Driving in Winter, 1960

Our car with no heat, an igloo

on wheels. Ice spores on windows sprawled

into frost ferns we could autograph with fingernails.

The loneliness of the back seat as great

as the distance between the two frigid poles.

Letters chiseled their way out of cold chests,

floated to the back seat in titanic strands

of frozen words that ripped our hulls.

Twice along the way we drifted through

warm harbors, two booths of light,

one smelling of roast  beef, the other apple pie.

My father dropped a quarter and it rolled to my feet.

I picked it up and placed it on the woman’s soft skin.

The crunch of ice beneath the tires lost its voice.

Now, when I cannot dodge the solstice of solitude,

I think of the hearth on the turnpike, 

the touch of the toll-taker’s hand.

Thanks for all the messages and requests for me to post more pieces from Percy. I hate to sound selfish or greedy, but sales are still brisk and I know the nature of people. If you give them something free, they tend to get stingy with their money. So, yes, I will post more, but not quite yet. Right now I will read and perhaps shave. Maybe even travel a bit, but you can order a signed copy from this blog or one of my others.

Which Tales Are Fish Tales

Which Tales Are Fish Tales

I don’t remember nearly drowning,

my head submerged, taking in water,

unable to kick my feet loose

as I hung like a bat in the rafters,

from my father’s arms.

He dangled me over the toilet bowl until,

by some miracle,

my mother thrust her small body against him,

knocking him down and setting me free.

She did what any mother would do,

in that circumstance – save her child.

She told me this after the divorce,

when he was halfway around the world,

maybe doing the same thing to another enemy.

I hated him for it.

It would seem a five year old would remember,

or, as I aged, be afraid of water,

but she said it, my mommy, my mom,

my mother.

The same person who told me about the fish,

a huge grouper she had caught.

So large it stuffed the car trunk,

then filled the freezer on the back porch,

then the bathtub as it thawed.

The same fish

that came to life and bit the mop handle

in half as she tried to kill it again.

The same damn fish

she saddled with a chair and rode wildly

until she stabbed it enough times

with a butcher knife.

I’m sorry mom,

I just don’t remember almost dying,

or the fish almost living.

Homer's Trilogy

Homer’s Trilogy

1

The German soldier waited,

nerves chattering,

knife in his filthy hand

tapping a dirge on the stone wall,

and when my grandfather eased past

the corner of the building

the German lunged,

arm pounding mechanically --

rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat --

driving the blade into toughened meat.

My grandfather swung his gun around,

knocking the attacker to the ground,

then shot him in the forehead.

After stripping the dead man of papers,

Luger and dagger,

he hurried off to find a medic.

This is how I believed the scars,

shining like ten skinny maggots,

found their way to my grandfather’s

shoulder. He never told me the real story,

never gave the wounds any words,

only said he hoped I never

had to see a war.

But the little slits called to me,

begging me to place an ear near his naked back

and let their whispers burrow

into my imagination.

2

He would kill you

if you touched him

as he slept. Spring up

and send the Max Brand

or Zane Grey paperback,

splayed across his chest,

flapping at spine-breaking speed

into the wall--desperados

and Indians were his release

from the Luftwaffe

and Blitzkrieg. His massive

frame poised to crush

the Iron Cross shining

through the fog on every breast.

Those French nights

of sleeping with open eyes,

hair-trigger ears

and a six pack ready

to snap him into action,

turned my grandfather into a man

who had no dreams.

3 

Stick and Frye Funeral Home

had been in business forever,

it seemed, handling the town’s

special needs with quiet care.

When I lived with my grandparents,

my grandfather, a large, crusty

WWII sergeant-turned-brick mason

would answer our phone,

“Hello, Stick and Frye Funeral Home,

you stick’em, we fry’em.” My face flushed,

turned hot enough to heat up whoever

was on the other end, leaving me praying

for the use of Mr. Stick’s fine services. It was

nearly impossible for me to be somber

at any funeral there, until I was an adult.

I just could not look at those gathered,

or the one they gathered for,

without hearing my grandfather’s voice

answering our phone, over and over.

I have received several messages from readers wanting to know when I will post more poems from the book. That is wonderful and flattering, but I always respond by letting them know that the book has ALL the poems inside, if they should care to go that route.  Some have, others prefer to wait.  I will post another piece soon, but if I post too many and too soon, then there is no reason to have a book in print. Yes, there is a method to what seems like either madness or laziness! Please check out the happenings at my other blogs, lots of great words and pics. In the meantime, I have been out and about.  If you see me, I am the man in the panama hat.

In Living Color

In Living Color

 

Armed with a butcher knife

my sister, six, attacked the new

television almost as soon

as the delivery man left.

A Zenith console model

“IN STUNNING OAK,

DESIGNED TO MATCH

ANY DÉCOR!”  And, by God,

it wiggled in very well

with our early-garage-sale motif.

Both hands gripped the oak handle

as she swung like Babe Ruth,

little chunks of that fine oak

exploded through the air,

lost forever in the shag carpet.

She did not know why.

We tried to fill in the gashes

with some brown crayons,

spread a long doily

over the top,

watched cartoons in color,

and hoped my mother

and stepfather

would not take the same knife to her.

Talking With Triggers

Talking With Triggers

Perched in a live oak

cloaked in moss

my uncle waited

for a deer, wild boar

or turkey,

while beneath him

two men idled

out of the brush

and argued.

Neither looked up.

A shotgun blast

from one blew

the other back.

A life soaked quickly

into the crispy

forest floor.

