THE BIRTHRIGHT OF HOME

by Dick Altman

Attorneys general from 22 states sued President Trump in two federal district courts on Tuesday to block an executive order that refuses to recognize the U.S.-born children of unauthorized immigrants as citizens, the opening salvo in what promises to be a long legal battle over the Trump administration’s immigration policies. —The New York Times, January 21, 2025

Reports of Navajo people being detained in immigration sweeps sparks concern from tribal leaders: The DOJ argued in court that Indigenous people don’t have birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment, so neither should children of noncitizens born in the US. —Arizona Mirror, January 24, 2025

I marvel,

over six months,

as crews,

of master

craftsmen,

mostly

undocumented,

give birth 

to my house,

overlooking

Rio Grande’s

valley.

 

I watch as raw hunks

of sandstone

bewitch

into new life

as Anasazi-style

walls.

Slabs

of the same rock

sculpted

into geometric

mosaics

of outdoor

walkways

and portals.

 

Amaze

as a Rumsford

fireplace,

known

for its high heat,

transforms

out of nothing

more than

firebrick,

cinder block,

and plaster,

into a work

of art,

reminding

of Spain’s

Middle Ages.

And so

the entire house

evolves

in that spirit.

 

I begin to wonder,

as the birthright

of countless

newborns,

of alien parents,

is in effect,

stripped

from the Constitution,

could

the government

call into question

the legality

of my house,

conceived

by undocumented

foreign labor,

to exist

on American soil?

 

I imagine

coming home

one day

to an empty lot,

not even a trace

of the concrete

underpinnings.

Posted on one

of many Aspen

I planted

over the years,

a document

claiming to be

an executive

order.

 

It reads:

“Your home,

propagated

by illegal

foreign labor,

has lost

its birthright

to shelter you.

The government

has no recourse

but to remove it

from your

property.

You’re welcome

to rebuild

with trades

of authentic

American

descent.”

 

What can I say,

as I look down

at Pueblos,

diminished

by untold eras, 

so they must

have seemed,

of America’s

dispossession?

What    can   I   say?

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The Ravens Perch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Wingless Dreamer, Blueline, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad.  His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry published by the New Mexico Museum Press. Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored some 250 poems, published on four continents.

MOUNTAINS OF AMBIGUITY

by Dick Altman

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP, August 16, 2024) — Watchdogs are raising new concerns about legacy contamination in Los Alamos, the birthplace of the atomic bomb and home to a renewed effort to manufacture key components for nuclear weapons. A Northern Arizona University professor emeritus who analyzed soil, water and vegetation samples taken along a popular hiking and biking trail in Acid Canyon said Thursday that there were more extreme concentrations of plutonium found there than at other publicly accessible sites he has researched in his decades-long career.

Northern New Mexico

How many daybreaks

have I risen

to the drum/chant/flute spirit

of high desert’s Jemez,

sacred Indigenous mountains,

dancing my western skyline?

 

I wanted to escape Manhattan’s

work encampments, 

false pinnacles of glass

and steel,

to find here, 

at seven thousand feet,

gifts of earth/air/water,

untrammeled 

by humanity’s heel. 

 

The breathtaking cleft

that serves as the gateway

into the Jemez—

like a canyon pathway 

into the clouds—

lofts me,

calls me 

into another world.

 

Nature’s handiwork in the Jemez

expresses itself 

in a thousand volcanos,

asleep for now,

fanning out from Valles Caldera,

planet’s largest,

grandeur that, 

across Rio Grande’s valley,

seems all mine.

My hiking ardor leaves

its imprint 

in that elk-abounding

encirclement, 

a trail of joy,

marking every season.

 

Yet not without sadness.

I have first to pass 

Oppenheimer Alley,

where the brain of man

explodes an idea,

whose remnants scatter

the countryside,

forces unseen

that torment the Jemez

without known end.

 

Los Alamos’ lights

at night snake downslope,

pointing at me,

atomic city’s

unrepentant reminder

that my escape

was less promise,

than dream.

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Landing Zone, Cathexis Northwest Press, Humana Obscura, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The Ravens Perch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Wingless Dreamer, Blueline, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad.  His work also appears in the first edition of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry published by the New Mexico Museum Press. Pushcart Prize nominee and poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has authored some 250 poems, published on four continents.

THE SOLUTION

by Steven Kent

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico on Friday scaled back a temporary public health order restricting the carrying of firearms in the Albuquerque metro area, limiting a ban to only parks and playgrounds. The initial ban, which was issued Sept. 8 and was to have covered 30 days, had prohibited the carrying of open and concealed firearms in public areas or on state property. Several individuals and groups had sued to block Ms. Lujan Grisham’s original order, and a federal judge on Wednesday sided with the plaintiffs, who argued that the suspension of gun rights violated the Constitution. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge David Urias granted a temporary restraining order blocking the governor’s suspension. The governor’s most recent executive order essentially replaces the blocked one. —The New York Times, September 17, 2023

The solution is always more guns,

Angry voices in unison chime 

When a shooting's occurred.

