She wanted all surrounding
To know in uncertain terms
She had arrived in spades
Far surpassing even her family’s
Modest spread
She owned the cattle upon
A thousand hills
Or was it a thousand cattle
Upon a hill
She lost track
And mostly
No one was counting but her.
The tricked out raggedly low rider
Sedan with the booming nigga
Rap of hating whitey pulled up
Rather rapidly to the dock
Where three black teens with
A package wrapped in a grocery
Plastic headed toward me
I gave out a kind of inner groan
For what was to transpire
When all they wanted to do
Was release the box turtle they
Found on the road
They asked me if I got paid
For what I did
Got back in the hate whitey booming
Low riding two door and were gone
Somewhere a land turtle down below
Was trying to figure how so suddenly
His world went from crossing the road
To escaping from drowning .
I just quizzically said
Yes nigga
Why ain’t whitey paid?
That day in the bow
You paddled through
The low
Lying limbs stirring
The paper wasps
To swarm all around
Him as he passed
In the stern
I was watching him
Fighting
Swatting
Diving in
I was inwardly
Laughing
At your unknown
Plot of his misery
Today
I had compassion
On a paper wasp
Who was drowning
In the pool
Certain he would
Show gratitude
For my rescuing him
He stung me
In my misery
Without mercy
The second take
Never quite satisfied
I returned to the scene
To try and capture something missing
Angle
Perspective
Light
So elusive to align
I’m certain this shall not be the last time
Returning
Creative thievery
Who would steal a poor photographers $50 bill? I can't imagine. Hope you needed it worse than I did.
This was from 2017. I have a good idea who the thief was. The same person to this day steals the pain pills from her mother.
Loud and resounding an end
More along the clarinet or French horn
Muted, mournful, longing
At the same moment bringing
Joy unspeakable
Often the best paths
Are the ones requiring
A bent low stance
Down on the level
Of the animal
The ones deemed
Lower than man
Down there low
God makes a kind of
animal-like sound
Unknown to
Standing tall man.
The round green eyes and
The long wavering bodies
Of the dark leopards of the moon?
Yeats.
Photo impression
Leopard frog under eclipse moon
How do you know
If in presence of royalty
You are?
The Monarch says
Off with your head!
The Viceroy says
To the dungeon til dead!
The Queen says
Spare the lad instead.
When I came to Williston from Kentucky in sixty seven, I was not aware of the caste system. I would date some of the women, but they would eventually break up. Soon they'd end up with one with land, or road construction machines, pine trees, cattle, money , you name it,but not one who wrote poetry. They knew who to marry. One went for a spreader of fertilizer in fields, another for one with foundry connections. They knew who to cast for. I was an outsider. Little did I realize one little lady, an oil painter on Noble, had prayed that I would marry a Williston girl. It seemed an impossibility to break into the Mortgage Hill Caste system. She eventually died and I in seventy seven moved away. But God honors the prayers of his artists and at the late age of thirty three, I married a Williston girl named Melanie.
I guess it was mercy I did not marry one in my own futile efforts , as I'd no doubt be spreading fertilizer today counting my money.
It was right out of Deliverance
With the roar of the shoals
I stood right above the shirtless
Shot him three times
Left him for alive
He never knew I spared his soul....