A sheriff brought

my uncle home,

ripped gaping holes

into the family

with verbal buckshot

and left with us

a loaded shell of doubt.

Six years later,

barely 21,

my uncle’s own life

was soaked up by sand

on a riverbed

in Southeast Asia.

Two of the men

who had been

in a Georgia forest

one fall afternoon

are now reduced

to piles of  lead

and bone. The shell

of doubt still rests

in the chamber.

Beaver Creek

The sounds were the same forty years ago,

but we shrugged off the babbling brook,

the gurgling crick, the rushing water;

clichés that could not choke

the fluid chords.

She still has a croaking throat

of limestone boulders, which spills

low tones over a gravelly tongue.

Through lips of sand and reeds

she begins every conversation the same,

“Do you remember when…”

I sweeten my mouth with a BB-sized

teaberry—it tingles my jaw like dill—

and wait for her question to disappear

before I answer, “Yes, I do.”

Socks

 

The white socks were turning tan

from being horribly abused every day

and washed with a bar of soap

every night for months. I laid them

across the heating vent in the winter

and over the shower curtain rod

the rest of the time. They rarely dried

completely, made my feet and shoes

smell like mildew, and finally got

too many holes in the heels and toes.

I threw them out, panicked,

put on my shoes and walked

to Bargain City where I opened

a pack of socks, put three pairs on,

painfully crammed my feet into my shoes

and walked out. I was not proud

of my first theft, but I had no money,

no socks and no magic beans to grow any.

They lasted the rest of the school year,

then I gave them

to my brother.

Whatever Happened to Sandy Posey?

Whatever Happened to Sandy Posey?

Becoming a man in ‘67 was easy.

I had a newly grown wreath of hair.

A dream had beckoned my manhood,

stolen my virginity before sunrise.

My father was lost to the war,

claimed by the mysteries of Asian women.

My uncle was lost to the war,

filled with lead during Operation Hump.

It was the rite for the oldest to bump up.

Moving to Phoenix had brought rebirth.

It was hot and exotic. The open-air markets

bathed me in the ripeness of luscious smells.

A bass player’s thumb plucked sounds

that thrummed inside my lower half,

while a sweet voice seeped into 

the airwaves and snatched my senses.

She was all alone in a great big town

and needed a nighttime lover

to get her through the day. No price

was too great to pay. There was a man

she had yet to know, waiting in a place

she had yet to go.

I stole the records and, when the songs

were not on the radio, played each 45 rpm,

over and over, until the abused grooves

could take no more.

I wanted to be her man, the banana in her mango,

the fresh cream on her morning peaches.

Sandy teased me all summer.

She was, after all, Born A Woman and A Single Girl.

Kathleen's Car

Kathleen’s Car

If one owned a car in Blue Jay

it was just as likely to be in the back yard

as in the driveway.

It was just as likely that

one would take parts off to sell

as one would buy parts to put on.

The front seat was just as likely

to be warmed by Skeeter, the coon hound,

as Aunt Franny’s fanny being hauled around.

Kathleen’s car was in purgatory.

Twelve years of bath-free minimal care,

harsh use and hard weather,

had planted the old Chevy

firmly at an undetermined point

on the eye-sore-to-rust-bucket continuum.

It did run, with a bang

that harmonized with the music

of hunting season,

and its smoke snakes

slithered invisibly through

mornings of impenetrable fog.

The choking venom poked noses

when the fog wafted.

Once a shiny new Baby Blue

it had grown a densely-knitted,

rust-colored shawl,

and paint once as smooth

as a baby’s butt had erupted

into ugly sandpaper.

She had taken us to town,

to the market, to school,

wherever our destination might be,

but such was our shame to be seen

that we dropped a coin, a book,

a paper and leaned over to pick it up,

so nobody would see.

In fact, Kathleen hauled most of the kids

to one place or another,

but you only ever saw her driving alone.

Helen's Place

Helen's Place

My father lived on and off with a woman

for several years. They would share

afternoon-into-evening-into-late-evening

drinks for months, then each would become unclear

about whether the other was good enough

or bad enough to keep.

During one of the “on again” stints,

her son sat in a chair at the kitchen table,

put a gun in his mouth,

had the will to follow through.

The knotty pine caught most of the death,

and it was my father who relieved

the wood of its burden. Scrubbing

the wall, running rags into the grooves

and channels of the panels then dipping

them into the bucket of warm

Pine-Sol solution. Each rinse and wring

tinting the milky fluid a deeper pink,

adding more bits and pieces

to slush on the bottom,

like gold flakes in a miner’s pan.

There was never an “off again”

after that. My father based

his handyman business in the house,

a man who couldn’t even glue his family together.

He died in one of its small bedrooms,

before I could tell him

that his work in the kitchen that day

was perhaps his best.

Little Dreamers

Pre-Batteries Not Included.

Pre-Each Figure Sold Separately.

Before every word, action and thought

was scrutinized with litigious intent,

there was the Sears Catalog,

Fort Apache being attacked,

in full-page, four-color fashion,

by (whisper with me) Indians.

In thirty minutes three boys,

on their bellies on the living room floor,

could win the battle, save the fort

and protect the entire West.

All this before any scribbled

a single letter on a Christmas list.

All this before they flipped the page

to G.I.  Joe.

Please enjoy reading poems from Percy, a book that was an entrant for a National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. I will post poems periodically, however, if you would like to purchase the book you may do so here, or you can check with your local library to see if they have it on the shelf.