Monday, April 29, 2013

Remembering Gypsy

Memories;
sitting at the kitchen table
with the Philosopher King,
that old, exiled gypsy...
I know you say that you are not photogenic
but your smile,
the way your eyes smile
in that sad way, fruit dying on the vine way.
Picturesque.
Smoking your cigarettes with the right hand
then the left hand
and afterwards the right again.
You would speak to the children
gathered around, sitting at your feet.
Words, 
words that were more than strings of thought.
Tribal spells from an age that will never come again,
the heart’s metal forged with unfiltered spirit
and brought forth imperfect, but perfectly fragile.
Those words would take shape, forming structures inside of us,
solid foundations,
to withstand the ravages of time and disappointment.

Friday, April 19, 2013

Winter is Coming



The knights of Spring, garlands about their necks
and blunt tourney swords in hand
the innocent youth,
having only known the warm kisses of maidens
and the sweet Summer Sun.
This season will pass,
Winter is coming.
A red comet streaks across the azure sky,
turns to blood once the sun has set
and tales dragons begin to spread across the sea.
What was once legend, stories of Grumkins and Snarks
leap from the pages of children’s stories
and into the woods beyond the Wall.
That great expanse of ice, once garrisoned as kingdom would be,
ready to defend, to hold at bay the gathering storm,
has become merely tradition.
A place for murderers and thieves as well as some second sons
and a few knights whom have no hope in owning titles or lands.
The true nature of it, a mystery to those black crowes,
standing vigil against the endless night.
They all speak the words,
“I am the sword in the darkness.
I am the watcher on the walls.
I am the shield that guards the realms of men.”,
but to what end.
Their needs are quickly disregarded by the rest of Westeros
in light of the Game of Thrones being played by so many would-be kings.
Let us pray their warnings are heeded
before that night which has no end engulfs the world
and Winter descends upon us all.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

The ashes that hold memories

The old house of our memories home
smolders, now burnt.
It is just a hull, ravaged from the inside out
The first room to go, that sacred place
where she would sit in her recliner
peeling oranges in Winter time,
sucking the juice out and tossing the pulpy Rhine
only wanting the juice,
life giving manna that staved off
sickness during the cold Kentucky Winters.

This house,
Where generations of children were raised;
those of the great mother
and later her children's children.

The front is gone, the porch
where so many seasons
beans were hulled and broke
to the sweet sound or her singing
and the stories she would tell
of family, known by many only name.

The kettle that once stood;
a cast iron cauldron
where food was canned
and mutton made.

All gone.

The grapevine, that we all raided time and again
despite the sourness of the grape
and the consequent belly ache;
purple giving away to a vibrant green,
and the sour taste would
cause a curious puckering of the lips
and uncontrollable cringe
yet we would go back for another and yet another.

Memories:
the pop of the electric fence
and the way that electricity felt
as the youngest of us were tricked into
testing to see if it was on,
as the task always fell on the youngest
time and time again.

Memories:
Sitting in the backyard by a wooden picnic table,
digging through the soft mud
and making mud pies to cook on that old
wood cook stove,
that stood in the backyard for as long
as grand kids can remember.

The dying of her house,
like losing a member of the family.
From the youngest to the oldest,
we all ran barefoot through that house at one time.
When the sun went down
and He-Haw had gone off the air
we would crawl on top of feather beads,
chins tucked neatly under homemade quilts,
trying not to move, so that our warmth would
soak deep in the feather bed.

The house is now gone and with it
the paths worn by dozens of children
from the living room to the back rooms.
Never have I seen so many beds crammed in to such a small house.
But, as a child that house seemed immense.
And now, what is left, seems so small
and the relics we once held so dear have floated
to the sky, not quite to heaven, but at a height where they will never be seen again.

The tears we shed could have quenched that fire,
the memories remain but the rooms in which we made them
are now gone;
Cast iron skillets, Red Eye Gravy, the sight of grandma
eating crackers in her coffee at the kitchen table.

So many of us still run barefoot through those halls.
Dodging fly swats and that dreaded paddle
that sat just around the corner as a reminder
the fly swat was a mercy compared to what we could have gotten.

Memories, there are so many.
And those are just mine.
The well water was so cold, but you couldn't
drink a drop until grandma scooped out
all the germs from the water bucket.
My recollections are but a drop in that bucket.
And the memories go back, back before me
before my mother.
Back to when the house was built
and the youngest child was just a baby.