Daniel G. Snethen

Duke

by Daniel G. Snethen

My first dog cost me $3.00.

He was part Collie and a mix

of who knows what other breeds.

Duke was territorial

and protected the home front.

His bite, literally was worse than his bark.

Duke never bit family,

but everyone else was an intruder.

I trained him in basic dog obedience

for 4-H and we received a purple ribbon,

but we were forbidden

to advance to the SD State Fair

because Duke was prone to biting.

Typical dog, he loved chasing cars.

We discouraged this

by chaining him up at night,

but you have to give a dog some freedom.

One evening,

the neighbor girl’s boyfriend

went zooming past our place

with rags locked into his hubcaps.

Duke chased and grabbed on.

The next morning, I found Duke—

dead on the shoulder

of our township gravel road.

At fourteen, that was likely more grief,

than I’d ever before experienced.

And my mother was livid

with an anger I’d not seen

in her before or since.

Mother looked up at God and said,

“Damn him, Yahweh!”

To my knowledge she never swore again.

A year later,

on a hot humid summer afternoon,

the neighbor girl’s boyfriend drowned,

while swimming in a stock dam.

Freedom

by Daniel G. Snethen

What next?

She was naked and free.

Covered in blood spatter

like the bathroom walls.

He lay on the tile floor,

prick-less and dead.

Blood still flowing

from whence his member came.

The straight razor still

clenched in her right hand.

She, still in shock, wondering

what next?

Fly Collector

by Daniel G. Snethen

Blue-bottle blow flies

& sarcophagic flesh flies

neatly mounted—skewered

with nylon-headed Bohemian pins,

by the thousands, filled tens of dozens

of professionally made Cornell

entomological specimen drawers.

On display, neatly dispersed,

throughout his country cottage.

Filled with expertly pinned,

captive-raised flies.

Nurtured from blood-fed maggots

collected at crime scenes.

Each encasement a sacred mausoleum:

a genetic gene pool of human DNA,

labeled with taxonomic information; locality;

date; collector nomenclature and

corpus delicti identification.

Pickles Butte

by Daniel G. Snethen

Named after a farmer's dog,
the highest point in Canyon County,
Idaho is an ecological treasure.

Black-tailed jackrabbits
play tag and chisel-toothed
kangaroo rats leave tail drags
in ancient volcanic ash.

Rear-fanged venomous spotted
night snakes and desert hairy
scorpions venture out after dark
in search of xerarch sustenance.

Giant turquoise blue centipedes
slither and slink like many-legged
diminutive serpents overhauling
slower, often larger prey, killing

them with venom before dining.

Black widows spin high tensile
strength silk over lava creating
sticky traps for ensnarement.

Rock wrens, woodrats, lizards,
ground nesting hawks and mound-
building formicide ants thrive
on barren rock devoid of water.

Jerusalem crickets and Mormon
ones too, eat what vegetation
there grows in this dry wasteland,
predated upon by habitat-destroying
dirt bikes and four-wheel drive trucks.

But the strangest creature,
to sojourn across this magma-
hardened bluff, the solpugiid,
or camel spider, looks like
a tailless tarantula-scorpion hybrid.

An odd arachnid, inviting the heat
of the Idaho sun to get hotter
and even hotter, parching every other
living thing as he crawls unimpeded

through the moisture-less Idaho dust

hunting undeterred for whatever prey

he can capture in his massive hideous
exoskeleton crushing jaws of death.

Native American Male Kills Caucasian Teenager at Hardee’s: Rapid City, SD

by Daniel G. Snethen

“The court finds the defendant Maȟpíya Kimímila Lúta (Cloud Red-Butterfly) guilty of third-degree manslaughter and hereby sentences him to 10 years of imprisonment.” And, just like that, the 19-year-old Indigenous teenager from Potato Creek, SD, was sent off to the state penitentiary.

