Weekender

Lights out,
10 p.m.
A faint glow
filters through
the 12" X 12"
barred window
of the corridor door,
casting two long
parallel shadows
down the cell block hall.
During my first night
among weekenders,
those of us
who did our jail time
on weekends,
whose crimes weren't
severe enough
to warrant a cell
with more
hardened criminals,
I discovered that
squinting my eyes
superimposed
the bars of my cell
over the shadows
in the hall
creating
a makeshift
tic-tac-toe pattern.
Bored,
I played the child's game
for hours,
lying on
a top bunk,
mentally drawing
Xs and Os
until my eyes
grew tired of the
no  win  game.
Cheating,
I drew a line
through three Xs,
closed my eyes,
thought of home,
dozed to the sounds
of my cell mates:
one praying,
the other
mumbling profanities
in his sleep.

The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature - Summer Sabbatical (July 2010) edition

This poem was also awarded first place in the 66th Annual Fine Arts Festival Awards Ceremony and Exhibition of Rockingham County, NC on July 11, 2010.

poems

...incubate
at the edge
of the woods,
emerging like mushrooms
shrugging off
a coat of autumn leaves.
their aroma
sweetens
the cool crisp air.
their spores cling to you
until you wash them off
or write them down.

The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature - Summer Sabbatical (July 2010) edition

Barstool

bartender
listening to
the shrink's problems

barmaid
so much history
inked in tattoos

barfly
penning poems
on a beer-soaked napkin
 

Concise Delight Winter 2009

(Inspired by a Roberta Beary senryu.)

love poem

sometimes
I like to imagine
that she's
googled me;
she'll read
a few
of my poems
in an online
journal,
remember
the one
I penned for her
decades ago.
she'll rise from her chair,
retrieve an old shoe box
from a closet,
sit down
at the kitchen table
with a cup of coffee,
tenderly lift
and unfold
a yellowed scrap
of notebook paper,
read that love poem
aloud,
smile,
look wistfully
out the window
into
her rose garden
and say,
"I'm glad
I didn't marry
that poor bastard."
 

The Wild Goose Poetry Review Volume 4, Issue 4 Winter 2009

Bud Vernon's Arrest Story

I was arrested for driving drunk
back in '83.
My wife, Kate, and I had been to a party.
She'd had too much to drink,
tried to start our old pickup
with her roller skate key,
so I drove.
We'd almost made it out of the city limits
when, suddenly,
blue lights started blazing
like a K-Mart special.
A chubby runt of a policeman
eased up to the driver's side of my truck,
hand on the butt of his pistol,
shouted, "Step slowly out of the vehicle, sir!"
Well, I stepped so slow I stumbled,
bumped my nose on the door,
and I reckon that's why he had me take
what he called a sober-variety test.
I passed the test, touched the tip of my bloody nose
with my fingertips,
walked heel-to-toe, heel-to-toe
down a solid yellow line on the road,
not an easy feat in brand new boots...
Flashlight blinding my eyes,
he says, "Mr. Vernon, I'm going to have to take you into custody."
...which, naturally, irritated me.
I turned to Kate, still in the truck, and said,
"Honey, this fat son-of-a-bitch is taking me in."

....and wouldn't you know he handcuffed me
quicker than a cowboy tying the legs of a steer?
Fastest little fat s.o.b. I ever did see!
I apologized, told him that my remark
was just an expression,
that he probably had a fine upstanding mother.

I was the only one laughing...

...lost my license for a year,
spent ten weekends in the county jail,
started buying Johnny Cash records after that.
 

The Wild Goose Poetry Review Volume 4, Issue 4 Winter 2009

Pebble

Not so much
the fiery streak
that split the
autumn night
or the impact it made
miles away
as we watched
with awed delight
but the distance
the distance
traveled
only to sizzle and fizzle
in the deep
dark
Atlantic

Magnapoets - Issue 5, January 2010

A Conversation Overheard Outside the Court House

actually,
you're getting off light,
considering what you blew
in that breathalyzer,
and you called a cop a son-of-a-bitch,
ten weekends in jail,
hell,
I could do that with my eyes closed,
just one thing:
sleep on the bottom bunk;
hot air rises
you'll be cooler below,
oh,
and when you're lying on your back
trying to figure out how
you landed in such a predicament,
know that there are
98 air holes
cut into the bottom
of the metal bunk above you,
it helps the mattress breathe,
counted them enough to know...
 

