February 2012
13 posts
Tumblr Friends... a Simple Request
Many of you have been quite kind to me, so I don’t feel that it’s out of the way to make this request. No matter how mad I am at my brother I can’t help but be upset that he will spend his birthday in jail this month. He will likely spend two or three years in jail. If anyone is feeling kind enough to write a letter please send it to Silver Jackson. The jail’s...
Pa put on his Sunday-go-to-Meet’ns hemmed and hawed and pawed at the tie— wearing a tie was like being hitched to a plow— he said.
The pastor talked on the evils of tobacco and gin— said a tobacco farmer was as bad as a gin-runner for giving out vices.
Pa fell back into the kitchen chair, stripped his tie— like a long dark leaf— and said:
“My land is...
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dim light, the last of us
its that dream again— its evening and parents are coaxing their children away from the last bits of 9 o’clock sun— forcing them from monkey bars and tree houses into pajamas brushing teeth— the sun is too bright the children are restless the day is too long— then it dawns on us the fire in the sky is growing heat rising the all enveloping brightness does in the...
“Derrida + Dictionary = Partial Comprehension.”
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for some reason
people assume I should be ok with my brother taking the revolving door — but this time he’s gone too far too far gone for me to help or hope — five to ten then it begins again… when will he find his way back home? My son will be 18, our grandparents dead, the farm laid to waist by some developer’s bulldozer — I had a dream of him tilling the land coaxing up the...
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Dear Brother,
another mug shot to hang on my wall in the place where a family photo should be. jerk.
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Saussure
Words, enigmatic building blocks, arbitrary relational signs, designate the flower not a tulip, not a daisy, but create the rose from thought and sound.
The Barefoot Review: Summer 2012 →
Finally! An acceptance letter! I want to thank Jason at The Barefoot Review for accepting my submission. And for being dashingly handsome.
January 2012
2 posts
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i once had this dream that you backslid through my front door Henna-Red and smiling —beaming bright and White like laughter — sometimes i wonder if i dreamed it or just remembered a happier you
December 2011
21 posts
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don't bury me in the ground...
because in my last days, when people gather to say last words, or make last amends, bring cake and pie, or don’t visit at all because my grievances were too great… I want everyone to reflect on the most simple fact of my life. I hated bugs. So, don’t bury me in the ground, if you remember me at all. Unless you hated me, then I implore you to remember that cremating my corpse...
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Online Yale course in Contemporary Poetry.
http://oyc.yale.edu/english/modern-poetry
Someone shared it on tumblr today, but I can’t find the post now.
Awesomesauce.
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Hey Snake Oil Salesman!
Come over here and sell me a bottle of your best miracle-hope-for-a-cure, that makes me peppy in the morning pretty like Donna Reed all my hairs in place none on my legs blush painted perfectly to match my lips healthy and happy smiling Crest white not a pain in the hip or a wring in the hand, not a chore un done or a worry on the brow, just one bottle of perfect-all-day, fresh mint flavor...
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people say
I’m back, as if they ever left the microbes crushed under their feet their sweat evaporated and mingling with the atmosphere the carbon in their bones still leaching into the water table… No, we never really leave. I never ever left.
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in the soup
I lit a ciggarette, from a candle in haste and was immediately struck by an Appalachian fear— a piece of Lithuanian past reached up to save a sailor from death— and formed my hands in imitation of a priest, but a bit more Orleans Voodoo, — to cross the candle three times… and save sailor my disrespect We have become— all of us— so many people in this place.
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Let’s talk BRAND IDENTITY here, I mean everydayjoe and his coffeecup BOTH knowing your name. Let’s talk scailablility, can you take this persona to the next level? Is Jamie Sue Austin going to be the next Jamie Sue Austin to do what ever it is that she does best? You know, that stuff you do, that people like and remember you for, what ever it is… Those are the kind of things you...
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Dear Mama,
I know you birthed me in the blue clay of Kentucky hoping I’d take stubborn root and grow hard for future winters, but I’m not a cedar or a pine, or a pluck of white burley— but a little white clay sipping butterfly flitting off to bright colors in foreign gardens looking for cool drinks of blue clay elsewhere in the world.
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What if I found my purpose
and it was too grand for me? Or if it didn’t suit my fancy, being suited for a particular task and having no interest. What if my purpose commanded humility to such a degree I could not bend the reed to yield to it. No, I don’t think I’ll let omnipresent powers choose my purpose. I have been built fine and flexible, vain and brilliant, I should choose my own purpose. Not to...
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I thought the awkward parts of life
like the gangly arms of teenaged boys would be grown out thick and straight a line to walk down, a path already picked, but my voice is round and my breasts low, the awkwardness always the same…
and in new ways I think “how can I endure the irritation that is the act of loving others?” to cause no harm, but to be set free to chrysalize and emerge winged, to triumph self...
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Best Rejection Letter EVER
Dear Jamie Sue, Thank you for submitting to (redacted). We appreciate your continued support and patronage. Unfortunately we were unable to find a place for your work in this issue. Sometimes this happens. It means nothing. So pull the shadows around you like a puff and get back to work. More opportunities scramble forth, trailing their long elegant heels of hot air with alice blue eyes, crinkled...
