BIO
In addition to being h performed on stage, Udo Hintze’s work has been published in The 21st Century, Bewildering Stories, The Criterion, Inkling, and other
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Alligators
………Drifting like a dream, slowly
the periscope eyes
…………..break the surface of water.
Your head emerges, a steel-toed boot
………….that waged war in the trenches
while heaven rained down its iron fury.
Before submarines and devil dogs,
…………you were the first
…………amphibious assault trooper
crawling on your belly,
through the mud up onto the banks.
You swam through the currents
of global war and catastrophes:
the shifting of mountains and glaciers.
The receding and advancing
…………of lakes and shorelines.
The dinosaurs ruled the Earth
…,,,,,,…..but you rule the waters.
The world hates what it can’t own,
………….For this you are feared and respected
like an Acadien refugee,
Your armored skin hides the heart that
………….Evolved with the rocks of unwritten history.
The tongue that won’t come out, the foot shaped,
designed and adapted for the state you live in,
……..the spiked tail that speaks softly,
A grip on life that claims the land if only temporarily:
basking in the small victories – head lifted up
towards the sun with long curved teeth,
embedded in a smile that says, we are survivors.
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Sulphur Cosmos (Friendship Flowers)
Easter brings bright colors,
symbols of starting anew:
rabbits, eggs, bees, birds and fields of flowers
flooding the scene, hiding the roots
pulling up from the same soil, the common need
for existence; water, minerals, light.
I think of friends from long ago,
like flowers from many Springs past,
connected despite the distance,
in that biggest of fields – Time,
where we are all planted
containing all the blueprints and plans,
all of them identical;
giving and receiving love,
seeds blown into the future
carried by the winds
landing somewhere else, opening up
reaching towards the sun.
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Turkey Vultures
Waiting for the first light
to cast dew off their backs
they stretch out their wings
and welcome the morning sun. Once dry
they take to the sky,
their wide shadows covering
the landscape as they circle ’round,
tracing halos in the air.
Like kites, they glide on thermals across
the tree tops and telephone lines
in search of the dead and dying –
the grounded carcasses
of raccoon, deer, possum, armadillo
that litter the roads among fading sunsets
Dressed for work –
They are the priests of the new
world, these North American monks:
bald, black robed with white trim
clear it away and usher in a new kind of birth,
to wake the dead from their dream of life,
touch them with beak and talons,
tearing and ripping away
the muscle fibers, the skin,
down to the bones.
They stand on the shoulders of highways
to collect, cancel, and pay all debts
and take back what the stork has given:
eyes, ears, feathers, fur, intestine.
They bow their heads.
Like towers of silence they remember God
Their meal is finished but the hunger never stops;
in spite of progress, building, creating and improving
ourselves, everything breathing will die
the turkey vultures take to the evening sky
and look forward to new life.
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Golden Orb Weaver
Walking along it caught me
by surprise: a silent bell,
floating free in the air,
it’s back end painted with a face like a tribal warrior,
radiating like an alien star.
Its legs: burnt-black branching
out from the dark core
There, the original engine sits,
perfectly centered in its own mind
and does nothing – no worry
no fussing about the next meal or
the next moment. Just waiting,
biding its time.
Let the mechanical world
spin its wheels in futility,
Let the machines grind their gears
into rust.
Thick jagged bolts of lightning
spill down the silk canvas
spelling the shiny black orb’s
secret message written:
now is the time of power.
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*****
Thanks Ed! I appreciate it!
Good stuff Udoman!
I can see that the Awl Patch had some influence as well.
Keep up the good work bro! :o)