The Wild Goose Poetry Review Volume 4, Issue 3 Fall 2009

Abigail Beasley: Town Gossip

Old Bob Hathaway
wears tin foil
under his straw hat;
claims it's the only way
to keep space aliens
from reading his mind.
Now I ask you,
why does Bob Hathaway
sit on a wooden stool in his back yard,
hat planted firmly on his bald head,
gazing at the stars at night?
Is he trying to keep Them
from reading his mind?
or, is he really trying to read Theirs?
 

The Wild Goose Poetry Review Volume 4, Issue 3 Fall 2009

Abigail Beasley: Town Gossip (video)

Maggie Sands: The Way I See It

I've seen how Abigail Beasley
looks at Bob Hathaway
when he's loading lumber
on the back of his truck,
the way she twist and fingers
the curls in her long blonde hair when he glances
in her direction.
I heard Abigail Beasley say that Bob Hathaway
looks like Yul Bryner now that he shaves his head.
She ain't fooling me.
Scuttlebutt is that Bob Hathaway
sits in his back yard at night
with a rust bucket of a radio
trying to tune-in to signals
from outer space.
I don't know about such things,
but there's one thing I do know:
Abigail Beasley's signals
are broadcasting loud and clear.
 

The Wild Goose Poetry Review Volume 4, Issue 4 Winter 2009

Cora

During the summer
she would sit on the steps
of her small house
combing her hair dry
in the morning sun.
It was the only time
I could see her hair
in its natural state:
long and flowing,
like a white waterfall,
each strand a testament
to a faith unbroken.

“God knows the number of hairs on your head”,
she told me
in that melodious voice
that was like honeysuckle to me.
“Read your Bible
and regardless of the circumstances,
don’t ever be too busy to stop
and count your blessings.”

Plucking bobby pins from her flowered apron,
she would twist her hair up
into a bun
humming Amazing Grace
while mourning doves cooed their approval.

Though blind,
her eyes bespoke a wisdom
I longed to know.
 

 

The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature - November 2009 edition

Millie

she slipped away
as I held her in my arms
a final breath escaped
with barely a whimper
I wept
as she was taken from me,
a stethoscope confirming
what I already knew
she was gone
nine years
63
is too young die

with mattock and shovel
I dug a grave
beside the walnut tree
in the backyard
leaves falling
on top of her small cardboard coffin
as I lowered it
into the ground
along with her toys
except one:
a long ragged athletic sock
that we used
for the occasional game
of tug o’ war
she, relentless in her battle
to hang on to it,
and me
always
letting go
 

 

The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature - November 2009 edition

Equilibrium
—for Albert Huffstickler

Just so you’ll know,
I’ve gathered all of your poems
that I could find
into one large document.
I go there
when the day spirals out of control,
to sip coffee,
to hear your voice,
to spin counterclockwise.
 

 

The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature - November 2009 edition

dream siren

she turns the corner
in an old grey sedan,
hubcaps missing from two wheels,
driver door dented,
engine protesting
her inability to be on time
for a minimum wage job
at the drive-in;
head nodding
to the radio,
flash of a cigarette
between red lips,
jet black hair
streaked with grey,
winner of talent shows,
breaker of hearts,
valedictorian
who wanted to be
a rock star
 

 

The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature - November 2009 edition

kudzu

a dead pine tree leans over
Highway 220,
north of Greensboro,
suspended by thick vines
wrapped around its trunk;
big rigs speed under
a canopy of brown needles
and lush green leaves
crushing
the occasional pine cone
 

 

The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature - November 2009 edition

java

hot, black,
in a white cup,
fueling the word factory,
averaging
two poems
per
serving
 

Concise Delight Magazine of Short Poetry - No. 1, Summer 2009

Dee Dot

Dee Dot died,
drunk
talking to a telephone pole.
He keeled over,
like a felled oak,
6'6", 270 lbs. of quarter Cherokee
hitting the sidewalk with a thud,
blood trickling out of the back of his skull
into the gutter.

Dee Dot conversing
with the spirits
of inanimate objects,
or so they say,
drinking heavily to quiet the voices
whispering in his brain,
now lying on his back,
lifeless eyes open
reflecting the clouds, the sun,
the wires
abuzz
with all those voices.
 

