Buster Peacock & The House of Many Colors
When the city of Freeville
widened the highway,
they didn’t plow down
a single shingle in
Foxcroft
White Pointe
Golf Crossing.
Instead, they took
Buster Peacock’s land.
A blind old black man
in a felt blue hat
with a sagging shack
on twenty acres of
scrub pine and sand.
That house was old
even in Jim Crow’s day
when Buster carried
his sweet Veleetha
over the threshhold,
felt the angles of her face
the curve of her hips,
a perfect place for babies:
Buster Jr.
Scoochie
Little Toot.
Buster Peacock could feel the color
of four rooms with his fingers, the tips
of his toes—the brown creak and sigh
from tired floorboards at night.
The way the feather bed felt
like cool water blue when
the breeze blew gauze curtains
over Veleetha’s sleeping face.
That little red place in the doorway
where Scoochie bumped his head
when he got so tall, the gold notches
where Buster Jr. carved his name,
the yellow dip in the hallway where
Toot liked to slide in socks.
The silver click of the cuckoo clock
exactly eight steps from a gray hum
from the refrigerator, the green smell
of the breadbox on a hot June day.
The city could not understand
why Buster cried so hard
over a broke down shack.
They gave fair market value.
But they didn’t care that
you can’t place market value
on a breadbox or children
grown or a wife passed on.
The day they moved him
to a retirement home,
the dozer crushed
through his front door.
Buster could feel color
all over again.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Waiting For Mother
Waiting for mother was easier
before autumn crackled in
and ate the days up early.
It was my job to never cry
and light the living room fire.
I was six and alone with wood
and the sharp clear bark of cold.
The wind tip-tapped
the spider crack windows
looking for a place inside
to build its nest.
I knew Mother would come,
she would come home and see
me in the big of the dark,
clumsy with wood and the room
closing its teeth around me--
the naughty buds of fire
refusing to open and grow.
The room smiled pumpkin warm
when I coaxed the fire to raise
its broken, bloody wings.
The branches fluttered shadows
like long lashes on the walls.
Those nights were yellow glad;
I could play and wait, listen
to the purr of wind against the sky.
I liked to watch the moon
scrape across the window.
I liked to tell stories to my dolls,
hold them close to the fire,
watch their smiling faces melt.
And the moon held me.
And the smoke held me.
And the long curly hair
of the shadows held me.
And the moon made me full.
And the fire ate my fever.
And the rise and fall of flames
sang me softly to sleep.
Sometimes when I woke,
the fire left burning sores
on tangled legs of branches.
Sometimes when I woke,
the moon rattled at the window.
The cold was thorny
up and down my back.
The knots in the wood
stared like bad baby eyes,
and the clock was click click
clicking its high heels
in the crying midnight room.
I knew when Mother came home,
she would come, singing red shoes,
the pretty side of her face
an orange fire glow.
She would turn off the bad baby eyes
and the meanness of the moon.
She would listen to the falling leaves
and hear the angel wings with me.
She would fall asleep, and I
would rub her small, soft feet.
I would smell her lemon hair.
I would find her missing slipper.
I would kiss her warming temple,
never ever burn.
Waiting for Mother was easier
before the greedy winter came
and chewed up all the wood.
One night, the wind slapped hard.
I only found the skinny twigs.
One night, through the click of cold,
I filled the fireplace with dolls
and books, pennies, chairs,
stale dry blankets,
And I let the room catch on fire.
Upstairs, on my mattress,
I waited for Mother
to creep up the wooden steps
and tuck me in.
She would come quickly.
She would come warmly.
I knew she would come home
and I would not be alone.
And together we would listen
to the broken goodnight moon,
the glowing wind, and babies
falling from the sky.
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Featured Writer: Julie Buffaloe-Yoder Day 2
Shaqueena, Big and Tall
Shaqueena had the biggest tits
I’ve ever seen, I mean each
of those puppies was the size
of a Rottweiler’s head.
Even us straight girls
couldn’t help but stare
at them in gym class.
