Anthony Watkins's Blog, page 12

The Last day of Summer, Helena, 1966

Uncle Jimmy worked the night shift

maintenance for Helena Chemical

late afternoon, he helped me

scramble to the tin roof

of the old storage shed

Then he dropped his F100 into reverse

and was gone for the night

me and my brother

were having a sleep over

with our best friends

from when I could first walk,

Harry James and Donna Ray,

almost like cousins only maybe better.

We stood on the roof eating mulberries

and painting ourselves red

Aunt Betty stuck her head out

the kitchen door as the sunlight

struck the east bank of the Mississippi

and warned that when dark came

so would the mosquitoes

and it was nearly suppertime already

but I kept eating until the swarm hit

then I scuttled down the side of the shed

and ran to the kitchen where she stopped me

and beat the biters off with rolled up newspaper.

Go wash up, she said, and I mean a bath,

all of you, y’all are a mess, and we were,

and we washed our naked bodies

and got most of the stain off,

wrapped in towels we ate hot dogs

and watched Have Gun, Will Travel,

then Bonanza, then off to bed,

tomorrow we would go to bed

hundreds of miles away

and Harry James and Donna Ray

would catch the big yellow bus

that ran down the river road

In the Glory of God

There are no spent spiders,

no ants shriveled dead in the corner

waiting on resurrection

The skies of heaven roar

with the sounds

of a million mosquitoes

Coach roaches hold hands

and dance in the cool shade

of eternal afternoon

while house flies wait

in long rows on the table

for the feast of Canaan

where the hand of god

gently places a drop

of honey before each one

in this divine after world

there are no humans

they are all banished

for their insistent

killing of everything

they could find

How to Write a Poem

There are books,

there are even entire college courses

you can pay good money for

and sit and listen

and then maybe get some prompts

and even write a few poems,

maybe you can learn

how to write a poem

just like the teacher,

or even better.

I am not the teachable type

I cant even tell you

how I do what I do,

but I have always said

there are two rules to writing a poem,

say what you mean,

and don’t say nothing else,

and maybe in sixty years or so,

you will write poems like I do..

Food Talk, 1972

Promoters of salad

come on stage

to talk about dressings

they start in on ranch

and I cant help

but wonder if

it tastes like dust

and cowboy sweat?

The Last Gearbox

And old shifter

a near perfect ball of resin

the map worn from use

still shows a dogleg

to get to reverse

And the only place this

gas and oil machine

is going is years

backwards from today

The boy feels the knob

in his palm

and pretends to remember

what it was like

when grandpa revved

and popped the clutch

the motor, like grandpa

has been gone for years

the springs in the old bucket

press against faux leather

and the floorboard

is rusted near clear through

and a grand oak tree

grows where the hood

should be.

The Bones of the Palmetto Fronds

lay white, where they fell
weeks ago in the great storm
near the rusty tractor
and broken bush hog.

Smoke from the cleanup fires
drift across the sky,
and the palmetto fronds

look like one hundred
rib cages too late
to be buried.

Bowl of Rain

Everybody else is outside

trying to make their own sunshine

and I’m in here looking for a bowl of rain,

between the twisted limbs

and tumbled minds

there ought to be rain.

Tiny green sprouts pushing up

early through the bed of oak leaves,

too early and the last killing frost

will take them to the land beyond

the grave where plants languish

and die waiting for humans

to evolve to the point of knowing.

I want a Coca Cola

In a heavy dark green glass bottle,

with raised white script,

solid enough you could take a man

out with one blow,

and yeah, I ought to know,

shouldn’t I Pat Pierce?

I want it cold,

but an RC will do,

out of an icebox,

costing me a dime,

silver and thin,

all the way through,

no copper middle,

no fake shiny steel,

popping the cap out

with the wall mounted opener

drinking down a big cold burning draft

‘til my throat can’t take no more.

I feel a little sorry for myself

‘cause that time is gone,

like my grandpa,

like my mama,

but I feel more sorry for you,

‘cause you never was there

to even know.

The Sleepy Green Creek

was full of fish and snakes

and alligators and was the perfect

swimming hole for us.

Sometimes we had to run a snake

out of the hole, the fish

never bothered us and the alligators

while certainly there,

were more rumors than threats.

More than once I cut my foot

on a broken beer bottle some redneck

smashed into the limestone walls

than made our banks, letting the pieces

settle into the murky water

only to be found by my foot

at some later date.

Standing on the rusty bridge

with its many missing planks

jumping into the shade cooled

summer water was always a thrill

as it could only be to teenagers

who never considered dying.

The Rough [Sentence]

The Rough [Sentence]

Sketched [on the page]
without planing,
without the sharp shaving
[of the English teacher]

Rustic and beautiful
mis-tensed knots
and wide grains of words
curving and cracking
under the stress of thought
[under the stress of poetry]

Under the poverty of grammar,
the off-kilter twist,
creating its own kind [ugly] beauty

Laying one bent board against another
until a magnificent structure
of natural arches rise above
the neatness of a graded foundation,
in spite, [not because of] the blade
that grades off the rough earth
of the mind into clean white sheets
with proper black marks organized
according to a long line of [misguided] gate-keepers.