if the shelves of hell are lined
with all the books
that should have been written
please know
there’s a big gaudy ass pink satiny lace volume
of poetry i didn’t write about you
sitting quietly in the
damn, but didn’t we have fun
section
if the shelves of hell are lined
with all the books
that should have been written
please know
there’s a big gaudy ass pink satiny lace volume
of poetry i didn’t write about you
sitting quietly in the
damn, but didn’t we have fun
section
if i could have anything back
any part of his essence
i would want
his laugh
as life without it has been
no life at all
Kentucky thoroughbred
wild flower covered
rose wreathed
bluegrass hills
day lilies praying to face the sun
white horse fences on Derby Day
mint julep
drinking celebrities
wearing too much makeup and cloying colognes
spectator hats
pastel bow ties, open toed
espadrille intentions painted perfectly
round pen prancing
such breeding,
& the horses are pedigreed too.
The world of Man O’ War and
My uncle,
Etheridge Spaw,
my family’s last great horseman
elder statesman
until we got a jockey and horsewoman
in my niece, a true princess.
Etheridge had a voice like thunder
booming across a valley
melodic, bellicose, bass baritone
a cowboy hat the size of god
and a cherry wood pipe to match
stories of blood relations
unfurling in his pipe smoke
soothsayer
prince of our family
your memory I cherish
thoughts of you, on a faraway farm
just this side of a Kentucky heaven.
Bless and keep us through the days to come, uncle,
and thank you, kindly.
so he took her like an animal
but my father’s ghost wept
so she went to the men
like a good American
good people don’t want to believe
in visionaries good or bad
especially when you have red clay mud
starved stabbed scabbed over and over
on your grandmother’s dress from being raped just like her
from ft. Sumter to Wounded Knee
he’d never seen that color red come out of a living fertility statue
my veil is torn
the dog is dead
the natives have resumed their drumbeat
you can’t get from her desert south west to kentucky
the archway of plenary indulgence is not her path
demons choked on fear and comeuppance lose their way
oh ye of little faith
was there ever any doubt
Jesus was from Elyria
that Ostara was from Kentucky
and that Lazarus was from Newark, NJ
but he got stuck in traffic for 10 years
on the high roads of rt. 80