Partypooper April 30, 2008

PARTYPOOPER

 

Cousin Steph’s birthday party:

She was five; I was four.

 

Dark dining room, oak table crammed with kids:

My elbows, polarized points, protected me from strangers.

 

Bingo cards, piles of pinto beans.

I hung my head and ignored the drone:

B29 . . . N32 . . . G13 . . . .

 

The boy beside me placed a bean on one of my squares, O9.

Fat teardrops rolled down my face, landed on the bean, magnified its spots.

 

“I’ll give you something to cry about,” Mom said.

She dragged me to the kitchen.

 

Light streamed through windows.

Its yellow diagonals slashed white walls.

 

Resting my cheek against the cool table,

I rubbed smooth Formica and counted its golden specks.

Picked petals from my icing, ate ice cream,

And smiled at my solitary confinement.

 

 

“Partypooper.” Poetry. 2005 Lonesome Pine Poetry Contest, Third Place.

Strawberry Season April 29, 2008

STRAWBERRY SEASON

 

 

I visit farms

Where you strut through fields

You’ll never own.

 

Your wife and kids look like you:

Jeans, plaid shirts, long black hair.

Quick-fingered, they pick strawberries.

 

At home, I hull fat berries,

Shock them with ice water,

Add sugar and cream

To cut the tart zing.

 

I gorge myself,

Run my thumb across my stained lips,

My mouth as red as your fingertips.

 

There is dirt on your hands,

And no matter where you stand,

Sun sears your skin.

 

Do you entertain bitter thoughts

As you plop sweet, red drops

Into your bucket?

 

Or is it this simple?

 

After strawberry season,

Peaches come . . .

Then tomatoes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Strawberry Season.” Jimson Weed, vol. XXV, new series vol. 9, no. 1 (Spring 2006).

Stings April 28, 2008

STINGS

 

 

Yellow jacket nest

Smack dab in the middle of a meadow

On Granddad’s farm.

 

Barbs . . . darts . . . arrows . . .

Pierced the flesh in the girl’s shorts,

The tender skin beneath her blouse.

 

Granny removed her clothes,

Exposed welts bigger than

The budding breasts that shamed the eleven-year-old.

 

The child had posed before her bedroom mirror,

Paper wadded in her shirt,

Until Mom caught her.

 

Later her father flung open the door,

Tossed two cups

Cut from a Styrofoam egg carton

 

And laughed.

 

His poison pricked her

Worse than a thousand

Yellow jacket stings.

 

 

 

  

 

“Stings.”  Jimson Weed, vol. XXV, new series vol. 9, no. 1 (Spring 2006).

Where I’m From April 27, 2008

WHERE I’M FROM

For George Ella Lyon

 

 

I am from porch swings,

Hershey bars and bottles of pop.

 

From a house of many angles,

high ceilings and slanted floors.

 

Outhouse lilies, dishwater dahlias,

wanton weeds and gaudy flowers.

 

I am from greasy suppers and sugar diabetes,

Bryans and Rambos: Romeo and Faye.

 

From big eaters and bad tempers,

so pitch a hissy when nothing fits.

 

I’ll give you something to cry about!

and Don’t play with fire or you’ll pee in the bed!

 

I am from Episcopals and Free Wills,

Presbyterians and Pentecostals,

dinner on the ground and preachers who spit.

 

From Damascus and St. Paul,

Kentucky-born and Virginia-raised.

 

The fireplace where my uncle fell –

scars stretch tight now across his back –

and another uncle child who died

years before I was born.

 

I am from hoarded photos,

shoved in a drawer,

wrinkled young faces

folded against time.

 

 

 

“Where I’m From.”  The Bluestone Review (Spring 2007).

Husband (now my ex.) April 23, 2008

(Now my ex.)

HUSBAND

 

 

You were raw white sugar,

Sweeter than sweet.

Dissolved in my heat,

Thick and sticky,

Buttery rich and brown,

Caramel, melting down.

 

Now a watched pot:

Steady and slow,

Simmering steam,

Rising above the rim.

Ready to turn up the heat.

 

  

 

“Husband.”  Poetry.  2005 Explorations, MECC, First Place.