Our predictable word

While the blood of each victim still runs:

The solution is always more guns.

The solution is always more guns.

Though we mourn those cut down in their prime,

They're the price that we pay

To have freedom today

(Thoughts and prayers for the innocent ones).

The solution is always more guns.

The solution is always more guns,

One deterrent for all kinds of crime:

In the classroom, the bleachers,

Arm staff and arm teachers;

In church, arm the priest and the nuns.

The solution is always more guns.

The solution is always more guns--

Every one, every place, every time.

And we tell these cold lies

As we look in the eyes

Of our very own daughters and sons:

The solution is always more guns.

Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer, musician, and Oxford comma enthusiast Kent Burnside. His work appears in Light, Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, and OEDILF, among others.

SEASONS OF FORGIVENESS II

by Dick Altman

Climate change is reshaping the American economy. New Mexico is leaning on ecotourism and sustainable industries to see it through, but extreme weather keeps getting in the way. —The New York Times, December 10, 2022

Northern New Mexico

Your sky’s downcast—clouds testy/twitchy
as broncos—stampedes ashen/rusty as tea—
Your breath a wave of gray—mauling—
across Rio Grande’s valley from me—
shores of the Jemez Mountains—
horizon’s serpentine spine—wind’s
womb – hissing/growling—eager
to gust me off my feet—Westerlies—yours—
slam body – flash into face walls of dust –
dirt road’s heavings—worn/restless—
as if to warn—Indian/Anglo alike—
you mean to hang—come winter—
all of us out to dry—we of high desert
who worship you—you without yielding
a glisten of grief—
 
You make no attempt to hide from me
your anger—La Nina’s avenging
herself—from the far Pacific—on land
history’s riven—dancing on the blade                           
of survival—denying us your blood—
that flourishes mind/body/flower—
Snow’s florets—like white roses—
bloom at the highest heights—hardly
enough—come spring—to succor
lowlands of range/field/pasture—
Vaults of roots lie in hollow dark—
I listen to them whisper/beg for sky’s
sweet sweat to envelope thread/throat—
vast schemes of arterial/arboreal twining—
desperate for clouds’ benediction—
 
Will you conjure the Rio Grande                      
into Old West’s version of Big Muddy—
the Santa Fe River into a drought-
starved trail of sand—acequias—
irrigation ditches—lifelines centuries old—
into runnels of emptiness—Or will you
relent/unfurl—after all—a semblance
of season’s radiance—moon seeing—
as in mirror—its face reflected back
to itself—Some glimmer that La Nina
will yet mercy us—that mountains—
pearlescent—emerge before my eyes—
to melt into rages of ebb and flow—
riverine bounty—yours—pouring
into mouths of petal/leaf/needle/heart
 
 
Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.

BAD BREATH

by Dick Altman

Pump jacks at sunset near Carlsbad, New Mexico.

Climate-warming methane emissions rising faster than ever, study says. —The Washington Post headline, October 26, 2022

NASA said a methane plume about two miles (3.3 kilometers) long was detected southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico, in the Permian Basin, one of the largest oilfields in the world. —Barron’s, October 25, 2022

Northern New Mexico

Pump jacks looked to me—as a child

on the West Coast—like animated

Tinker Toys—Half a century later—

here on the high desert prairie—

they terrify me—Cows wander

and forage next to them—Hay

grows in the same field—Backyards

brim with them—Schools look out

on them—Indian reservations dance

with them—Oil and sister gas ops

balloon the air with toxic methane

wherever I look—Except I can’t see it—

unless—over the next hill—a flame

three-stories high—shatters the view—

Drive through “jack country”

and you’re afraid to breathe—

afraid—in mid-summer—to run AC—

afraid to hike ruins—because you

never know when you’re going

to run into “jack”—and all his bad

friends—Sometimes—at a distance—

they remind me of grazing buffalo—

their humped backs—connected

to bobbing heads—glaring down

from bluffs—I know they’re

machines—but unlike most—

they exhale—and what they

breathe out—you don’t want

to be caught breathing in—unless

of course—you want—over time—

to be caught dead—New Mexico’s

called “The Land of Enchantment”—

I call it “The Land of Bad Breath”

 

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.

