Great music was reduced to rhythms
applicable to drunken pub sing-alongs. Ah.
Well. After all, he was a child. Even great men
must be children first. And so what of Galahad?
A priggish upright man even at six who never
changed. He knew the learned texts and
the catechisms and the teachings of poisoned
men and assumed he should emulate the saints
at a time when emulating saints was passé
and too hard to do in the winter.

Children becoming men. Children never
being children but expected to be lord
of the world, the goats, the tapestries,
the candle wax and all. Lord of the forest
when they still run to pee behind a tree
or laugh at dogs rutting in the ditch,
wave numbered placards in the air to judge
the women riding by on their way to market.
And perhaps that mighty quest started
as a search, not for the secrets of immortality,
but for the perfect-sized cereal bowl.

–Shaun Perkins

Another poem in my Arthurian series–mainly working with T. H. White’s version of Merlin here.

When I was a little girl,
We had houses of shade
Spaced along the road
Where the sycamores
And elms waved to us,
Their branches longer
Than time, leaves wider
Than space, our hearts
Scary with sunshine
Too explosive to contain.

I felt that way just now
When I saw what you
Had written to me,
When you talked of things
Necessary to exist and
Things necessary for a man
To thrive. All of life
Is a re-defining of those
Things: what we breathe
And what we breathe into.

–Shaun Perkins

As a girl I gathered the gooseberries
effortlessly and helped my mother bake the pies.
I knew just how much sugar was needed
for the berries—and I could sense
their taste by lightly squeezing them
and measure the tautness or softness
against the sugar. I was always right.
Women paid my mother to have me
make the pies for their festival
offerings or weddings or homecoming feasts.

The dough was so supple under my hands,
I rolled it to a thinness that was like
finely-woven cloth and so smooth,
so fragile and responsive like the skin
on the inside of his arm
that never saw the sun
and had no rough hair covering it,
that place where biceps rested
against the side of his chest,
the place where my head lay
as I pressed my palm to his thigh
and dreamed of the oven baking,
of life
from out of my hands.

–Shaun Perkins

There are many Elaines in Arthurian legend.  I wrote this poem 8 years ago, and I don’t remember which one I had in mind–but probably the one who loves Lancelot, though he never returns that love.

At a Main Street 1970s LG cheerleader rockathon

The downside of growing up in a small town is that everyone knows you and your business. The beauty of growing up in a small town is that everyone knows you and your business.

I grew up in Locust Grove, a northeastern Oklahoma town of around 1200 people, and when I graduated high school in 1980, and left for OSU, I was ecstatic.  Though Stillwater was only a few hours away, it might as well have been another country. No one knew me there. No one knew my family. No one knew where I was going on Friday night or where I had been Saturday morning or what my dog’s name was or what car I drove or how often my mom went to the beauty shop and my uncle visited the liquor store.

I enjoyed Stillwater, Manhattan (Kansas–the Little Apple),  and Bartlesville, the large towns/small cities where I lived after leaving Locust Grove.  I did not plan on ever living in Locust Grove again. However, in 2005, I returned to LG to live near my parents and other family members, and I have never regretted it. When I was young, I valued anonymity, and now that I am in my 50′s, I value familiarity.

Yesterday I had the day off work and the luxury of being out during weekday daylight hours. Those of you who work 8-10 hours a day M-F know what I mean by “luxury.” I accomplished all my morning tasks and then drove through Locust Grove. The sale barn had already closed for the day, but I stopped at a few yard sales where most of the items should have been thrown in the trash months before–though I did get a deck of cards with a dog who looks just like my bird dog Best on it and a bag of old plastic dolls–all naked (My Granny would be appalled. She hated seeing a naked baby doll).

Then I went down Main Street to get a burger and onion rings from DJ’s, and while it was cooking, I went in a consignment store where most of the  items should have been thrown away months ago, but I bought a pretty shirt and went back for my burger. Leaving DJ’s, I passed Jerry walking down Main Street. If you are from LG, you know who I mean, no last name necessary. Every small town has a Jerry, someone with a few deficiencies in the brain compartment made up for by congeniality and memory, who serves as the unofficial well-I’ll-be-cotton-pickin’ town greeter and cheer-spreader.

In that little house on Delaware Street where I spent the 70′s, I sat on the roof and put poems under the tiles. That house was the place where my poetry blossomed. Now, in the last place I will live, poetry surrounds me again. It is mine, yours, Robert Frost’s and Emily’s. It is the work of the children who speak in poetry because it has not been shamed out of them yet. It is in the ways that we all see the world–urban, rural, rich and poor.

I opened this museum over a year ago and it continues a work in progress. Hardly anybody knows about it, and I wish that were different. You may not know it, but you need poetry. I don’t care who you are. Locust Grove, Oklahoma: It is the home of great artists (Willard Stone to name only one) and humble people. It is typical of Oklahoma in its extreme love of sports and typical of many small towns–its downtown barely survives. When I was a kid, in just two blocks of Main Street, there were 2 grocery stores, a convenience store, a post office,  2 dry goods stores, an Otasco, a dime store, 2 pool halls, a funeral home, bank, cafe, 2 beauty shops, and 2 gas stations.

Tomorrow, May 11, is Founder’s Day in Locust Grove. This used to be the highlight of the year–a prison band, pea-shooters to torment each other with, a parade, a rodeo, good food everywhere, carnival rides, hide and seek in the park. I remember wearing a brown dress and white cowboy boots one Founder’s Day when I was probably 10 or 12. I was stylin’. If you are in the area, come out to Founder’s Day. I am going to use it as the opportunity to spread the word about my next ROMP Event: Locust Grove Day on May 25, wherein I try to entice the locals out to the museum. (Although anyone is welcome, of course).