The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature - March 2009 edition

Dee Dot (video)

On Momma Exiting the Denim Factory

I don't know what
made her look straight-up
into the sky,
perhaps it was to allow her eyes
to drink another shade of blue,
or to gaze beyond the limitations
of four gray walls,
having worked
a ten hour shift
seated at a sewing machine
so I could start the school year
in a new pair of blue jeans. . .

. . .but when bird shit landed
in the middle of her forehead
I couldn't help but laugh,
my adolescent mind,
saturated with reruns
of The Three Stooges,
(nyuk, nyuk, nyuk)
reasoned that a whupping
would somehow be worth it.

I was wrong.
 

The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature - Summer Sabbatical (July 2009) edition

piecework

blue-stained fingers
pressing rivets
into denim

a gray-haired woman
sneezing blue
into a tissue

30 hour work week
the foreman resets
the time clock

last day —
a parting gift
of red suspenders

crumbled pink slip —
three weeks and she can still hear
the whistle blow

jobless —
saying grace
over grits

The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature - Summer Sabbatical (July 2009) edition

a.m.

You can set your clock
by The 2:15,
wailing
like a wounded animal
in the middle of the night.

Dogs lament its passing,
howling
as it fades
on its predestined path.

The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature - Summer Sabbatical (July 2009) edition

Wheel Jammin'

tapping bongo rhythms
on our steering wheels,
grooving to saxophone riffs,
jazz,
setting the morning mood,
sun brighter, breeeeeze cooler,
all stoplights green;
for four minutes of radio time,
the lady in my rear-view mirror
isn't a soccer mom in a mini-van
and I'm not lost in an Olds,
no,
we are lovers
of a smoooooth jazz song,
bobbing our heads
like bobblehead dolls,
wheel jammin' and smiling our way
through Hillsborough, North Carolina
 

The Christian Science Monitor - October 16, 2008 edition

Wheel Jammin' (video)

Terminus

The time has come
when he'd rather be with his friends
than go fishing with his father.
It happened with his brother
at the same age,
the crossroads in life when I become
the "old man."

Sometimes, I find it humorous
that his friends mistake me for him
when I answer the phone.
"Do you think your old man would mind
if we go to the movies?"

Sometimes, I want to go with them.  

Magnapoets - Issue 3, January 2009

The Hermit

...rickety shack,
weeds waist high
in the yard.
I'd see the old man
picking poke salad
along Sycamore Road,
his mongrels trailing,
dog-eat-dog
for a morsel
of rabbit,
'possum,
or muskrat
until,
one day,
he
fell
dead
in his front yard,
lying in the weeds
for over a month
his body
providing nourishment
for the pack.

Sketchbook - October 31, 2008, Vol. 3, No. 10

Diner

They sit in a booth made for two,
thin, frail, toothless. . .
he, in bib overalls and a tattered flannel shirt,
she, in a faded blue dress and yellowed sweater,
dining on grilled cheese sandwiches and hush puppies,
drinking sweet iced tea out of styrofoam cups,
surrounded by a lunch crowd
feasting
on platefuls of Carolina pork barbecue
(the scent of hickory-smoked meat thick in the air).

She takes a paper napkin, reaches across the table,
wipes a spot of ketchup
from the corner of his mouth;
he smiles, winks,
stops the waitress,
orders two spoons
and a single-serving of banana pudding.
Their hands, spotted with age,
join in the center of the table;
their backs
curved by time
into a perfect bow.

Sketchbook - August 31, 2008, Vol. 3, No. 8

Hatteras

The surf speaks
to those who listen
hush. . .hush. . .hush. . .
washing away
that which anchors us
to who we are
and the place we call home.

Magnapoets - Issue 2, July 2008

Savannah Groove

the saxman inhales
a passing breeze
b l o w s   Sweet Georgia Brown
down River Street
breath and hands tapped
into a vein of rhythm
fingertips
on the keys of his horn
the pulse of the city

Magnapoets Premiere Issue - January 2008

Cedar Point

sunlight etched around the summit
like a terrestrial corona
mist furling up the slope
sifting through acres
of evergreens
soon
a long shadow
will begin its eastward journey
slowly uncovering the mill town
in the valley of the Mayo River
where roosters sleep late
and fathers and sons fish for hours
without the need of sunglasses
 

Magnapoets Premiere Issue - January 2008