AFTER THE FLAMES, FLOOD

by Dick Altman

I’ve learned that no matter what

your faith—we on the high desert

plains – aloud or to ourselves—

pray for rain—and lots of it

Two-months of unquenchable

wildfires left us parched

for water—anything to restart

the charred landscape

 

Fill our depleted reservoirs—

revive our withered crops—

awaken our weakened pinion

and aspen—I pray—and while

at it—I add—our yellow cow-pen

daisies—red-orange mallow—

purple Russian sage—to round

out the bouquet we call—

with now-and-then fondness—

our “desert bloom”

 

A deluge ensues—not our usual—

if one can use that word—monsoon—

what we half-jokingly call our rainy

season—but rain of epic power—

rain that washes away people—

houses—cars—roads—and not

least—in the grand scheme—ash

 

I scoop up a handful—light—

innocent—a mere handful

in an ocean of ash layered over

a charred seabed—until hurricane-

like floods set it in motion—

sweeping it into ponds—river—

community water systems—

killing stream life—sickening

people – disrupting life already

disrupted by epochal fires

What next—I can only ask—

half expecting to hear a cloud-

enshrouded voice intone—

without a trace of a smile—

“Locusts”

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where,at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.

HAVE YOU ANY CLUES?

by Indran Amirthanayagam

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today responded to the murder of another Albuquerque Muslim by a serial shooter who has allegedly been targeting Muslims for nine months by raising its reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible to $10,000. Photo: People spread dirt over Aftab Hussein's grave at Fairview Memorial Park in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Aug. 5, 2022. (The Albuquerque Journal via AP)

Four Muslim men in New Mexico—a grocer,

a busser, a city planner, and Friday night 

another, a worker in a refugee center—

 

have been shot dead, three over the last

week, serial killer roaming, targeting 

brown people who worship Allah, 

 

the news not breaking yet in all 

the feeds of the nation but spilling 

digitally here; and I am asking you 

 

to report suspicious behavior where 

you live. Be your brother's and sister's 

keeper, your brown and Muslim 

 

brother’s,  your brown and Muslim 

sister’s. Take care of your back,

their backs. Work with the police. 

 

Provide any leads. Find 

the killer. It takes a village. 

It takes a country.

Indran Amirthanayagam's newest book is Ten Thousand Steps Against the Tyrant (BroadstoneBooks). Recently published is Blue Window (Ventana Azul), translated by Jennifer Rathbun.(Dialogos Books). In 2020, Indran produced a “world" record by publishing three new poetry books written in three languages: The Migrant States (Hanging Loose Press, New York), Sur l'île nostalgique (L’Harmattan, Paris) and Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda, Lima). He writes in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and has twenty poetry books as well as a music album Rankont Dout. He edits The Beltway Poetry Quarterly and helps curate Ablucionistas. He won the Paterson Prize and received fellowships from The Foundation for the Contemporary Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, US/Mexico Fund For Culture, and the MacDowell Colony. He hosts the Poetry Channel on YouTube and publishes poetry books with Sara Cahill Marron at Beltway Editions.

WHEN THE AIR COULDN'T HOLD

by Dick Altman

Four killed in helicopter crash after assisting with East Mesa Fire 

—Santa Fe New Mexican, July 17, 2022

Northern New Mexico

I once believed the high

desert immune to fire.

Until I watch in terror a blaze

in the Jemez Mountains,

west of me, nearly consume

Los Alamos’ atomic city.

                   *

And so spin the blades

and up the chopper rises,

as if lofted by the very flames

it douses again and again

with water by the bucketful.

Until its cargo of four, lives

with every pass in peril,

points wearily for home.

                    *

Never thought a fire 20 miles

east, ignited in April, would

refuse to go out until mid-June. 

We may not have much water,

but we have countless mountains

of tinder eager to torch earth,

sear and drought-riven.

                    *

And so we resort to birds

(and planes) to siphon water

from a distance. After awhile,

the droning pulse of copters

infiltrates dreams. Smoke,

from the moment you awake,

is a never-absent cup

of acrid reality.

                        *

And today’s bird? Had I felt it

thrumming overhead?  Before

a few seconds of downdraft—

will we ever know?—transforms

it from an angel of life into one

of death. And blades that morph

into wings, caught in gravity’s net,

plunge to the bottom of a sea of air.

 

 

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where,at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad. A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.

