Posts for June 3, 2022

Tonight I remembered “Evenlyn’s Empianada’s”
I lived in Clarksville, TN.
Only sometimes was it…
Full of “hopes and dreams”
I can still hear his perfect teeth
as they glanced the whiskey glass 
 while he winked that car salesman grin.
Only Sometimes…
On his sober days 
Which were few and far between.
He’d get too hammered
so I’d leave any chance I could. 
So he could slam beers with the guys,
instead of slammin’ me for a while.
There was a little shack
That sat ont he Kentucky/Tennessee line
Literally right on the line. 
(They had a center parking space
that read, “ever been two places at once? 
Here’s your chance!”

A little old man with calloused hands
kind eyes, who worked with his daughter. 
Evelyn.
Molasses skin and sunshine
coal black locks and perfect 
wine stained lips.

They made “Jamacian treats” as 
they called them. 
Evelyn would love me back to life
with every recipe. 
I’d sit in that center space 
between two states, and watch the sun go down.
With every bite I made my business plan.

PS: Thanks for the amazing free food, ice packs and free parking to some amazing sunsets.

Yeasteday I watched sweet twin heads
become ponies
with an elaborate family
enhanced by their own OOAK (One of A Kind) specials
complex & detailed stories 
played out in 8 year old hands
Ten years later today
Cherishing a found notebook
the backstory of Jalapeño Pepperish Pony
plus a journal entry 
from the lab of Sushi Origami 
June 4th tomorrow 
they will be 18,  Baby A and Baby B
still full of spunk
& as magical as the day they
arrived from Equestria.

ten and wild
brown hair flying 
the van hatch opened to
 a row of blues and yellows 

mamaw pointed 
to the trunk
layered with plastic flowers
“this is your job someday
when I’m gone sissy,”

chosen, I began 
duties of matriarch
the stories of my kin 
reselient, women 

it seemed a lonely love
keeping memories alive 
of ones you never knew

twenty years passed
and I sit on my plot
beside your stone 
decorating,

UK blues and yellow marigold 
ready to tell your story 
to anyone 

Take note-
here, the grating of vocal folds
that so often follows
a period of overuse.

Unbidden,
the image of a final sentence,
half-mangled,
drags itself into existence.

In its wake
waving limbs and urgent hands 
conflict- a vague pantomime
that dreams of understanding.

I want to ask myself when I became what I am now
This new version of me.
A helpless little girl who dies inside at the hands of others.

I want to be a powerful woman
But I am broken.
Pieces of me are sprinkled across the floor

I wait and wait for her to pick them up
But she never comes.

Oh ye who stray so far from home
Me who lay beneath the bone
Sing in three a tale atone

First a man when in Rome
Mother maiden should have known
Oh ye who stray so far from home

See a man mouth of foam
Oh silly corpse turned to stone
Sing in three a tale atone

Second heard a strained laced comb
Finally left all alone
Sing in three a tale atone

Last a child left on his own
Sent past an iron throne
Sing in three a tale atone

Lovers lost a quiet gnome
Son like mother all but grown
Oh ye who stray so far from home
Me who lay beneath the bone

pink lemonade is still so decadent,

               but before

it might have been manna, like

a Ninja Turtle popsicle which tastes of

soft cardboard, though at least its eyes are gumballs,

and you’ve held not just pennies

               but quarters

in your life.

yet you’ll never be quite as decadent again

as the soft cardboard of a palace waiting for the touch of

a full 80 piece art set (non-professional)

complete
                                                  with pastels,

                                                  a dented, stubble-metal box,

                                                  and pronged marker caps.

in your life,

you’ll remember the touch of the

pliant plastic of sparkly Cinderella slippers,

                                                  recall their texture,

                                                  never their shape nor

                                                  color.

Sparkly lights and

Shrinking stars

Brighter under the

Light of these

Bars you shiver

Skating by and

Questioning fate

Kiss me you kiss

Back but you’ve

Started to crack

Steamy shrimp waterfalls flood our table of crabs, eye level
Sounds of plenty, seas of laughter, yet in time these all subside
Tables now vacant, albums full, rising tides of memory

All the Underwoods stand