Pushing forty April 19, 2008

 

PUSHING FORTY

 

 

I’m no autumn leaf,

Just one in a withered sheaf

Piled on a forest floor.

 

I’m not a walnut,

Black-hearted and heavy,

A pungent plunge to rot in a heap.

 

I’m no October cloud,

A white clot in the sky,

Terrible and tenuous as a sigh.

 

I’ll not turn mealy-mouthed nor sour,

A dour apple, contorted

From hanging too long in shadows.

 

I’m no doe, frozen in fear,

Stealth in each dear breath

So I’ll hear death creep up on me.

 

I’ll not dread silver threads

Cast across my head:

Life’s knotted net cannot trap me.

 

When I shed this skin I’m in,

I’ll leave a husk like a cicada.

Not a perfect replica:

 

No knobby knees and hollow eyes for me.

I’ll be filled with the

Airy, amber light of possibility. 

 

The rebirth of my worth.

My belief in my ability.

Wisdom of failures and follies.

 

I’ll not crack when I turn forty,

For when forty pushes me,

I’ll push back.

 

 

“Pushing Forty.”  Jimson Weed, vol. XXIV, new series vol. 8, no. 2 (Fall 2005).

Autumn Sacrifice – a pantoum April 15, 2008

 

 

 

AUTUMN SACRIFICE

 

 

Holy ghost mist

Walks on water

In morning’s sacred hour.

Autumn hovers above,

 

Walks on water

In reflections of the sky.

Autumn hovers above,

Mild, then meek, in wind.

 

In reflections of the sky

Leaves deny death.

Mild, then meek, in wind,

Branches scratch testaments.

 

Leaves deny death,

But frosty breath withers.

Branches scratch testaments.

Sun draws blood,

 

But frosty breath withers

Holy ghost mist.

Sun draws blood

In morning’s sacred hour.

 

“Autumn Sacrifice.”  Poetry.  2006 Explorations, MECC, Third Place.

“Puttin’ Up for Hard Times” Excerpt April 14, 2008

 

In the summer of 1954, Bull Mountain’s winding road was a well-traveled track of dirt and dark dust.  Coal trucks smudged everything in their wake. Every time I took in clothes, I had to exorcise the black demon from them. 

One miserable August afternoon, I unclipped laundry from the line and smacked the heavy air with worn towels and sheets.  I muttered — under my breath, of course.  It wouldn’t do for a child of the UMWA to be caught cursing coal.  My father was worming his way through the earth’s black intestines at that very moment.  

 

“Puttin’ Up for Hard Times.”  Jimson Weed, vol. XXIV, new series vol. 8, no. 1 (Spring 2005).

 

Vast Mysteries April 11, 2008

VAST MYSTERIES:

 

 

shells rattle on shore

like discarded bones

of ocean,

gulls track haikus across the sand,

limpid jellyfish parachute below the surf,

but always I turn

away.

 

Flimsy shores crumble beneath the touch

of sea’s salty fingers

but my mountains stand.

 

Black-seamed

folds of earth wear

down under steel

and fire and time.

 

I’d rather waltz

between locust thorns

than tread across dunes.

 

Bed me down in honeysuckle,

sleep in the blue

bliss of ancient hills.

 

 

 

“Vast Mysteries.” A! Magazine for the Arts, vol. 15, no. 4. (April 2008), on-line.

 

“The Pawpaw Tree” excerpt April 10, 2008

The family sat on the porch in silence, watching the world fall apart. Lightning raked scars across the air. Hail fell then, in ivory bits that reminded Katie of knucklebones. It seemed that the sky was sloughing off its skin to reveal its skeleton. A wail rose up around them and Jim leaped to his feet, his lips pulled back from his teeth. He pointed, though there was no need. They all saw it.         

The funnel emerged from the bank of clouds like the proboscis of some terrible insect. Katie pressed herself against the wall, fearing they would be sucked up the long snout to be devoured by this black dread. Jim grabbed her and pushed her into the kitchen.

 

 

“The Pawpaw Tree.”  Short Story.  2006 Explorations, MECC, Second Place.