Eleven months earlier, Cloud had entered the lobby of the 6^th & St. Joseph Street Hardee’s near downtown Rapid City, SD. What Red-Butterfly didn’t realize is that he was walking into the midst of a clandestine anti-bullying campaign. What he first saw were three non-native teenage males picking on an overweight native girl.

“What’s that on your fish, baby?

“Looks like tartar sauce—bet you wish it belonged to me—don’t ya?”

Another grabbed a handful of her fries and with a mouthful, exclaimed, “Damn bitch, these sure taste good—just like you, I bet.”

The third spit a wad of chewing gum into her Dr. Pepper. The girl started to cry.

The surrounding patrons appeared to be a bit disturbed by this blatant display of disrespect but ultimately chose to ignore it. And the bullying antics continued. But as the clientele began to unwrap their sandwiches, they seemed to become more and more agitated. Finally, they started to approach the front counter to complain.

But they were not uptight about the horrible behaviors being perpetrated upon the young native girl in plain sight. Oddly, instead, they were upset because several of their food items had been deformed. Buns were flattened, burgers had no meat and fries were served mangled and broken in two. The customers were both puzzled and outraged and demanded satisfaction.

Finally, after much consternation, the manager started to explain that this was all part of an anti-bullying awareness campaign to show just how easy it is for people to become ambivalent and ignore the plight of others while at the same time becoming extremely defensive when they felt wronged.

“Hopefully, you all now realize that none of us should ever stand around complacent while others are being harmed. Naturally, we will refill your orders and reimburse you your money and we thank you for your participation and understanding.”

But while this was taking place, Cloud Red-Butterfly—with the noblest of intentions and totally oblivious to the ongoing campaign, asked the three teenage males to please leave the young lady alone.

And that’s when they called him a fucking prairie-nigger.

Dallas County Phone Calls

by Daniel G. Snethen

I knew a Native gal in the Dallas jail

who called me, her Dad.

Apparently, I was

the only father-figure

she’d ever had.

I put money on her books

so we could have our

weekly phone calls

and so she could

call her mother too.

One young black woman,

a fellow inmate of my friend,

was lonely and apparently

had no one to talk to

on the outside of prison.

Amber gave her my number,

and before I knew it,

I was talking to some young

African American woman

from inside the Dallas County Jail.

She thought I was nice

and funny too.

Wanted me to check

her status on Facebook.

I think she thought

perhaps we could hook up

once she left County.

I checked her out,

half my age,

and a booty that’d make

Sir Mix-a-Lot’s

anaconda smile.

How the hell was I

going to hook up with her,

there’s a thousand miles

separating Dallas, Texas

and Dallas, South Dakota.

Two Old Ladies Arrested for Feeding Feral Cats

by Daniel G. Snethen

Damn shame Yellow Mama is retired.

Wetumpka law enforcement

is in dire need of her assistance.

Beverly Roberts, 85 and

Mary Alston, 61 were found

guilty of feeding feral cats

near the courthouse lawn.

Several thousand dollars

of damage was claimed

by Elmore County officials.

Both cat molesters

were fined, arrested,

sentenced and released

on two years of probation.

Both claimed they weren’t

really feeding feral cats,

but were capturing them

to be neutered thus reducing

the feral cat problem

plaguing parts of the Nation.

Apparently, it’s illegal to stand

on private County property

enticing feral cats

with a can of Fancy Feast

in your wrinkled hands.

Besides, such mutilation

and the denial of a cat’s

reproductive rights

just ought to be illegal.

And apparently,

in Wetumpka, Alabama it is.

Her Name Isn’t Margo, but It Should Be

by Daniel G. Snethen

She never talks about feelings.

It is as if they do not exist.

If they do, they are to be repressed.

But how can I repress such things?

Ours, is clearly a nebulous relationship,

obfuscated by shadowy concrete differences.

I am the Yang for her Ying.

To most, I am a mystery shrouded in smoke.

Best understood thru Eastern mysticism.

She helps stem my rage.

She is my soothing opiate.

She completes me.

To her, I am a child—yet complicated.