–Shaun Perkins

Stone walls and the shouting of men
Flibberty flibberty flibberty
Into this starved air
Bells thudding hollow cracking
He is waiting

She is sure
Low rumbling dogs unsure
Paws clicking fish bones
Flibberty
Coming back
Place of never was

Ear pressed to the door

Why did I have so many children?

Mist rolling into rain rolling into
Cracked land
One more child
One more child she is calling forth
Flibberty flibberty flibberty

Lightning splitting time
Small hand at her neck
Speaking not singing
Speaking not singing
Her words are a dream
Flibberty flibberty flibberty
Words are a
Flibberty flibberty
Words are
Flibberty
Words

–Shaun Perkins

The cruelty of April which lingers
In a late deadening frost, in the fragile
Breaking of stem, the flood that uproots,
Is finally no match for that herald
Of warm wildflower season—May.

May says to you, Wind this bright ribbon
Around the pole, hang this flower basket
From your neighbor’s doorknob, toast
Your mother’s life and remember the dead,
Celebrate cinco-style all birth and burial.

May warns, Beware of ignoring the poetry
Of spiderwort in cemeteries, the chance
Call from a lost friend, the unanswered question
Your father spoke to you in a dream or
At the car door, the jagged spell of rock crevice.

Believe in May apples colonizing ruined places
And the rains populating the life ahead.
Believe in the eternity of bee swarm
Arcing away from cruel earth and trailing
Us into the subtle madness of the fifth month.

–Shaun Perkins

Crooked driftwood in the skinny tree,
Debris like veils shrouding broken branches,
Small ground gourds from the previous summer
Tumbling to artful rest on piles of small trees,
Spring Creek after the seasonal storm.

You are tall enough to reach the twisted piece
Suspended in the dead tree like a bird wing
And do not hesitate when I ask you to get it for me.
You have already picked up two rocks
For me. You already know everything.

–Shaun Perkins

–for Ken and Earth Day

Me want cookie.
You want cookie?
I got cookie.
You want cookie?
We got poems.
You want poem?
Cookie or poem.
We got both.
You eat one.
You eat both.

Come to the Cruelest Month Celebration. Cookies. Lemonade. Treasure Hunt. Poems. Nature. Good people. Good weather. Need more info.? Call or email: 918-864-9152 or rompoetry@gmail.com.

Saturday, April 20, 2013
2-6 p.m.
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry
Locust Grove OK

I will always love paper. Paper of any kind—in books, newspapers, letters, postcards, cardboard, playing cards, wadded up paper, paper made into origami figures and footballs and those little fortune-teller things you used to make in junior high during history class, notes, grocery lists, wrapping paper. Yeah, you get the idea.

April 18, Poem in Your Pocket Day, is about paper. And more specifically about poetry on paper. I know you can “cheat” and carry a poem on your phone or some other electronic device or in your head or some such. But I prefer old school Poem in Your Pocket Day. A poem on a piece of paper folded and inserted in your pocket. Not in your purse or your backpack or your car or in your lunch. In your actual pocket.

Thus, you must remember to wear clothing with pockets on Thursday. You must remember to write down or print out a poem—doesn’t matter if it it’s famous or not, yours or not, ancient or not—and put it in your pocket in the morning. Then, don’t forget about it. Take it out once an hour or more and take a look at it. Read it to someone. Memorize it. Copy it on another piece of paper or a sidewalk or your office cubicle or on a leaf or your ham sandwich.

At the end of the day do not throw away your poem. Hang it on your refrigerator or frame it and sell it on Craig’s List. Modge-podge it to your bathroom wall. You can eat it but I’m not responsible for your digestive situation. Hang it by your cat’s litter box or put it in the litter box or staple it to a tree in your yard.

So to recap, here are the rules:

•  Get a poem you love on a piece of paper.
• Carry the poem in your pocket.
• Read it throughout the day.
•  Do something with it at the end of the day.

Oh, and these are optional but would be much prized by me:

•  Comment below about the poem you carried and the experience.
• Send me a photo of the poem as it looks at the end of the day (with permission to post it on this blog).

A pocket is made for a poem. And a poem is made for a pocket.

–Shaun Perkins

Poem clues, map, and treasures

The  Cruelest Month Celebration scheduled for April 20, Saturday, at the museum is coming very soon. I am working on the poem treasure/cache hunt that will be the new activity for the day. Thirteen poem-clues will guide you around the property to a treasure that awaits you.

Whether you have been out to the museum before or not, you need to come this time. The forecast is calling for sunny skies and temperatures in the upper 60′s on Saturday. Perfect weather for celebrating poetry during National Poetry Month and for going on a treasure hunt outdoors. The clues and caches take you by garden, woods, pasture, creek, pond, and more–all very close though, easy terrain and fun for all ages.

Might be a poem clue here

We are easy to find and an excellent road trip destination. You can come and go during the day anytime between 2:00 and 6:00 p.m. Admission is by donation only. Refreshments will be available, and you can bring your own if you want.

You don’t have to be a pirate to love a good treasure hunt . . . but pirates are welcome, also. You don’t have to love poetry either. Actually, you don’t even have to like it. Of course, I will change that . . .

Might be a poem clue here too

For more information, you can review other pages on this site or email me or call me. Rompoetry@gmail.com or 918-864-9152.

I look forward to seeing you Saturday, doesn’t matter if I know you or not.

–Shaun Perkins