"flannery" poems
I am just a child but my mama say I wild
she say I best get dressed for Jesus or, I gonna burn up in hell fire
So mama n' me we got dressed up n' walked to Jesus land
cause we goen to a Jesus house n' listen to the holy preacher man
They gonna pass the basket round'n' round'
while them choir boys sing they sounds
cause we supposed to give everythin' we can
Yeah, give everything we got to the holy preacher man.
In Jesus land we give n' give -
give it all to the ol'
preacher man.
Don't got no money for food
we sure ain't got no money for rent
cause we be live'n by a river in a ****** ol' torn up tent
but preacher man he say to bow our head
yeah, to pray n' then repent
I am just a small child but this sure don't make no sense.
Yeah, I am just a small child n' my mama say I wild
I sure don't wanna burn up n' what they call the lake of fire
that ol' basket sure got full real fast
when dat' basket went on past
mama, she put her last quarter in --
to protect us from all our sins
and, dat' devil sin'n man
Now I know that I am just a child of five
but I don't think dat' make me wild
preacher man he the one drive'n a big ol' fancy car
Yeah, he drive'n a big ol' fancy car with they shiny white wall tires
So dats' why I gonna grow up n' be a preacher man
gonna tell them folks of wild child's....
to give everything they can.
Jun 27, 2015
Jun 27, 2015 at 4:28 AM UTC
I heard a man
In cowboy clothes
Singing songs
Of life and love
His dazzling sequins and heartbroken stanzas
Boasted mythical tales
Of peyote drifters, hickory winds
And moon-studded shrines
Shrines in the woods around Waycross
Where the words of Flannery and Faulkner
Still drift through the purple swamps
And offer up penance to the moss at midnight
Shrines in the neon river
Of blinking Broadway lights
And the way Hank’s ghost
Yet graces the Ryman stage every dusk
Shrines deep in the desert
Spiraling up in the smoke
Of the cowboy’s last lament
Toward that great gig in the sky
(His ashes sinking like broken glass
Into a horizon
Illuminated by the City of Angels
One hundred miles to the west)
I heard a man in cowboy clothes
Back in my younger days
He stirred to life an old time sound
Within my homesick soul
Sep 18, 2014
Sep 18, 2014 at 12:28 AM UTC
for Brendan,
because you asked me to,
I wrote a love poem for the machinery.
an ode to the efficiency,
of well scheduled maintenance.
they only hummed in response,
but I imagined it was in appreciation
so I continued,
I wrote sonnets concerning,
proper wiring configurations,
and stand alone power grids.
things that seemed important,
to things that could never feel.
they only hummed in response,
but I imagined it was in appreciation
so I continued,
I looked them over, and over again.
neat little rows of grey metal boxes
computers from the days of old.
I wanted to tell them about Sherman Alexie.
I wanted to tell them about Flannery O'Connor.
I wanted to tell them about Ray Bradbury.
Instead I cried, & tried to cut the building's power.
they only hummed in response.
Oct 11, 2013
Oct 11, 2013 at 3:21 AM UTC
Lines composed coming home from Florida,
Janice and I, in March, 2001,
beginning with an EASTER acrostic:
Expectations,
Aspirations,
Sorrows,
Tests,
Endurances,
Remembered now,
we speed North, up I-75.
"Do we have time to go to Milledgeville?"
I ask.
"Since we may never come this way again,
let's spend the hours, and not be sorry when
some task looms higher than this hill ahead,"
I hear her say.
And so we go and find our way
through town and past the "Private Residence"
to the blossomed gravesite, fenced and locked,
as if to warn that night, like some grotesque character,
will overtake us, too;
and Flannery O'Connor, nowhere in sight,
seems still to speak of life and essence,
although nothing rises to converge.
"Well, it was worth it,"
I declare,
some miles on the road.
"We'd always have been sorry,"
I hear her reassure,
"if we had not stopped,
and then, for ever after
thought we had missed some Revelation."
So I drive on and speed right through Atlanta,
remembering a moment of grace.
Jan 6, 2012
Jan 6, 2012 at 2:24 PM UTC
I Write Because
I Don't Know
What I Think
Until I Read
What I Say
-Flannery O'Connor-
Aug 25, 2014
Aug 25, 2014 at 7:45 AM UTC
a brave
boo suit
belfry bat
and gob
for her
*** up
the line
and Oviedo
worried in
romance wouldn't
dire the
leader with
a draw
but this
question not
heard flew
the coup
Apr 3, 2019
Apr 3, 2019 at 9:37 AM UTC
We are sitting and I am talking but only in the way that I think will impress you because I think maybe if you see I have an interest in contemporary art you will think that I am intelligent. She said that calling my statement art was an offense to what she does and we just laughed.
Flannery told me that a good man is hard to find and my english teacher told me that Flannery was a genius and my mom told me that my english teacher was amazing and my grandma told me that my mom was the smartest person she knew and my dad told me that I am so lucky to be able to do such great things with such little effort.
That cat slithers around the lamps and books and candles and pictureframes. **** you,
cat
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 2:07 AM UTC