When I need her most—she knows.

But does she know why she knows?

Does she really know who she is?

Does she really know who I am?

Does she even understand who we are?

I doubt it, I doubt it, I absolutely doubt it.

I doubt she understands the answer

is deeply spiritual—not empirical.

She doesn’t know that our essence

should be inseparable, uncontainable.

That one cannot divide darkness from midnight,

or hold mystery and love in a locked box.

Like time, we transcend all these things.

But she knows not these truths

and I dare not tell for fear of losing her.

Yorick

by Daniel G. Snethen

I stare into your eyeless sockets,

remembering how I used to torture thee.

How I’d make you carry me

barefoot through the creeping thorns

infesting the courtyard cobbles.

How I would beat the hump

on your back with my wooden club

urging you to greater speed.

You loved me poor Yorick,

and I treated you as less than a dog.

You were the court jester

and I of royal lineage.

Your disregard was my birthright.

You drug me from my castle room

when a fire raged mere feet from my door.

Dove out through a window

fifteen feet to the frozen ground.

Cracked your brainless skull

and broke your collar bone,

but cushioned my fall.

You watched over me,

entertaining me with silly feats

of acrobatic antics

as I lay sequestered away,

quarantined from the rest of humanity.

Ah Yorick, you were an idiot

to have loved me so,

and I, I was the royal buffoon.

In Search of Ghosts

by Daniel G. Snethen

Near midnight,

in search of ghosts,

I visited the memorial

For the unnamed Katrina victims.

I felt no cold clamminess

nor any bodily aches and pains.

I saw nothing,

I sensed nothing,

I felt nothing,

out of the ordinary.

But when I visited

Ground Zero,

during the dead of day,

I smelled the stench of death.

Seven Hanging Trees

by Daniel G. Snethen

Seven giant gray snags

stood stoically erect

in the Mississippi woods

beside the 1867 Coombs cabin.

Under the shadow of darkness,

I witnessed eleven

hooded silhouettes

eerily dangling

from ancient tree limbs.

The morning dawn

almost convinced me

I was mistaken—almost.

My Addie

by Daniel G. Snethen

Her casket was natural wood and beautiful. My twin sister was carefully loaded into the back of a U-Haul truck, nestled behind what meager belongings she still owned. Anything of any real value had already been lifted by faux-friends, grifters. Her vehicle trailed behind on a dolly. They told me, the grifters that is, that I couldn’t take Dawn’s car out of the state of Ohio…said it was in probate and that it would be illegal. Acted shocked when they heard I was going to transport her to South Dakota myself and were astonished to find that all it took was a $5 permit to legally take a body across state lines. What I didn’t tell them is that in the small print of the U-Haul contract was a disclaimer forbidding the transport of a corpse. They didn’t believe me when I said I’d be gone by morning. I left the quaint little town of Lebanon, Ohio during the dead of the night shortly after 2:00, but not before first reporting a missing handgun from my sister’s belongings. Daddy Grifter, an oily Pentecostal and his bipolar daughter questioned how I could know my sister owned a handgun. Dawn told me she did. I found the holster and the ammo in her belongings, but no firearm. The police said, she could have loaned it to someone. But I know better and so does Jesus and no doubt, you do too.

The magnitude of this ordeal was unexpected. My son-in-law procured a round trip flight for me with points. I expected a quick trip, albeit a sad one… knowing the inevitable…but still I held hope and I knew Dawn would not expire before I arrived. And I knew this, because Dawn was Dawn, and because she loved me. And well, I loved her too.

Saturday, January 22, 2022 along I-74 near exit 102 exactly 283 miles from Council Bluffs, where my daughter lived, an inside dual had a blowout and there, Dawn and I were stranded on the shoulder of the interstate at 4:32 in the late afternoon waiting for a tire exchange which had to be contracted through U-Haul.