Soapy globes in the shower,
suntanned worlds unknown,
Shaqueena had the power
of a woman in eighth grade.
Those glamorous glands
didn’t slow Shaqueena down.
She didn’t try to stop them
with eighteen-hour harnesses
or hide them behind books.
She put them out there, honey,
for all the small girls to see.
Goddess of the braless,
large dark nipples peeking
through thin white lace.
Bouncing on the playground,
they’d hit us in the face.
We memorized her mammaries,
worshipped her jiggling temples,
wrote poems about them,
gave both of them names.
We were jealous as hell.
Shaqueena, Queen of Meat.
Sturdy, curvy, proud, loud.
When God was passing out
boobs in the lunch room,
Shaqueena took all the trays
and ran away, laughing.
__________________________________________________________
Washing Away
That old shell of a building used to be
where Jeeter Davis picked the blues,
while us girls picked the sweet meat
of blue crabs to sell for market price.
We worked with red bandanas
on our heads, and boys on our minds.
Our squeaking rubber gloves
on warm, wet wood kept time.
The mockingbirds sounded
like little boats chewing foam.
The shush of shovels in crushed ice
meant supper would be on the table
for at least another season.
Our fathers were worn out
after a good night’s catch,
their boats heavy with a living.
But they kept us full
of their stories, oh Lord, that day
Jeeter Davis sang the one about
the cheating wife and the clam bed,
we thought we would die laughing.
Now there’s a big, black boot,
some old net that needs mending,
and an upside down crab pot
floating in the tide.
There’s a rotten crate
with SHRIMP stenciled
on its side, the letters R, M, P
almost faded away.
There’s a mossy brown stump
where the oyster bed was,
the handle of a shovel,
and two rusty pennies, heads up,
lying in the mud.
There’s our old crab house
creaking in the breeze, and inside,
the briny smell still echoes
like Jeeter Davis’ cold, steel blues
sliding off the walls.
There’s glass that snaps underfoot,
three rubber gloves, a pink hair brush,
a radio that might still work,
and a guitar pick crusted with scales
stuck in a crack in the ice room door.
There’s half a receipt book,
and compliments
of Bell-Munden Funeral Home,
there’s an unmarked calendar
still opened to the year
when we lost our soul.
Across the bay,
there’s a healthy row
of condominiums growing.
They call it Fisherman’s Ridge.
There’s a billboard that has
a happy family on it.
They’re not from around here.
There’s a cartoon picture
of a boat and a shrimper
hauling in his heavy nets.
He’s bathed in light and way
too clean to be working.
They tell us maybe
we can get big tips over there
if we entertain the tourists
with our watermen’s accents
or serve imported crabs
in the restaurant
or mop their pretty floors.
So shiny, so bright,
like the Whore of Babylon
like a brand new bay.
God help us.
We’re all washing
We’re all washing away.
Shaqueena had the biggest tits
I’ve ever seen, I mean each
of those puppies was the size
of a Rottweiler’s head.
Even us straight girls
couldn’t help but stare
at them in gym class.
Soapy globes in the shower,
suntanned worlds unknown,
Shaqueena had the power
of a woman in eighth grade.
Those glamorous glands
didn’t slow Shaqueena down.
She didn’t try to stop them
with eighteen-hour harnesses
or hide them behind books.
She put them out there, honey,
for all the small girls to see.
Goddess of the braless,
large dark nipples peeking
through thin white lace.
Bouncing on the playground,
they’d hit us in the face.
We memorized her mammaries,
worshipped her jiggling temples,
wrote poems about them,
gave both of them names.
We were jealous as hell.
Shaqueena, Queen of Meat.
Sturdy, curvy, proud, loud.
When God was passing out
boobs in the lunch room,
Shaqueena took all the trays
and ran away, laughing.
__________________________________________________________
Washing Away
That old shell of a building used to be
where Jeeter Davis picked the blues,
while us girls picked the sweet meat
of blue crabs to sell for market price.
We worked with red bandanas
on our heads, and boys on our minds.
Our squeaking rubber gloves
on warm, wet wood kept time.