UNNATURAL DISASTER

by Dick Altman

The U.S. Forest Service failed to consider how a changing climate could make the landscape more flammable, didn’t adequately estimate the risk of a controlled fire escaping and used incomplete weather information as a prescribed burn went awry and later formed the largest wildfire in New Mexico history, the agency said in a report released Tuesday. The 85-page report describes how federal fire managers, who felt under pressure to complete the prescribed burn while they had the available personnel, made miscalculations and overlooked warning signs—including low humidity, the potential for erratic winds on complex terrain and the heavy, dry fuel loads that could stoke a runaway fire. Although crews followed the burn plan, it contained flawed and incomplete analyses, and some guidelines were out of date amid a prolonged drought, the report said. The result: The prescribed burn ignited a wildfire that later merged with another prescribed burn to create the Hermits Peak/Calf Canyon Fire, scorching 341,746 acres as of Tuesday and destroying hundreds of homes in a 500-square-mile area. Santa Fe New Mexican, June 21, 2022. Photo: Hot shot crew members keep an eye on a blaze June 15 as fire crews ignite the underbrush in an effort to contain the Pipeline Fire near Flagstaff, Ariz. (Rachel Gibbons/Arizona Daily Sun/AP via The Washington Post)

Northern New Mexico

Sixty days of flame—

and I watch the sky

as a sailor watches the sea—

for signs in color and wind

and heading—to tell me

how even the air tires

of hefting its load of ash—

of remains of homestead

and livestock—tall-pine

forest—tractor and pickup

 

Until you’ve seen

a high plains landscape

scorched into a nightscape—

a contagion of char—

blackness wherever you look—

you don’t realize what a task

to bend language

into a portrait of asteroidal

extinction—a voided canvas

of negative space that may

take nature forever—if ever—

to paint over and fill in

For friends who’ve lost all—

out of fire simmers the future

in a boil of uncertainty—

a rage smoldering in the mind—

no dream fully smothers

 

How can I with words reseed

generations of struggle—

sow trust that morning ignites yet

with sun’s benign fury—perhaps

not tomorrow—or the next—

but one day—amid sapling

of needle and leaf—short

grass prairie fed upon

by mother and calf—fields

you begin again to recognize

as the only soil you’ve worked—

and wept over—since you were

born

 

 

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet, reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line, THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review, The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, The New Verse News, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad.  A poetry winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections of some 100 published poems. His work has been selected for the first volume of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry forthcoming from the New Mexico Museum Press.

IN HOLLOWS OF MY LUNGS

by Dick Altman

Projected to double in size in the coming days, the Calf Canyon / Hermit’s Peak Fire continued to rage on May 2nd in northern New Mexico, threatening towns and villages and forcing thousands to flee. Now, erratic winds are pushing the flames closer to Mora and Las Vegas. —KUNM, May 2, 2022. Photo: View of the Calf Canyon / Hermit's Peak Fire from Santa Fe. Courtesy Of Shaun Griswold via KUNM.

on shores of my eyelids – remnants

of forest/plain/pastureland scorched to ghost –

not last year – not last month – as I write –

cell buzzes with warnings to evacuate –

nearly fifteen towns – in two counties

next to mine – since afternoon yesterday

                                *

gusts – without let up – race across

ground at sixty miles an hour – back

of throat feels I’m feasting on ashes –

smoke’s blackened cargo tumbles skyward –

cooler atmosphere whitens the boil –

if cows/horses/sheep/pigs/fowl notice –

who can say – who can say how farmers

corral/truck herds of livestock – in trailers

built for two – or maybe four – animals –

and to where – how decide who stays/goes

                                 *

homesteads – over a hundred – some

generations old – now dust – color of bone –

swirling – swirling around Sangre’s peaks –

this way – who can say this way – to bear/

deer/tarantula/snake – to bees and honey-

blooded flora – who to bore tunnel in sky

for birds on nest – for geese/ducks/owls

buzzards – if they survive – sideline until

the earth clears – party on barbecue

of their lives

                                  *

a controlled burn – preserving the forest –

they call it – human-struck match turned

into rogue torch – wind rocketing cinders

mile or more – no human way to keep up/

stay ahead – two blazes converging –

in marriage from hell – hell today – yes –

hell’s tomorrow beyond sorrow – black/

bleak/barren – no playbook to restart Eden –

no mind/memory trick to erase replaying

the present

                                  *

smell forest’s burnt flesh – fireplace’s scent

of pine/spruce/fir – except flesh gave up

the seasoned old age we cherish – its aroma

of solace/comfort/home – second life we –

with love – endow it – gone – gone up –

swallowed – in somebody else’s smoke

 

Dick Altman writes in the high, thin, magical air of Santa Fe, NM, where, at 7,000 feet,

reality and imagination often blur. He is published in Santa Fe Literary Review, American

Journal of Poetry, riverSedge, Fredericksburg Literary Review, Foliate Oak, Blue Line,

THE Magazine, Humana obscura, The Offbeat, Haunted Waters Press, Split Rock Review,

The RavensPerch, Beyond Words, Sky Island Journal, and others here and abroad.  A poetry

winner of Santa Fe New Mexican’s annual literary competition, he has in progress two collections

of some 100 published poems.  His work has been selected for the forthcoming first volume

of The New Mexico Anthology of Poetry to be published by the New Mexico Museum Press.