For nearly three hours I waited, barely noticing the traffic passing by, as I contemplated what would happen if we had to unload the U-Haul before changing the tire. What would happen when Dawn was discovered, openly sequestered beneath cover of the U-Haul, and then I realized that Dawn and I had somehow unwittingly become interred into the grotesquery of a William Falkner Southern Gothic novel. Dawn was my Addie and she was paying me back for all the pranks I’d pulled over her the past 56 years.

When I first arrived at the airport in Ohio, I was picked up by a preacher-man, the husband of Dawn’s self-proclaimed best friend. The bipolar one had been beside Dawn the entire time. Had rehydrated Dawn and was carefully monitoring everything. I questioned why they had not taken her to the hospital immediately upon first discovering her failing condition. But they assured me, they knew what they were doing and as a family unit had gone through the same process several times already of successfully battling Covid. Still, I did not understand, and when Dawn’s oxygen level fell dangerously low and they finally called the ambulance, I just trusted they were doing their best…but now I know the truth…they were creatures of the lowest kind—grifters and Pentecostals.

My first inkling of their diabolical nature was when I found out that Dawn’s best friend was filing for medical power-of-attorney over Dawn while I was still in midflight. The entire ordeal was surreal, entirely unfathomable and yet I know it was true. Dawn was there and I was too and I believe I may have noticed Rod lurking in the shadows.

It took less than seven minutes to completely change two tires and be heading on down the road. No unloading of the U-Haul, no opening of the door, just nearly three hours of antagonizing anxiety, followed by a quick exchange of tires and nothing more.

As I approached Council Bluffs, Iowa, in great need of rest, I wondered why my two older sisters had never informed me of Dawn’s earlier bankruptcy. Of how her best friend used her. Ran up over $10,000 of credit card debt with the promise of paying her back. Of how there had been an earlier falling out because they grifted her after using her as a free babysitter, enticing Dawn to sell her home and move from Sioux Falls to Lebanon, promising to pay her for taking care of Grandma and then accusing Dawn of abuse and dismissing her with no job or place to stay.

Why didn’t my older sisters tell me this? If they had, perhaps I would have been prepared upon arrival to Ohio. Instead, I walked into a buzzsaw.

I arrived in Council Bluffs, Iowa at 6:30 Sunday morning, slept for six hours and headed for Winner, SD at 12:55 in the afternoon. I was tired, but I was focused. The funeral home and my brother were waiting for me in Winner. They needed the body that evening in order to have a burial on Monday. My mind was focused on many things, one of which was why? Why did Dawn reconcile with the Ohio grifters…but the answer was obvious…Dawn was lonely and Dawn loved unconditionally. There was nothing fake about her Christianity and she exemplified the commandment of loving thy neighbor. She truly believed in forgiving seventy times seven times the sins of man…hadn’t her Lord and Savior done the same for her?

The needle approached empty as I neared Tyndall, SD. A large buck materialized as a phantom from the blackness of a South Dakota night, running head-on into the side of the U-Haul. I did not stop, kept driving toward Tyndall, wondering how much damage was caused, thanking God that the deer had not run into Dawn’s car. Oddly, I noticed no discernible damage while filling the tank of the U-Haul truck.

We arrived safely to Winner, South Dakota at 8:15 Sunday evening. Dawn made us sweat beneath her casket as I and my Parkinson’s afflicted brother, my wife and my daughter and some poor laborer from the Funeral Home struggled to extract her casket from the U-Haul truck. Dawn must have been enjoying the carnival ride she endured during our final journey together. I’m sure she was laughing at the hell I was enduring but I know too she was happy that I was saving her from the demons who tried to keep her ensnared in a grifted Ohio hell.

Wereworm

by Daniel G. Snethen

After the early morning storms, Mr. Melon walked out onto his concrete steps, witness to unbelievable carnage. Night crawlers were strewn about everywhere. All of them appeared to be dead or dying. Some had managed to crawl upon the upper level on his front porch, escaping the drowning rains and whatever else precipitated such death the night before. Some had managed to wriggle halfway across his driveway, but they too were twisted up, either in postmortem, or the slow twitching death throes of the dying.