The mockingbirds sounded
like little boats chewing foam.
The shush of shovels in crushed ice
meant supper would be on the table
for at least another season.
Our fathers were worn out
after a good night’s catch,
their boats heavy with a living.
But they kept us full
of their stories, oh Lord, that day
Jeeter Davis sang the one about
the cheating wife and the clam bed,
we thought we would die laughing.
Now there’s a big, black boot,
some old net that needs mending,
and an upside down crab pot
floating in the tide.
There’s a rotten crate
with SHRIMP stenciled
on its side, the letters R, M, P
almost faded away.
There’s a mossy brown stump
where the oyster bed was,
the handle of a shovel,
and two rusty pennies, heads up,
lying in the mud.
There’s our old crab house
creaking in the breeze, and inside,
the briny smell still echoes
like Jeeter Davis’ cold, steel blues
sliding off the walls.
There’s glass that snaps underfoot,
three rubber gloves, a pink hair brush,
a radio that might still work,
and a guitar pick crusted with scales
stuck in a crack in the ice room door.
There’s half a receipt book,
and compliments
of Bell-Munden Funeral Home,
there’s an unmarked calendar
still opened to the year
when we lost our soul.
Across the bay,
there’s a healthy row
of condominiums growing.
They call it Fisherman’s Ridge.
There’s a billboard that has
a happy family on it.
They’re not from around here.
There’s a cartoon picture
of a boat and a shrimper
hauling in his heavy nets.
He’s bathed in light and way
too clean to be working.
They tell us maybe
we can get big tips over there
if we entertain the tourists
with our watermen’s accents
or serve imported crabs
in the restaurant
or mop their pretty floors.
So shiny, so bright,
like the Whore of Babylon
like a brand new bay.
God help us.
We’re all washing
We’re all washing away.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Featured Writer: Julie Buffaloe-Yoder Day 1
Aunt Aggie and The Alligators
Aunt Aggie never had babies.
She had alligators
that floated under leaf wet logs.
She had a mud brushed shack
beside a slow moving river
downwind of Ocketawna Swamp.
She had boxes of fossils
on her kitchen counters.
Six foot long rattlesnake skins
hung as decorations
on her front porch.
Half Cherokee, half Irish,
Aunt Aggie had one brown eye
and one blue; she had two
bright silver braids that swung
past her ass when she danced.
Aunt Aggie smelled like cypress,
muddy boots and fresh mint tea.
Her hands were as loving tough
as summer collard leaves.
Aunt Aggie had no neighbors.
She had a Smith and Wesson
and ninety six root thick acres.
She had record breaking reptiles
who turned over her trash barrel
in the lapping heat
of those thick cricket nights.
She had the faded yellow skies
of August hurricanes,
not too many water bugs,
mildewed faces growing
on her window screens,
and every knick knack
Woolworth’s ever sold.
Each spring at dawn on the edge
of the riverbank, Aunt Aggie threw
leftovers, buckets of fish guts,
and rotten fruit in mossy holes
where the gators waited
for her to call them by name:
Miss Eula Belle!
Matthew-Mark-Luke and John!
Josiah Ezekiel Twain!
Old Slow Moon!
Little Bitty!
During mating season she crouched
waist deep in swamp to watch
the big ones make the water dance;
kept a two-by-four held tight in case
the young ones should try to get fresh.
Aunt Aggie had a fit that stormy day
when relatives explained the papers
that came in the mail from The State:
Eminent Domain.
They said maybe she should take
the money they offered.
Find a nice retirement home.
Everybody thought Aunt Aggie
would shoot the lawyers
and the politicians
and the real estate developers
and the police in their fat heads.
Instead, she cut all her silver hair
and let it float down the river
with the moon of the green corn.
They found Aunt Aggie the next week
curled up and brown on her porch.
The biggest gator next to her, eating
fish heads, bread and moldy cheese.
Aunt Aggie’s last supper
before her babies were put to sleep.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Snake Handling
They call him Rattlesnake,
a row of diamonds
sliced across his back
in a bar room brawl.
