It was a lonely life in the lists.
Sometimes he thought of the rust
He could be acquiring aging
In the weeds behind some barn.
Sometimes he thought a new coat
Of paint might be just the thing.
Monthly Archives: December 2011
Christmas at Rose, Oklahoma
In old photos, you are grainy
Kelly, Pam, Shaun, 1973 (?)
As the chicken shed wood,
Groovy in the rotting way,
Alive to what will be,
And not decay or was,
Not the illuminated past,
But next and next and next.
–Shaun Perkins
The Teasdale Treehouse
Treehouse circa 1980
Teasdale Treehouse 2011
Next to the future home of the Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry is a oak tree that is over 100-years-old. In it is a treehouse that is 40-years-old. Continue reading
Strange
“Buckshot guesswork,” he said,
as pulsar dust fell on hay bales
and he chewed on his cigarillo.
He took the beat up guitar,
the one his daddy played, from
the corner and broke into
a Hank Williams number.
Another followed – strange,
Almost malevolent in the half-light,
as though pale shadows of
ghosts -
Autograph
I was looking for a certain book of poetry in my shelves and found my mom’s old autograph book from when she was in junior high, 1953-55. Here are some of the quite poetic inscriptions inside:
When you get married, don’t marry a fool. Marry a boy from Locust High School.
If I was a little pig playing in the yard and you were a little dog, would you bite me very hard?
I love you little. I love you big. I love you like a little pig.
When you get married and live on a hill, send me a piece of your wedding cake by a whippoorwill.
Scout in Tree
Nestled mid twinkling
Lights, artificial nature
Captures her beauty.
–Kelly Palmer
Preparation
The sewing needle rests next to my eighth
vertebrate. I cannot feel it but know
it is there. The thread circles my kidneys
like amber capillaries. A sloping
row of real pearl buttons, tiny full moons,
bump into my small intestine. Silk blocks
wrap the ligaments of my arms, as if
my bones are on fire and must be bandaged
by something cool. A piece of lace crumpled
into a triangle lines my womb. All
that I am, all of my tools and notions,
I have swallowed and absorbed. I now leave
their world. I open the door to the night
and drink my thimbles before I run out.
–Shaun Perkins
(Tam Lin)
Unscrew the locks!
Somewhere in the middle of his vast, joyous, brutal, democratic, and American poem, Walt Whitman said:
Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!
Whoever degrades another degrades me;
And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.
We are all here together for a time on this planet, and our lives affect each other. Facebook is the ubiquitous example of that. What we say, what we do, what we post, how we respond, how we don’t respond: these all illustrate our inescapably interwoven lives.
Old Walt’s poetry was a song for the removal of barriers between people, no matter how different, evil, good, hopeless, or rotten. He believed in the essential goodness of humans, yet was not surprised when he didn’t always find it.
To be in love with the world and unsurprised by its brutality at the same time . . . that is my wish for us all. Unscrew the locks from your doors and your hearts and see what happens.
Autumn Cat
Cold, damp, air gushes
Through pet window. Crunchy leaves
Swirl on concrete floor.
–Kelly Palmer
The Position of the Stars
Miniskirt held down with laughter,
My arms full of the blue quilt
And package of cherry licorice,
You had the 6-pack of a beer
Only teenagers and drunks would buy.
We ran through the dark cow pasture
To the very center
Or what we thought might be
And still laughing, we stumbled down
Over the remains of alfalfa stalks,
The blanket and licorice beneath us
And the dark expanse of Oklahoma sky above us.