Not one annelid could Melon find which was not harmed. A few of them appeared to have succumbed to drowning, caused by the outbursts of torrential rains, but most were inexplicably mutilated near their anterior ends, none of which had been visibly preyed upon by predators or opportunistic scavengers.

Two weeks earlier, during a half-moon, Percy, an anorexic worm, had happened upon the underlying soil of a burnt-up patch of dandelions which had been severely overdosed with poison from an herbicide spill Mr. Melon had made when recharging his hand-sprayer.

Percy consumed the tainted dirt, while recycling nutrients, and aerating the soil as a vermiform is supposed to do. This time, however, the earth tasted unfamiliar and Percy, already undernourished and not at all robust, became very ill. Sickness was not new to poor Percy and had been his plight since hatching.

Though there were literally thousands of Percy's kind, residing in Melon's lawn, Percy was lonely and had no family. All of his species were gender-fluid but that didn't matter when it came to offering Percy love. He was shunned and shamed and never given the chance to procreate, because of his diminutive size and sickly nature.

After discovering thousands of contorted corpses, Mr. Melon's gaze fell upon a wiggling deformed worm which caused him to laugh. "I'll be damned," he chuckled, "there it is, the scrawniest, most pathetic-looking one of the whole entire bunch—and it’s still crawling."

That previous evening, though it could not be seen, the moon was completely engorged, and its invisible moonbeams had reacted with the weakened body of Percy, invigorating his musculature . . . metamorphosing him into a robust creature of immoral turpitude.

Lumbricus terrestris, the common earthworm, is a hermaphroditic creature, and in his newly found vigor, Percy unleashed all of his pent-up sexual frustration. In this morph, Percy could out-crawl, out-eat, and out-mate all of his comrades. And Percy had no control, no inhibitions, and no willpower over his newly formed obsessive-compulsive disorder, to have sex with whatever looked desirable. Even the twigs beneath the boxelder tree were not safe from his amorous advances.

And, in the morning, Mr. Melon scratched his head at what he saw. Dead worms everywhere, but only on his lawn, none in the neighbors' yards. All of his soil miners apparently dead, except one pitiful example which surely would be dead before the day's end.

And Percy, Percy was slowly dragging his pathetic form, across the well-manicured lawn, with one goal in mind . . . to reach the neighbor's lawn before nightfall for another session of nocturnal debauchery.

A Woman and a Rabbit

Daniel G. Snethen

Hase was a rabbit. A white rabbit. A very old white rabbit. He hopped about my classroom chewing gum off the bottom of tables and desks. Eating paint from the wall. Jumped up onto a desk and then a table and ate the bottom edges of old schoolhouse maps which had been repurposed as window blinds. All of my students loved Hase, except for one young lady, who for some odd reason had a phobia of hares. And Hase must have known this, for whenever she was in class he would always hop to her desk, as though he had some strange rabbit crush on her…and she hated it…feared it…so much so, that whenever her class was in session, I’d have to banish poor Hase to the wire cage like some hardened criminal.

My mother loved animals, all animals, especially rabbits. When she lived in the country, Mom had all kinds of animals. Sheep, goats, cows (even a miniature one which she trained to pull a cart), horses, ponies, dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese, turtles and rabbits. But she did not like snakes, which I took great pleasure in catching and showing her. She disliked bumble bees and would scream a blood- curdling cry at them to scare them off while she was working in her garden…apparently it worked as I do not recall her ever being stung by one. But what Mom hated most, and was very frightened of, were spiders. She claimed she could smell a spider, even before she saw one. When she was a little girl, her mother kept a spider in a jar and would chase her around the kitchen table with it. Apparently, Grandmother got a great chuckle from this. But it is evident to me now, that this caused life-long trauma for my mother. I regret the few occasions I brought a spider home for mom to see. I was young and did not really understand that irrational fear and trauma is not something one has any control over. Forgive me, Mama.

