Poetry Lost

It's mislaid somewhere. I had a file of it electronically - I thought. Now the scribbling is elsewhere. I have been reading Larry D. Thomas's latest collection, Where Skulls Speak Wind. He's a West Texas poet, in one sense he's a "cowboy poet," but his poems are beyond that a bit.

Still, there's a sense of the arid west, of El Paso and Fort Davis and New Mexico, that comes through clearly. It's not comfortable. Here's one, called "Guadalupe Pass."

Wind, in January
at Guadalupe Pass
in far West Texas,
reaches speeds

exceeding
one hundred ten
miles per hour;
howls

like a pack
of wolves;
rips,
as if with pliers,

thorns from the flesh
of cacti;
turns noon sky
the color of dried blood;

and pits the paint
of old pickups,
pregnant as it is
with New Mexico.

A lot of the book is in that vein. I wanted to see what there was in my poetry that comes close to his. I can't recall there's anything like. I've been bitten too hard by Billy Collins. I'll send out a search party...if Shackleton can be found, surely my few poems won't stay lost forever. (I know, don't call me "Shirley.")