Anthony Watkins's Blog, page 2

Simple, but Oh So Good

Been listening to John Lee Hooker all day,

him and a little of the Freedom Singers

wanting to know, “Which Side Are You On?”

This morning, I was a little tired

usually, I make a bowl of grits

and a boat full of cream gravy.

I know a thing or two about both

how to cut the water a bit in the grits

and keep stirring them until they are thick

without letting them get lumpy,

and the gravy I have a shaker jar to add milk

and a tablespoon full of flour 

and lots of salt and pepper,

first you grind enough black pepper

to cover the island of flour,

then shake enough salt to cover the pepper,

screw the lid on tight and shake like you would a gallon of paint.

In the pan, put a half a stick of butter and a tablespoon

of bacon fat and get it hot,

when you pour the mix into the pan,

you stir and stir then leave it be until it thickens

then stir some more until you take it up.

But this morning, being tired,

I just made the grits with lots of butter

 and she said it was good.

Then, for lunch, we chopped farm-fresh tomatoes

and sliced up a baguette,

olive oil for the tomatoes,

with garlic and fresh sliced basil,

and butter and garlic for the bread

on broil for about 3 minutes.

Everything so simple,

from Hooker to the bread,

How is it so good?

Shouldn’t this good be hard?

Denver at the Wawa

“O, Montana, give this child a home,”
John Denver sings from the restroom
speaker at the new Wawa.

I never went to Montana,
but I did go to Colorado
and wasn’t impressed.

One does have to admire how much
he loved the mountains,
like I love the desert and tacos
and the French Quarter
and gumbo and po boys.

Never cared for Wawa, either,
my family loves them
but they don’t even have roller dogs,
what good is that?

Whiskey Faces

There are horses, there are barmaids 

And faces of the clock

There is whiskey and plates

of beans and rice and a roaring fire

for those just come in out of the cold.

The animals are indoors a room away

In the high New Mexico desert

Named for the blood of Christ.

We can smell their warmth through the walls.

Beef and beans and potatoes

for those who can afford it.

Whiskey whether they can or not.

A journey through my life in textiles

In St Clair County, Alabama, I started as a duffer

on my 6th birthday, and still having ten fingers on my tenth

I was by turns a sweeper and a tender

to looms and other machines.

The smell of machine oil and dirt became the air

I breathed for Mr. Comers deadly promises.

 We made thread and cloth and socks on machine,

until I went down the river to Montgomery for a while

finding my way out to the ocean

where Mobile Bay meets the Gulf of Mexico

We loaded cotton onto barges to run blockades

For cash money for English factories

and we delivered uniform cloth

to rebel sewing plants along the way

We didn’t think about right or wrong,

only surviving against starvation and cannonballs,

neither side had many heroes

and now, a hundred years later in a studio off Brickell

I make art with the worn fabrics of that time,

 the air is cleaner and no one is shooting at us,

at least not much but starvation is still lurking

down the street while I paint gruesome war scenes

on textiles of my mind, not so much cannon balls

as the hungry faces of the children, black and white,

still no justification for me or my kind,

only torn and frayed fabric

of memories of the evils of man.

Dante and other rough beasts

 In the middle of our journey we find ourselves

with the path lost in dark woods,

she sits on a bench and opens a bag of crunchies

we packed for such an occasion,

while being eaten the crunchies turn Into purple butterflies

which we follow to a clearing where the ground is covered with water

and a dozen pit bulls wait to give us a warm welcome

and move together as one large body past

so as not to tempt the alligators on the high ridges. 

We follow close behind until we come to a beaver dam

and cross it with the water to the bellies of the beasts

and overtop our shoes but beyond the dam

lies green dry grass and a parking lot and a Walmart. 

 And while the dogs dry in the warm sun

we take our sloshy shoes inside and buy

blindingly white twenty dollar shoes and thick towels

and a dozen clean dry new pairs of tube socks. 

 While the dogs gather round

we dry our water shriveled feet

and put on the clean socks and blinding shoes, 

 saving the spare socks 

 for another wet day is sure to come. 

 The police find us in the morning surrounded by the dogs 

and say we better move on, so we do, eating a loaf of bread 

 someone brought us in the night. 

 The path appears ahead 

in the sunlight of another day.

Nobody Said a Dog Could Play Basketball

My brain tried to process that image,

for some reason, I saw a little pug

trying to dribble and shoot.

I guess it could have been any dog,

a big dog or maybe a bird dog, a pointer,

who had paw skills or an Irish wolf hound

running free in the Catskills.

I don’t know, but in my mind I saw a pug.

was an overheard comment,

and probably misheard at that,

but I thought of signs in the gym saying

“No Dogs allowed on the court”

because, of course they might dribble away

and take a shot and nobody would see it coming

and who would get the credit,

and then I realized it was one a.m.

and maybe I was dreaming only I wasn’t.

I was in a train station waiting on a connecting coach,

and in my mind the little pug takes a shot,

misses and bites the opposing player on the leg,

and though the player probably deserved it

I could see why they might say

nobody said a dog could play basketball.

Any King

Is a good king on a sunny day,

but who will be your king

when the rains come

when the floods wash you away

when the trees are in your living room,

who will be your king then?

There Is a Man

Who sits in the folding chair

on my front porch and watches

the dog play in the predawn light.

The light breeze blows the November

air across his bare skin.

It rustles through the leaves

of the grand old oaks

and throws acorns at him,

dinging them off the metal porch roof.

He smiles and sips his coffee

and calls the dog to go inside

to sit under his warm blanket.

I believe I know this man,

somedays he is a poet,

sometimes a cook,

and somedays just an old man

waiting on the chariot to carry him home.

A Poem for the Revolution

No Evil Threat

(with all apologies to Anne Sexton)

There is no evil I will allow to rob me

of my joy, the joy of those I love,

the joy of nature, the trees, the grass,

the crystal clear rivers and springs,

the wild animals,

the heron fishing in the shallows,

the alligator and the possum,

the song bird and the hawk,

the snake protecting me

from certain death by rodents,

all of it, the aphids on the leaves,

the peppers in my garden,

the books of poetry on my shelf,

the music I can listen to.

They may come with evil on hot pokers

and whips and bullets,

they may come for me

and put me away in a small dark room

with bad air and no sewer.

They may curse me and poke my eyes out.

But as long as I live and breathe,

I will have the joy of the memories

of a long life of beauty and love

and kindness and the goodness of food, of people.

The evil cannot get inside of me,

for I am protected there.

Today no one threatens me,

but I know the day may come,

and I am ready, with love

and joy I will always go forward.

I Have Laid Upon the Rooftop

And looked at the stars and talked of God and girls

and listened to the trucks out on the highway,

there is so much to see, so much to say

and hear and the coldness of the air against

the warm black shingles and me in between,

for I have laid upon the rooftop

and it has been a long, long time.

The silence and the noise, the darkness

and the stars, shooting and otherwise,

 I have laid upon the rooftop, and it was good.