I was a rascal, a rapscallion. Mother came to expect anything from me. She once told me that nothing I did ever surprised her. She simply came to expect the unexpected. Even when I told her I went swinging naked from the tire swing while courting Anne, she laughed and said, “I’m not surprised.” Mom claimed that I had multiple personalities, at least six or seven of them and when I scoffed at the notion, she immediately replied, “That’s another one.”

Mom spent hundreds, no thousands, no tens of thousands of hours laboring in the hot SD sun. She wore layers of clothing and a pink pith safari helmet to try and stop the damaging rays of the sun, but in the end, all of those long hours exposed to solar radiation took its toll upon her aged soul and she contracted skin cancer. Horrible sores and tumors arose on her skin. Her bedding and mattress soaked in blood and other bodily secretions which oozed from her compromised integumentary system.

She lived alone then, several hours away from me and the farm. Her final dog had died of diabetes, she buried Tisha in her back lawn. Snooky the cat of 17 maybe 18 finally succumbed of old age and joined Tisha. Even the painted turtle I’d given her was no longer. Mother was old and lonely and in pain and the doctor wanted to put her on chemo-therapy, but Mom said, “That poison is worse than the cancer. I just want to live as pain-free as I can and die when it is time.” And though some protested, I agreed with her.

Her health declined rapidly, as did her weight…and my rabbit, Hase, was getting thin too. It became apparent to Mom that she could no longer live the solitary life she’d gotten used to. We brought her home in her frail condition. I was working out a plan to move her in with me but she was placed into a care facility and needed to rest and recover before any such plans could be realized.

I visited her. I read the fairy tale The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig to her, changing the ending and she exclaimed in a weakened gravely voice, “That’s not what happened.” And I laughed, knowing that Mama wasn’t a bit surprised by my antics. I helped her to the restroom, so that she could pee through her catheter. It embarrassed her so, but I just reminded her of the many times she did similar things for me as a baby and a child and reassured her that I loved her. I fed her and she vomited on me and again she seemed chagrined but I laughed and said it was payback for the many times I’d puked upon her, all the while my twin sister was gagging in the background. Apparently, Dawn had a great disdain for vomit or being vomited upon. That was the last time I saw my mother alive.

I went to my classroom only to find my dear Hase dead in his cage. Some say a student had kicked him hard a few days before. I don’t know, I hope not. Why are some people so cruel? I choose to believe otherwise. I choose to believe that God was in control the entire time. Mother died that same day. The day my rabbit died. I had a carrot box in my room and I put Hase in it. I transported Hase back to the farm. The neighbor had opened a grave, the first and only one on Hill Top Cemetery. Mom and I had already discussed this, and that is where she wanted to be buried. On the grassy hill at the northern edge of the horse pasture where she used to lay and rest and watch her sheep as they grazed. She thought this would be a peaceful place, her favorite place for an eternal rest. And, I made it happen. No one believed it could be done, not in such short order, but it was done and my mother was laid to rest there but not before, under the cloak of darkness, when no one could see, I took a ladder and a carrot box, with my rabbit, and buried Hase in the center of her grave. And I’m pretty certain my mother was pleasantly surprised.

Cauliflower Ear

by Daniel G. Snethen

Great was his pride.

His hair long

and his words

that of the Indigenous.

Great was his pride.

He occupied the Stronghold.

He squatted on the stolen

allotment of his Matriarch.

Great was his pride.

He helped facilitate

suicide prevention.

Great was his pride.

His focus was on traditional

teachings nearly lost,

like the throwing of the ball ceremony.

Great was his pride.

He was an AIM warrior.

He helped scatter

the ashes of Russell.

Great was his pride.

He had many children.

He had many Hunka daughters

for whom he served

as surrogate father.

But his wife, his wife

had cauliflower ear.

Daniel G. Snethen is an educator, naturalist, moviemaker, poet, and short story writer from South Dakota. He teaches on the Pine Ridge Reservation at Little Wound High School in the heart of Indian Country.

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