Alaskan & Western Reflections

Published in Over The Transom #27: February, 2016 by Jerry Dale McDonnell It’s our bar. A day’s end hard work bar with a too recent nod toward tourist hippie/yuppie types. It’s long been my comfort zone where I’ve spent much of my dead-end life and where she found me and took a hold of me and twisted me around. Bras of various cup sizes—donated after the shots and beer back have done their work—hang down from the ceiling like plucked chickens. Twas usually around midnight when the occasional gal pulled her bra out from under her blouse, or if the booze had brought her to stupid, tits were bared. Hooting and hollering of tit bragging and admiration is standard. Two visiting strangers started the collection years ago but now most of the hundred or more hanging bras are from young just turned legal drinking age city girls sometimes escorted by long hairs with unearned holes in their jeans on a weekend toot to our small village in the mountains just shy of Canada. We, a bare knuck...

Published: http://deadsnakes.blogspot.com/2016/01/jerry-dale-mcdonnell-three-poems.htm                                      by                       Jerry Dale McDonnell After a whiff of spring Snow slipped in. Don't tell anyone the treasure Is still there, lying bare. Yesterday it smelled Like woods’ walking. The martin resting on a log, giving Me a wink, bear awake, ridge riding. Eagle not taking wing as I glide by. The seals have returned to the bays. From the tree top Porcupine faking sad. On this spring day of sundry sun my Skis also seek a fool like me and bide me go. The treasure remains. Someone left the Vault door open for the pauper price of sweat. I will glide and stroke, Avoiding the overflow, Up the Taiya River along the famous Chilkoot Trail where thousands of ...

  by Jerry Dale McDonnell        Published:   http://deadsnakes.blogspot.com/2016/01/jerry-dale-mcdonnell-three-poems.html Bohemian Waxwings swarm the crag apple tree like agitated political sign holders on the corner. Crab apple drunk on staggering wings, they slam into the window before flying off flittering in screaming panicked flocks. A neighbor listens to talk radio, cursing the air. I sip wine and wait for tomorrow. On television Mr. Rogers could   only be replaced by a cartoon.

                                                       by                                        Jerry Dale McDonnell©2014                                             Published in  Mungbeing.com #59          This is the dance. My legs are encased in rubber up to my crotch, water very close to breaking over the tops of my hip waders plays a light sloshing tune, my feet try a few soft shoe steps for balance in the mud that is almost up to my ankles. My left foot is near the bank. My right foot is near the deeper water of Shelter Creek. My left arm is stretched straight out grasping a handful of soil an...