Dancing Bear is of Chippewa and Swedish ancestry. He lives in San Jose. His poems, art interviews, reviews and photographs have been published in hundreds of journals, magazines and anthologies, including New York Quarterly, Zuzu's Petals Quarterly, Slipstream, Rio Grande Review, Pearl, Poetry Motel and Nerve Cowboy. He is Editor-In-Chief of the on-line magazine Disquieting Muses (disquietingmuses.com) and the 1999 winner of the Mindfire Chapbook Contest for his manuscript Blue Hand, later this year a chapbook Atlas (Red Fruit Press) will be released. Dancing Bear also hosts FM 91.5 KKUP's weekly poetry show "Out of Our Minds."
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Rez Orpheus
hears the pow wow drums
a beat reminder of a woman
more silhouette than lover
he is a frybread verse soft
as dusty moccasins
a thumb over the memory
of braids or beads
he is the smell of yerba santa
woodsmoke and twilight
fresh tobacco and sweat
the gods are not made of light
but old tricks
Blue Collar Holy Man
blue collar holy man
with your bully boy muscles
and your thick tongue
licking up the freedoms of speech
oh your pushed up features
the squinting coal of your eyes
blue you got your say
but you'd like me to stop talking
flash your kickboot blue
your green money fists too
your lawyers your lawyers
will sue will sue
bully boy blue
you've put the fear
of science fiction into
the press and the pictures
the pixels the speakers
and now with your clever smile
the rubbing of palms
you'll come chase me too
we outspoken few
oh holy man oh bully blue
your threats are so true
exposing your sacred cow belly
the lies that you spew
oh blue you do call yourself
a holy bully boy
flex flex those muscles
lift lift that weight
you'll fight for everything
on yours and my plate
blue cow belly blue
I wonder how you do it
sleep at night
knowing the things that you do
will oust people from houses
will ruin a life or few
blue you'll round us up in camps
for not being like you
you'll promise humane conditions too
you cowardly cleansing blue
collared holy man
The Ballad of Jango Lovecraft
my momma liked to say we were well-traveled
moving as we did from town to town each
identical to the last and next
we always packed up under the idle of our beaten
ford motor and momma's whispering directions
fold the tents pack the pots
she taught us to steal food when she caught
the clerk's attention - top buttons undone
looking helpless as she struggled with a label
my restitched coat heavy on my shoulders
as I slipped out front and waited in the ford
ever idling a purr of a gypsy song
we played music on the sidewalk and I danced
on my hands to make the townfolk laugh
for money in a hat that fit none of our heads
she taught us to hypnotize chickens so
they wouldn't squawk as we stole them
from a farmer's pens
learned to duck buck shot too
and later barked out the virtues of Dr. Turner's
Wonder Ointment to gawking hucksters
my mother taught me the fine art of wooing
and writing poetry and songs to win a girl
been paid-off by more than one rich girl's father
and if you wanna believe in rumors then no doubt
someone's told you they've met more than one Jango
junior - a smiling danger with an eye for mischief
I've watched shooting stars through the roofs of
abandoned warehouses while drinking stolen wine
combed my hair in junkyard side-view mirrors
hummed accompaniment to torrential rain
pounded a drum beat to dry feet dancing
strummed strings through more than one earthquake
if you'da cut my marked cards or gave me a look
at your palms I'da told your future in love and money
enough to set you up with a weekly visit
these days my apartment's still furnished from the backs
of trucks though I apply my education on Wall St.
translating the old-fashioned slight of hand to electric trade
but if you need it - I can still give you a bottled remedy
my momma taught me to squeeze oil from a snake
-wanna see?
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