The boys running the bases like rabbits
scurry to far-off places, not moving
toward targets—just moving. Montie Jean
recalls the ballgames she played as a child
in the dusty pasture where milo died
early. She can’t believe she was ever
as small as these kids. One sits on the bench
crying. Another has smeared snot and dirt
up the side of his face and into his hair. Continue reading “T-Ball”
Tag: memory
Final Valentine
Scribbled affection
dusted in bone-ash blowback
paneful messages
gazing in
Attic exhibit
Defensively tucked away
Eight panes
Eight years
— Tony Lee Orr
Dear Winter,
You hold the prints of my terrier dog Socks, the dog of my son’s childhood who died after the ice storm of 2007. You held her prints for a week after she was gone. I still remember walking by them when I went around the house. They were in the dark place where the sun doesn’t reach beneath the southern edge of the carport. You didn’t take her, but I will always remember when she left because of that path you kept after she was gone. You are a season for imprints. Continue reading “Dear Winter,” Remember
I have about twenty poems in my head, speeches from Hamlet and Macbeth, a couple of the Bard’s sonnets, a few by Frost, a few Dickinsons, Yeats’ “The Second Coming,” (the first free verse poem I memorized), Joy Harjo’s “Remember,” Auden, Shelley, pieces of “Ulysses,” and various others, including a few of my own. Continue reading “Remember”
Working at the Tom Mix Museum
The big white hat has grayed in its case,
Next to 2-inch spiked spurs banned even then
And dried-up lassos and embroidered leather gloves
That would disintegrate if taken out of display.
The suitcases of death are stacked beside a saddle
With the TM logo stamped on the side.
The shiny metal cases have a few dents in them,
Perhaps one in the shape of his head,
As the case flew forward when his convertible crashed.
While the West disappeared around him,
He died on the side of the road, tossed
From a vehicle he would never learn to master.
–Shaun Perkins
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 