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I am paralyzed by the dirty dishes
in the same way that some personalities freeze in hostage situations the clutter constitutes too much visual input and I have lost my data processing capabilities as if the house has folded on top of me black and thick a mat of confusion with dusting repairing cleaning cooking holding healing teaching loving and merry making my primary seasonal duties
going unperformed as I sit banded and...
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a heavy brass latch
on a thick leather bag filled with TUMS Excedrin red lipstick from Macy’s and Valium
is all you need to determine a woman’s age.
you know she is old enough to value a dependable thing, for heartbreak, headaches, bright red lips, and more stress than is generally called for
I can tell you my age by saying I carry the same things, in a cloth bag (for washing), except I use lip...
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after the argument..
I have said my peace and counted to three and now you walk so carefully to avoid the cuts of eggshells
I did not spend my weeping words to build a floor of anything else but bamboo, or else I would have scattered the ground myself, with curses
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an unrequited thing
Jackie had a special place for her thoughts. Each one belonged to its own distinctly unique file box, cross referenced with images, sounds, and emotions, against all same-similar or like experience. They were locked tight and she could trace each one from its birth till its death.
It didn’t stop the thoughts from escaping. Sometimes they’d snap from her rolodex and present...
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Dent de lion
What sharp teeth you have, little yellow lion, with your mane all ablaze in golden petals, face defiant under the orange heat of summer, no wonder you are so strong, little king of the lawn.
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I have found more things alive and squirming under half rotted branches then are currently residing in my heart.
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I am trying not to be resentful, the square peg does not curse the round hole, and to take with grace, the lot and commentary given to me.
But I am.
In every passing moment I grow more weary of it. I can not fit.
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I am quiet now and properly sedated for your comfort.
Am I more pleasing in this, a simple, deconstructed, form?
I wish you could see with the same brilliance I do
because the colors and the sounds are maddening and bright. If we had the same visions erupting from our skin
you would know the ever present need to release them as doves.
So they could float, and soar, mate and die as...
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Slender footnotes with polished references cross their toes gently at the bottom of the page.
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The Story of Singing River
The held hands Wade in the water… Wade in the water, children Wade in the water… and chanted God’s gonna trouble the water gripped the sand that lapped their feet Wade in the water… Wade in the water, children Wade in the water… and let the water rush down their throats God’s gonna set you free
The Legend of Singing River: The Singing River, in...
November 2011
45 posts
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tasting
i’ll put you in a wine glass swirl you around the rim lean in to sniff for subtle hints of oak and hickory switch roll you across my tongue then spit you out
The Snake In The Possum's Pouch
Is a parable for children. It must be an unpopular one because I can’t find it online, so I’m going to tell it to you.
Gather close.
Sit next to me. Mamma Sue’s gonna tell you a story.
It was winter. The evergreens poked out from under snow coats. The oak branches drooped with swags of ice shards. The white on the ground was frozen on top, crunchy and bitter cold. It was...
5 tags
The Piggy Bank
We bought the piggy bank because my son’s occupational therapist said that mechanics needed to grasp a coin and put in in a slot were the same ones needed to hold a pen to write. It was pink and ugly. It was ill designed. Money could go in, but there was no way to get it out. It was a dollar.
The first time we sat in front of it, pennies on the carpet, it took my son an hour to get...
drachmoore asked: I just had to send you a comment about the Dream Maker's Apprentice. It's an absolutely gorgeous piece. The artistic deification of the creative process, and its resulting creations, really struck an uncommon chord. Thank you for writing it. :)
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my father drank rage like whiskey and with the same result but he’s an old man now so different sipping bourbon soft warm and civil
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She said she ate the moon and I believed her because she was glowing
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You think that once you’re too old to play in the brier patch you won’t feel the brambles— it’s a lie we tell children when thorns scratch and it’s a good lie because it keeps you playing but, don’t let me lie to myself now I’m old enough and I’m still picking burrs from my hair.
Peony
In the begining life is small and simple, but eventually it grows.
You plant it in your heart, heat it with you laughter, and before you know the blossom is ripe.
Life thrives and wilts in cycles of seasons just like flowers do. So don’t be uninspired. Be in awe.
Of the growth of every moment.
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Dear English Teachers
All of you. To Ms. Garnder in first grade. to Mrs. Stevenson in fifth, to Danny Miller in my college prep program, to Dr. Lesley and Prof. Nancy, (even to you Mark) — and everyone else, each and every one, I remember all your names.
If I cursed your day with my bad grammar, spoke too often or too long, agitated or infuriated you; forgive me. Each of you played a staring starring role in...
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in the aftermath
Leda plucked the flight feathers gathered the wings around herself stood on the cold webs took flight to play her part in destiny the painful ordination over the opponents felled herself fallen and shivering
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The Dream Maker's Apprentice
“It’s all love poems in here,” she ripped another yellow sheet from the ledger, crinkling it up and tossing it away with the same disgust she showed the last. They scattered like striped yellow mice on the floor. Scuttling, barely alive. ”You should try outside. There’s a window over there.”
I drew my finger through the dust to peer at the world. It was...
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reach up pull me from the dusty road into the blue tufts of daylight lift me out of my self suck me up into the mauve purple fog and let me fly
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i stood one arm outreached across the gap the golden gap the wide waters the sunlit path to reach out, cling, save, find strength in another weak weak is the arm that reaches back