Where the Wild Rice Grows

These poems are typical of Ernie’s unique style. Each tells a story. The Bard of the Blanco section contains poems of the Texas hill country where Ernie makes his home. It is a land of beautiful hills, spiny plants, and deep canyons. Water is the major need, and the Bard section of poems illustrates the position of this valuable resource in area. The Mesquite Bean War is a decades old project that has not come to fruition yet. It is a novel length poem about the Tonkawa tribe pushed into the hill country by warring horse tribes of the plains, and crushed between advancing white settlements and the Mexican culture to the south. These five poems show Ernie’s depiction of life in those early days. Ernie’s famous line, “Between white and right, and red and wrong, the Tonkawa ceased to be,” has been used in numerous references.

Far Flung Tails is a collection of Ernie’s world travels. Poems such as “Glyfada Square” and “Donne Vecchia” have been published in print and on-line. Other poems have received some recognition such as “Newfie Girl” and “The Caravan.” The chapter entitled Deep Water Runs Still contains much of Ernie’s philosophy of life.

Life is Funny That Way is a chapter that features Ernie’s humorous look at life. Love and Other Illusions features some of Ernie’s most popular and successful poems. The award winning poem “Moonlit Arabesque” is found here, along with his moving piece “Itsy bitsy From Itta Bena.”

Special Forces is the section where Ernie deals with war. As a veteran of the Viet Nam era, Ernie has received some recognition writing about the men and events of this war. One poem, “The Helmet at Duc Lap” was featured in “Intertwined, Poetry of Peace as a Shared Endeavor” the 2015 Art of Peace Tyler Poetry Anthology. Ernie gets frequent requests to read “Waiting for Nurse Godot.” In the section entitled The True-badour, contains Ernie’s commentary on contemporary life with poems like “The Edge of Town” and the very current “A Nation Burning.”

Heroes and Outlaws features poems about legends, real and imagined. His well-received poem “Alamo Blue, The Antithesis of the Dawn” is a frequent request, along with “Takin’ Stock”, a poem about a cowboy who looks at his life and makes some changes. Let Me Count the Ways rounds out this collection with “South of West, Toward Paradise”, and “Alarms”.