Poetry Forum
Ephemerides (revised, especially the spoiler) - Printable Version

+- Poetry Forum (https://www.pigpenpoetry.com)
+-- Forum: Poetry Forum (https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/forum-1.html)
+--- Forum: Miscellaneous Poetry (https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/forum-44.html)
+--- Thread: Ephemerides (revised, especially the spoiler) (/thread-25031.html)

Ephemerides (revised, especially the spoiler) - TranquillityBase - 05-25-2023

Tobacco farm, East Tennessee, 1975

Drove there in my ’59 Chevrolet Apache, a plywood platform built onto the bench seat
so my border collie could sit next to me, and see the trip.

Spent the night next to a lake in an Arkansas State Park.  Across the lake some kind of power plant.  I fell asleep looking at it's lights.  Made it to Tennessee next day, got lost in the backroads trying to find Dennis* and Tiki’s house rented from a tobacco farmer named Ike Snap.

When I was lost on the backroads I saw that all the farmers seem to have single syllable, onomapoeic names, like Clack or Snap.

Learned to plant tobacco and told the farmer about Texas.  He saw it as a desert, like in The Searchers.  In the son-in-law’s mobile home, ate lunch off a long formica table with the Snap family, a lunch that would have been supper in Texas.

Hauled hay with a Snap relative, his son and a hill man who was completely illiterate. “Watch out Dad, or it’s back to Green Acres” the son called out to the father, a family joke, since he’d been institutionalized at one time.

Met a sculptor in Jonesboro, a friend of Dennis.  We were supposed to go to a play, but missed the opening and Dennis exploded, so the night ended.  When I got home, I sent the sculptor a copy of Pound’s Gaudier Brzeska.

That’s all I can remember, I hope it’s enough.




The reminiscences of an old man.  I was always precocious, so why should I stop now?  I title it no. 1 in the hope there will be more.  It may be yawn material, but fortunately I can't see if your eyes glaze over.

*I met Dennis in a writing workshop my first year in college.  We met outside one day in the college bookstore, in the poetry section.  He recommended an anthology, The Voice That Is Great Among Us.  He was my Mentor for at least a decade after that meeting.  In East TN, he was publishing a small magazine named Stile.  It lasted four issues.  Dennis gave up poetry in his mid-30s (he took up painting).  I still see him very occaisonally.  I recently asked him for some of his old poems, but they are all lost.  But in one of the issues of Stile I found a page from a letter from him with a poem which I am taking the liberty to quote:

River Tune

Walking towards the river
she stopped in the cleared field.
Set her hat carefully down.

Huge trees began rising
root first out of the river
like funnels full of eels
and arched over her head.

Surrounded in their darkness
fire near the river.
On a stump
his back to her
head on left shoulder
a man was sawing his neck.

Fiddle notes.  Dancing
she bowed
to pick up her hat.

On her free days
she did not have to hurry back.

 

RE: Ephemeride no. 1 - Tiger the Lion - 05-25-2023

Looking forward to No. 2. Beg

My eyes are indeed glazed over, but that's nothing to do with this fun read.  Thumbsup

more please.

RE: Ephemeride no. 1 - Mark A Becker - 05-25-2023

Hey Tim-

Seems like another journal type poem, which is by the by just fine- spice it up some and this concept could take ya a long way.  I'll go with ya. 

Tobacco Road reminds me of the song by that name that we used to play in our Becker brothers band, a couple centuries ago. Really fun tune, and my brother Lee 'The Flea' always tore it up on bass.

Any piece that brings back memories is a good 'un.
Thanks,
Mark

Tobacco Road, The Nashville Teens, 1964.  Our version went double time near the end so that Lee could fly us back home...  Their bass player played it shitty. Lee walked it properly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGuZY6NVXqU

pps. They were actually a British band, and seemed to have missed the British invasion of the '60s

RE: Ephemeride no. 1 - TranquillityBase - 05-26-2023

(05-25-2023, 05:00 AM)Tiger the Lion Wrote:  Looking forward to No. 2. Beg

My eyes are indeed glazed over, but that's nothing to do with this fun read.  Thumbsup

more please.
Thanks Tiger.  Already got a couple of ideas.  I'm wondering if I should move this to the Sewer, so I can just add on to it and make it a seriesin a Rowenesque way.  What do you think?
(05-25-2023, 06:47 AM)Mark A Becker Wrote:  Hey Tim-

Seems like another journal type poem, which is by the by just fine- spice it up some and this concept could take ya a long way.  I'll go with ya. 
Thanks Mark.  Enjoyed the Nashville Teens.  Envy your ability to play music.

I think it's going to be a journal of memories.  I started out to try to make it a poem, but decided it was more important just to record the events that have stayed with me.

RE: Ephemeride no. 1 - Tiger the Lion - 05-26-2023

(05-26-2023, 01:49 AM)TranquillityBase Wrote:  
(05-25-2023, 05:00 AM)Tiger the Lion Wrote:  Looking forward to No. 2. Beg

My eyes are indeed glazed over, but that's nothing to do with this fun read.  Thumbsup

more please.
Thanks Tiger.  Already got a couple of ideas.  I'm wondering if I should move this to the Sewer, so I can just add on to it and make it a seriesin a Rowenesque way.  What do you think?
Hey Tim. Misc. is totally fine. You could add on to this thread or start a new one for each installment. If for any reason it becomes unmanageable we could always move pieces around as you wish.