Posts for June 6, 2019 (page 10)

Hardly could call it a live in house,
Started as just a lean to, held farm stuff.
There rose a need for another hand
So a few improvements were made.
 
It was the thirties and no one got carried
Away and spent much. Some screen nailed
Outside the five windows, old timey brick
Look siding,yellow, short porch, a tin roof.  

Gray privy, well pump out back. Good
Enough for one young boy without kin.
Kin, there was. Showed up soon enough,
Name of Taliferro. Peculiar as sassafras.   

They were a  pure sight to behold.
Nothing much those kids did not put
Their hand to. If they held off anything
It was just because they didn’t think of it .

Stole a pig when hungry, eggs walked
Out of every nest, Fried chicken, mostly
Roosters, every Sunday even if it rained.
Never once closed a gate, a real pain.  

Need an engine? Those boys would be
Gone a day or two and sure enough
One would soon sit by your crippled truck.
Whatever you paid you knew was all profit.  

When tobacco worms needed picking off,
None of them could be found ‘cept Charles
And he was slow as a terrapin race.
It was useless to have this new place  

For a hand, the farmer figured, if all he got
Was grouchy neighbors and empty nests.
Taliferros didn’t aim to stay till harvest,
Didn’t linger even long enough to get fired.  

They weren’t the first in that place, but
For sure the most trifling. Stewart and Libby
Fancied  up that shed a bit, but she soon
Found better. Her ringing  laugh left us wishing.  

The Blades had children, we wondered where
They put them in that tiny place. Such good
Kids welcome on a road too empty of little ones.
A fire started in the night, took the place.   

Nothing could have stopped it ramshackle
As it was, no fire station in fifteen miles.
Kids were saved, lost the dog, never saw
The cat again. A wonder they all said.  

Miracle’s more like it. “Good it was gone,”
The Farmer said. “Cursed from the first.
Last tenant house on this farm. ’ll hire day
Labor or do it myself. Gettin’ older anyway.”  

End of an era and we didn’t see it coming.

We all sat around dumb as cans,
listening, polite as Sunday School.
Someone threw one pitcher of cocktails around
and we became spouts of whipped cream,
a rush of shushed camaraderie.
In the end, it was all tortured air.

tear free a hole
in the sky
pour out your blood
in the sand

on the beach,
the souls of men
stepped aside–
hiding amongst 
the torn bodies

bruised and bandaged
splinted and tourniqueted
walkers and riders–

come one, come all

war changes a man

never again, a boy–
an innocent

fear fills the void
where hope
once lived

friends arrive
together
but depart
in different
ways

fuck words
fuck poetry
it is the grit
and grime
of blood,
of bone,
gun oil,
and brains–
laid out like
a blood offering
for a hateful
god–
that is what is real

fuck your stories
your anniversary remembrances

the truth was laid bare
for a small moment
on a beach in France
and it ain’t pretty

no way, no how

the truth reflected back
at the few left living
from the bulging eyes
of the recently dead.

Ouch

The mind borderless
The surgeon cuts out a piece of lung
I play with my new toy
a morphine drip button
And dream like
count my blessings

                     as you expect-
   ed, it’s red. even the eyes, iris

                    and pupil. it always looks, seeking never
                                                    to touch, because when it touches
                                        you, it changes. its name

    is written on the inside

                               of its own eyelids, which is why
                       it never forgets you
                                         or itself, its name a call

                                                               to purpose.

               no, it never forgets, remembering
                                                              each detail,
                                  and stays awake all night
                                           which helps it to grow swiftly
      after its sudden, unexpected birth.
 
                                          later,
                            as sunlight approaches,
                                      it will recall that you are more beautiful
                                                                than you ever really were.

Another cap popped
another pine box
another teardrop
tattooed beneath      
      an eye  

Благослових с Любов! 
Любов при мен се върна!
Със изобилие Благослових 
И после го прегърнах!
Благослових със светлина ! 
Пътя ми бе освететен! 
Благослових със Божи дух 
и Той всели се в мен! 

Never once did I think it would get this far.
I didn’t want it to.
Me in my own game of solitaire.
I’m in my own thoughts in which I am losing.
I can’t even win at my own game.
Every breath I take it gets harder to inhale, let alone exhale.
I’ll gasp at the dead of night from a bad dream and roll over.
The only part that’s missing is you aren’t there.
You’re supposed to save me.
I want to get lost in your eyes and never be found.
To feel my heart beating at the same time, but only beating for you.
It’s like you’re a drug I can overdose on.
The only way I walk is knowing that if I fall you will catch me.
The dark brown in your eyes makes me lose myself.
I take one look at you and I am completely drunk.

Lost or Found

I got my first BB gun when I was twelve, at almost the 
same time as my friend Mark from across the street got
his. In no time we were staging BB gun shootouts with each
other, constantly upping the ante on who could take a hit
without crying as we kept increasing the number of pumps
between each shot. We were tough hombres, tough indeed.

I remember to this day the angry red welts welts on my 
back and my arms and legs, and one shot that came a 
little too close for comfort, catching me behind my left 
ear. We had a deal – no shooting above the neck. Mark
claims to this day that it was a mistake; I am inclined to
think it was just a way for him to try to steal a cheap win. 

When my father finally caught us, we were stuck in the 
middle of a standoff from which neither of us would 
emerge for that one last perfect shot that might force 
the other to surrender, me crouched behind the corner 
of our front porch while Mark made himself thin behind 
the huge oak tree directly across the street from my house.
 
Oh sure, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye, 
my father said as he confiscated both of our guns and 
headed across the street to turn Mark and his gun in to 
his parents before taking me home for a chat, me following 
as far behind as I dared, rubbing that spot behind my ear. 
That was easily the longest two hundred feet I ever walked.

Looking back now, the thing I am struck by most is not 
what my father said when we got home; I don’t remember 
much of that; rather, to this day I smile at the one thing  
he failed to mention, that being  just how much fun it 
would have been if one of us had actually found an eye. 

I was dying to say, it’s probably all fun and games if you 
find an eye too, as I sat on the couch and listened to my 
father lecture, that thought striking me as being more
than a little funny, proud of myself for having come up
with it. I kept looking for a opening to work that line in, 
but my father didn’t seem much in the mood for irony, so
I followed my own wise counsel and kept my mouth shut.

Years later, when my own son talked me into getting him
a BB gun, my father came over for dinner and saw my son
in the back yard, pumping it up and shooting at tin cans
he had set up on the top of the fence. He watched for a 
little and then offered the fun and games wisdom again,
and it was like I was back on the couch at my parents’ house.

This time I was ready for him. I paused for a moment and 
then replied, Yeah, but it’s also probably all fun and games 
if you find an eye too. My father frowned before turning to 
look at me. You think that’d be funny? he asked gruffly, and 
in that moment I knew I was right to keep my peace forty
years ago. Still, you have to admit, it’d be pretty cool, right?