance the shore-line
As the waters hugging
Daughters

Big Rubber Punch

without warning
a tire with bad aim
leaps the median
down I-90 west to a
convulsive knuckle-wiped
brow
_______

High Voltage
You just cant put your finger

on it

Foothills
Boils mankind hasnt had the chance
to lance yet.
_______
Prayer
For Jamie Willard
Guide me to the end my friend.
I need your hand in the after land.
Seek the love were looking for
And place me near the closing door.

If we walk together, singing clear

His praises loud and strong this prayer
Is meant to calm our needs, our souls
Growing to the end my friend
Into the after lands.
_______
Cigar Smoke
can you see it
no curl
when it
hangs
lumbering
brown wrapper
sweetness.
has the knock
of a (tree)
ghost. only thing
can save you is

green from
gut up.
cloud is more
cloud, more green.
rising leaves
the flesh, stays till eyes
stop.
_______
Song from Gone Caf
breezeless afternoons
sunless skies
caf crumbling
sweet green
to brown

rainless

starless songless
nights

liveless drives

or driveless lives
winterless wonderless
homes without

rooms limbs
without limbs
wars without whores
or bones without
bones

winless

wimless wombless
women
on drugs
in drag

dregs
drugs
dead eye

directionless infect
erectionless
club hand whack
attack heartthrob
failure breakers
of love

unlove makers

of caf crumbling sweet

green to brown

In No Asking
Down this shallow road of brooks,
cane tip stabs at the ground
with every few steps. Black vultures
flap toward a country sky, toward a fence
of iridescent reflections, toward an escape
of ignorant cripples, needling, fumbling, circling
with the taste of blood
from their transient catch.
The carcass of a squirrel, ripped
on the shoulder of the old roads edge,
the grass gutty from their lean kill,
the circumference of their moaning business all
flock back to a wrapped-snug embrace,
loosely pushing on without permission.

Without A Soul
The trees are so full.
When you look through
leave and branch
a million small daylights connect
you to tomorrow.
Wouldnt it be nice to
Dream the Arctic dream.
Without a soul
fluttering against the dry winds
in natures wisdom.

In Silence
The hammock is lonely
on the drives short stretch out,
pushing thrust and nest
against the cornfield like a chicks
last meal.
_______
After The Sun Falls
The music is steady and wet.
The nights coughing flickers, deep-heaved echoes
Inside a doctors bag. Drenching
Flashes of sky electricity
Jumping in grass-blades.
Outside patience is feasting on the dark, thin
Soggy.

Caged Yellow Bird

He does not sing. Isnt happy.
Has or knows no happiness.
Song is his depression. His
Flight and rains fall. His eyes behind
A mirror to what cannot be
Seen. He is a caged yellow bird in a deeply
Blue soul.
_______
By The Big Dog
When you work too hard
or do more than laziness allows
you will be bitten.

Traffic Cones

For Chris
from a distance
look like orange dunce caps
the road wears for a blind community.
_______
Thirsting
Theres juice if you want some,
Or you can have a glass
Of radio.