PoetryRepairShop 06.02:013

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06.
02:
013

poetryrepairshop 06.02:013

GERALD PARKS On the Farm
And so I would go wandering around my Grandma's farm, even down in the fields where once there used to be cows that you had to call home in the evening, with a big bell that otherwise she, a schoolteacher, used to call the kids to school, and the cows would come placidly plodding, their brown heads nodding this way and that way, and they didn't care what you called them, Betsy or Brownie or whatever, it was all the same to them, they just wanted to get back to their stalls for a night's rumination: there are no cows now, but I wandered lonely and free through the fields and woods, down right to the edge of the swamp, through undergrowth so thick it was hard to move your legs, up and down hills, fascinated by the trees and plants and the half-cut paths, and the old, abandoned car where my sister cut her leg once while we were out playing - she was pretending to drive the rusty wreck of a car and cut her leg deep on the sword-like side of the fender and I ran for help and they took her off to the hospital for stitches and all the rest; now that too was part of the adventure, the risk, the love of freedom where no one lingers, and being alone with the silent trees and the earth that is nothing but earth, neither more nor less than itself, and you know that the earth wouldn't give a damn or a dollar if you suddenly fell into a hidden trap, a covered-over depression meant for a bear, perhaps, and you fell down twenty feet into nothingness, and had to stay there, because yelling does you no good, no one knows where you are and the woods are too big and too wild, if you fall down into the trap no one will ever find you no matter how hard you yell, so you might as well save your breath, and meditate on the danger of freedom, as the sundown buries you in a pit and you rest your head on the earth that has decided it is your turn, today, to come trundling home.

Copyright 2006, all rights revert to the poet.
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VALERIE DEATON You Can't Judge a Woman By Her Whorish Qualities
Edna smells like yesterday's sex, But Carl's been working in the foundry for 37 years And most vapors escape his notice. She's just stepping out 'cause Wade's upstate in Pittsburgh, And Carl's doing the usual Saturday night routine, As a guitarman wails loud and slow About good times gone bad and men laid low. Edna's not one of them thick-legged bitches. She's worn out, used up, and collects Aunt Jemima dolls. Carl wears a polyester Johnny Reb cap. He bought it on his one and only trip South in 1985, Down at Boone Hall Plantation, near Charleston, Where admission is charged to view The forsaken land and paths through the past... And lunch is served in the overseer's cabin Transformed by plastic and painted-over wood. Where they serve quiches, BLT's and progress Charging inflated prices for half-assed goods. Selling, by the thousands, those Tawainese Aunt Jemimas With red-checkered bandannas, laughing faces, and slightly slanted eyes. And the South succeeds at last In clutching the Yankee dollar, Amid forgotten fields of sea island cotton And long-grain rice swept up by the price of manual labor.

Copyright 2006, all rights revert to the poet. _

SOON a special issue featuring the poetry of VALERIE DEATON

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