All the girls say he is
the best thing to curl up
on their hot back porches
since before the devil’s fall.
They say he’s so pretty
like slant-eyed danger
wrapped in gold-brown skin,
muscles the size of sin—
he smells like a man, damnit.
This laying on of hands
fathers do not understand,
this power to tread through
tall grass, groping under
the dark side of logs,
searching for an answer.
When they dare to hold him,
they shed their old souls
and are born again
beneath a thrill of stars,
dancing to the rhythm
of the rock of ages.
Speaking unknown tongues,
that ticking crescendo
of dry pinestraw is alive
like tambourines of fire.
Like strychnine shooting
through a country girl’s veins.
The sting might not kill
but it makes them feel
like it will, and even if
they swell, they don’t
give a damn—they say
it’s better than Heaven.
I've had work published in Side of Grits, storySouth, Clapboard House, The Wilmington Review, A Carolina Literary Companion, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, Grain, and Pemmican.
Aunt Aggie never had babies.
She had alligators
that floated under leaf wet logs.
She had a mud brushed shack
beside a slow moving river
downwind of Ocketawna Swamp.
She had boxes of fossils
on her kitchen counters.
Six foot long rattlesnake skins
hung as decorations
on her front porch.
Half Cherokee, half Irish,
Aunt Aggie had one brown eye
and one blue; she had two
bright silver braids that swung
past her ass when she danced.
Aunt Aggie smelled like cypress,
muddy boots and fresh mint tea.
Her hands were as loving tough
as summer collard leaves.
Aunt Aggie had no neighbors.
She had a Smith and Wesson
and ninety six root thick acres.
She had record breaking reptiles
who turned over her trash barrel
in the lapping heat
of those thick cricket nights.
She had the faded yellow skies
of August hurricanes,
not too many water bugs,
mildewed faces growing
on her window screens,
and every knick knack
Woolworth’s ever sold.
Each spring at dawn on the edge
of the riverbank, Aunt Aggie threw
leftovers, buckets of fish guts,
and rotten fruit in mossy holes
where the gators waited
for her to call them by name:
Miss Eula Belle!
Matthew-Mark-Luke and John!
Josiah Ezekiel Twain!
Old Slow Moon!
Little Bitty!
During mating season she crouched
waist deep in swamp to watch
the big ones make the water dance;
kept a two-by-four held tight in case
the young ones should try to get fresh.
Aunt Aggie had a fit that stormy day
when relatives explained the papers
that came in the mail from The State:
Eminent Domain.
They said maybe she should take
the money they offered.
Find a nice retirement home.
Everybody thought Aunt Aggie
would shoot the lawyers
and the politicians
and the real estate developers
and the police in their fat heads.
Instead, she cut all her silver hair
and let it float down the river
with the moon of the green corn.
They found Aunt Aggie the next week
curled up and brown on her porch.
The biggest gator next to her, eating
fish heads, bread and moldy cheese.
Aunt Aggie’s last supper
before her babies were put to sleep.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Snake Handling
They call him Rattlesnake,
a row of diamonds
sliced across his back
in a bar room brawl.
All the girls say he is
the best thing to curl up
on their hot back porches
since before the devil’s fall.
They say he’s so pretty
like slant-eyed danger
wrapped in gold-brown skin,
muscles the size of sin—
he smells like a man, damnit.
This laying on of hands
fathers do not understand,
this power to tread through
tall grass, groping under
the dark side of logs,
searching for an answer.
When they dare to hold him,
they shed their old souls
and are born again
beneath a thrill of stars,
dancing to the rhythm
of the rock of ages.
Speaking unknown tongues,
that ticking crescendo
of dry pinestraw is alive
like tambourines of fire.
Like strychnine shooting
through a country girl’s veins.
The sting might not kill
but it makes them feel
like it will, and even if
they swell, they don’t
give a damn—they say
it’s better than Heaven.
I've had work published in Side of Grits, storySouth, Clapboard House, The Wilmington Review, A Carolina Literary Companion, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, Grain, and Pemmican.
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