My soul is not for sale.
Cells are whirling. Balls are flying, Trees are snatched by the roots and tossed. I feel the race,
once again.
The winds change
I live in the lull
I sit in silence
No dream today
not yet
mind and body
push and pull
white sand and oil
smiles abound
Who are these teeth?
That SMILE
I had a focus ! I had a love?
It hurt😘
I had a dream! It was a good one?
It died😘
😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩
Lynn Skapyak Harlin is a poet in Jacksonville, Florida. My hometown. She promotes reading and writing. She says, “write about everything.” That is my inspiration today.
Lounging here in my CR casita, my beloved painted red crocks, by my bed. My freshly vacuumed burlap ceiling above me. The concrete floor the same as when I built the house. Never tiled. The concrete pitted.
It has taken a lot of living for me to learn and accept. To give up – to get.
I feel blessed.
When one dream dies – Dream a new one.
Climb – Read a book- Write
The underbelly – The pulse of all that is wrong
Creating a sharp noise
Silent rings ever widening
Sunshine state sonar
Undone – diligence – myopic
Escape from ferocity
Escape from greed
Escape from the streets
Of Jacksonville
Twisted hate
Peace and love
Churning like the currents of the river
I woke up dreaming
My I phone in my hand
The impact of reality
Human character - Hidden violence
The underbelly – The pulse of all that is wrong
Stories Old and Cold 1939
The priest was serving Mass
Kyrie Eleison Kyrie Eleison
No one heard them enter
They marched down the center aisle
The candles flickered
Pennies for the poor
Our Lady of the Angels was under siege
The cloth covered men were hunting
They passed under the Stations of the Cross.
Everyone held their breath
It was dangerous to be Catholic in the South
No words were said
The KKK left as they had entered, silently
They later found their prey
On Detroit St.
They drug him out of the house
It was a public display
He was in his underwear
Fashionable Tidy Whities
They beat his back and buttocks
Until the threads of his underwear were imbedded in his skin
No hanging
Just asphalt
This poem is about a young man who was Catholic. Living in Jacksonville, Florida. He had an extramarital affair and the KKK were going to set him straight. Teach him a lesson. My mother, who was 11 at this time, relayed the story of them coming into the church. My aunt would tell about his beating and the threads of his underwear being stuck into his skin. I researched underwear. And yes, they had just become fashionable.
The KKK chose to beat him and leave him laying in the street. Down the road on Old Kings Road they were prancing on their horses in full regalia. Lynching.
I do see this as an example of white privilege. I am beginning to understand through the course of conversation that those words have a different meaning to different people. It triggers alien internal contexts inside of us. Pulling dormant concepts to the surface.
I am a Cracker/by birth – A Redneck by Default – And a peace activist through reading, writing and education.
The flesh has been torn from the bones of my soul
My breath has come up short
Life’s distance in years is a highway
I crawl past an angel wing
The flesh has been torn from the bones of my soul
I exhale
Overcome by guilt and shame
I run to be with others
The flesh has been torn from the bones of my soul
I inhale
I am alone
I fly
3129 Phyllis St.
I travel south
down the river
in the morning
Crackers eat oatmeal for breakfast
Four roses are in the front yard
Saddle soap in the back
I climb
the steps
at noon
Where the crackers meet for lunch
Eat biscuits with gravy
She plays cards with a blind man
They laugh and tell – old stories
The sun follows I-10
and rests
behind Phyllis St.
Ponies walk for miles in circles
Gators mate
Boats float
Flamingos eat shrimp and die
I run
to the streets
in my twilight
Away from the crackers – Oatmeal shrimp – biscuits and gravy
The roses died – the saddle dried
The boat sunk
The blindman got lasix
I survive
Somewhere in the South
I have a ghost She sings me lullabies I am her child.
I am underwater Her voice filtered By particles of oxygen.
With her I can breath I can harmonize I am her mother
I am not a poet. I have a beat. I have an attitude.
I have been beat ~ down
I have been lifted up ~
I have placed my weight so far out, that I hindered my chances ~ a brief encounter
stalked by an engagement of force that left me
waiting for breath
I am not a poet.
My road is a gyspy’s ribbon, no longer is hell at one dark window.
I flee from the birds who scavenge, flying low.
Betrayal, and wind in the pines, are no stranger to me. Continue reading The Divorce is Final
I dare think, how Emily Dickinson would have viewed the internet.
The Soul selects her own Society — Then — shuts the Door — To her divine Majority — Present no more — E,D,
Fish Eye Farm 