New Poem: THE ROAD TO MANKINS

 get in the car with me

 we’ll take Highway 25 from Electra

 past the United Methodist Church 

 past the Memorial Hospital

 going a number of miles

 until we reach the four-way stoplight 

 where I pull to the right and park 

 >

 see the amusement park rides

 all in pieces and sleeping 

 this is where fun goes to hibernate 

 maybe the rides will go to other towns

 or perhaps they’ll be sold for scrap 

 >

 son, get back in the car

 you just learned an important life lesson

 don’t assume things will stay the same

Older Poem: SHAKEN

Originally published in a 2016 issue of POETIC DIVERSITY.

SHAKEN

sitting at sixth grade desk

but shoulders and back

at too low an angle

so the homeroom teacher

came up to me

and fiercely expelled

the physical demons

she thought I possessed

punctuating this with shouts

about my bad bad behavior

as other students looked 

and did nothing

for fear of teacher

striding to the closet

and pulling big wooden paddle

off its hook

  

this was recorded for posterity

by nondigitized memory

and may never be erased

Revised Poem: HOME MOVIES

Home Movies

Film reel threaded
Lights out
Projector rattles
Silent moving pictures appear
Look how young we were
See our blue Rambler wagon
There’s Funland Park
Small Ferris wheel
Safe roller coaster
Pink cotton candy
Film runs out
White square on wall
In upstairs room
Of big Wichita Falls house
>
I’m the only survivor

New poem: GALVESTON 1966

everything's big when you're small:
the Jack Tar Motor Hotel restaurant
with the window view onto the swimming pool
Stewart Beach where my grandfather
and I took a rented float
out onto the waves
and I swallowed salt water
for the first time
and spit it out fast
the apocalyptic argument
my older brother had
with everyone else in the car
because he was forced to vacation
with the rest of the family
at the age of sixteen
instead of seeing his girlfriend back home
and, on the beach,
my dad pointed to
the pillbox installed
to protect the island
during World War II

all over the outside
of the pillbox
one could see
the words SENIORS 67
and GHS
spray-painted in red and black