By Jay "Red Owl" Kuhns
Blue Period
I hear my feelings
In notes
In song
Through colors painting
Faded blues
Ending outlining
Period sound
Within those notes
I searched for you
I too wish to paint
Green clouds
In a heathered sun
White blades of grass
Dashed in violet highlights
Bound behind
A red oxide sky
Uneasy rhythms
Flatly trebled notes
Crying my heart hurts
And I don’t know why
Magnolia Tree
Little gaps of blue
Escape beneath the magnolia leaf
The oranges opposing the greens
In a daring gasp for light
From gentle reflections a shadowy decay
The limbs of their chest rise
Exhale blooming hues
Set to fall and escape
Whisked into the river
Begging for a shallower grave
From That Thus Remains
Poe slept, room 13
Gambling in spirits
Enshrined the decay after fame
Where we honor the man with the largest dollar
A ravel in the midst of the beggar that wobbles sober
On the grass that deer grazed to prey
We erected buildings and lined them with slate
The dirt given by the divine Great Spirt and in God’s son’s name stripped away
Back laced in bullets then tilled enslaved
Worship the writings that were never made
This land was once holy
Unintended to be the sewer for the blood chained to drain
The land was sacred
Peeking through every crack of those bricks you laid
We still thank the Great Spirit for all that has been taken
And for the little that has been taken
And for the little that remains
Jay “Red Owl” Kuhns is a member of the Mattaponi Indian Tribe. He is a single parent of two children. He toured in a punk rock band, visiting forty-seven states and fourteen countries. He attended Central Virginia Community College for Liberal Arts before transferring to the University of Virginia.