The song of Ferni Diswalter’s life was like a vinyl 78 rpm record with a scratch across it. It went round and round on the turntable and kept playing the same small snatch of song over and over again. As you might expect, the snatch of lyric for Ferni’s life was from the hippie song … Continue reading After Forty-Five Groovin’ Years Ferni Diswalter Heads for San Francisco
Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44399/pied-beauty "Pied Beauty" first comes to mind when one hears 'dapple'. The other thing that comes to mind is the Appaloosa pony, which may make a poem sometime, but first things first. One does not need to love or even know or even think God to love Hopkins. Nor if a believer, one does not … Continue reading Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins
The True Story of an Almost Bad Man
Scene 1: barroom, Virginia City, Montana 1864 1st. He’s been told to quiet his sips, but Slade’s ears hear advice through whiskey neat. 2nd. And these are not pleasant times for incautious men; the rabble, that tool of righteous or not, is roused and dangles rope from barn beams and dances a glee while fuller … Continue reading The True Story of an Almost Bad Man
A Man is a Measly Thing
Breed came into the country with nothing. The horse he rode in on he possessed but did not own. It was said that the shirt he wore he got off a dead man after a fight in Denver or St. Louis or California. There were many men who knew of the fight, knew witnesses or … Continue reading A Man is a Measly Thing
Even In Darkness
The link below resurrects the writelee.com post most appreciated by the readers. Even In Darkness
Waiting for Fireworks at Antietam National Battlefield
The orchestra begins “O, say can you see,” and in the dusk those boys rise again from the tree line and form in rows sung into them with “Mine eyes have seen the glory.” Ranks waver and writhe like banners over rise and hollow. And boys begin to fall. Gaps appear and close, a fatal … Continue reading Waiting for Fireworks at Antietam National Battlefield
“That’s North, That’s Montana,” She Said.
In the early afternoon on Monday of the third week, Jordan Wilmerton rode up beside the wagon and said, “Well, Amanda, you are headed back to the States now.” “The States are East, Mr. Wilmerton,” she grinned at him. “That’s North. That’s Montana.” Montana had been a destination now for nearly a month. Montana, and … Continue reading “That’s North, That’s Montana,” She Said.
Cora Doesn’t Find What She was Looking For
When Cora Greenfline turned away under that heavy sun, she turned away forever. What she turned away from was what she had not found, and what it told her of what she thought she was looking for. As it turned out all there had been were two gaudily painted toy-like engines facing each other, as … Continue reading Cora Doesn’t Find What She was Looking For
Payday for a Bum
Grechen counted four fifties, four twenties, and ten ones out of her till, then counted them again, snapping them, quick fast, on the counter. She picked up the bundle, snapped it edge down on the counter to even the edges and put into an envelope and handed the envelope to me. “Five hundred dollars,” she … Continue reading Payday for a Bum
Ruthless Is the Gardener
Today my chore— the damned invader weeds! But o, mustard's yellow?! I know it's a stretch, but think of it this way: a gardener deciding not to pull the yellow mustard sets a precedent. A lovely one but one that could be unpopular?
Home of Have, Poems by Lee Robison 