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JJ Hutton Jan 2014
I.

The last thing? It wadn't nothing special. Pa and me, well, we never had what I guess you'd call a real easy exchange. He kept to hisself. I kept to myself. We worked hard, and we appreciated each other. But we--and this may be sad to you, but it ain't sad to me--we didn't get touchy-feely. Didn't say "I love you" or things like that. We traded off fetching the water. Traded off nabbing clothes off the line for Ma. He taught me how to be, to live, you know? How to work the cotton. How to work the mules. He gave me three bullets--just three--every time I took the .22 out to get a squirrel. "Make it count," he'd say. "Don't bring home less than four." Making it count--that means more than that other stuff.

So, what I'm saying is, in the end it wadn't no big to-do. Before he handed Ma the shotgun and told us to get, he stuck his head out the kitchen window, the one just over the sink. He said, "It's gonna rain. Them's the kind of clouds that ain't fickle."

I said I reckoned he was right. He said yep. Handed Ma the shotgun. And that was that.


II.

Robert never wanted to live in Tennessee. He was a Kentucky boy, and if it hadn't been for my selfishness, I believe he would have died a Kentucky boy--or man, rather--at a much later date. See my mother, Faye, she got dreadful sick back in '31, and I says to him, I says, Robert, you know my sister can't take care of her--this being on account of her being touched in the head and all. He didn't say nothing, which was usual, but he didn't grumble neither and that, that right there, is the mark of a good man.

We started with just 80 acres. He built the house hisself. Did you know that? It wasn't nothing fancy, no, but we didn't need nothing fancy. It was made pretty much entirely of--oh what do they call it. It ain't just cedar. That uh uh uh--red cedar. Can't believe I forgot that.

Anyway, our place was sprawling with red cedar. Not the prettiest trees you ever saw, but they were ours, and they provided what we needed of them.

Because of us doing alright with the logging, we was able to pick up the Whitmore place. That was another 160 acres.  Robert hated Tennessee, not a doubt in my mind about that. It was his home, though, you see. It was his land. He wanted to make something of it to give to our son, Henry.


III.

Come all you people if you want to hear
The story about a brave engineer;
He's Franklin D. Roosevelt, in Washington D.C.
He's running the train they call 'prosperity.'

Now he straightened up the banks with a big holiday;
He circulated money with the T.V.A.
With the C.C.C. and the C.W.A.
He's brought back smiles and kept hunger away.

      -"Casey Roosevelt" [Excerpts]
          Folk song recorded by Buck Fulton for E.C. and M.N. Kirkland, July, 1937


IV.

Before they even started on the reservoir, the Tennessee Valley Authority started digging up the dead. I'm serious. Most frightful thing you ever saw. Hickory Road--and I swear, I swear on the country, the good Lord, anything from a ****** to a mountain--the road was full-up with buggies carting coffins. Three days straight they were carting dead folks down to Clinton. Most of the coffins were barely holding up, too. Made out that crude pine. Seeing them yellow-but-not-yellow heads poking out was enough to make a feller sick.

If I remember right, they had to relocate something like 5,000 before they dammed up the Clinch, but they made a lot more living, breathing folks than that move along. Lot more.


V.

A week before the T.V.A went and flooded the valley the sounds stopped. The duhh-duhh. The errgh-errgh. You know? The sounds of work. When you don't got all that noise going on--that routine, I guess you could say--what can you do but think?

And because of that, I believe, that last week Pa acted different. He was trying not to, trying to act just the same. But he was trying to be the same too hard. Ma would take coffee off the stove, pour it for him and he'd say: "Thank you, sweetheart." He always said thank you. That much was the same. It's that sweetheart bit that didn't fit in his mouth right. She left the kitchen. Couldn't take it.

Tom Scott hung himself, too. Clyde Johnson, his brother Jacob. There was one more. Big fella that lived down by Hershel's store. Can't remember his name. Pa's was the only body that didn't wash up on the bank.

I never did see them after they washed up. Mrs. Scott said it was appalling. She said her husband's body was all puffed up, swollen with the water. Sheriff cut the rope off her husband's neck. She said that neck was black leading into purple leading into black. Raw. Mrs. Scott didn't live too long after that. A year or so. The shame got to her I suppose.

When folks called my pa a coward, I never argued with them. Didn't see the point. What's a coward? Somebody hang hisself? Somebody that leave his wife and boy to fend for themselves? That a coward? Call him what you want. I ain't gonna argue. All he is--is dead to me.

VI.

My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places. And it will hail when the forest falls down, and the city will be utterly laid low. Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.
         - Isaiah 32:18-20

VII.**

Robert had brown, wavy hair. He had big hands with scarred knuckles. He was missing a tooth on the right side. Three or four down from the front. You could only tell when he laughed. Every day in the field he wore the same cap, a Miller's Co-op cap, with overlapping sweat stains. He never wanted to track dirt in the house so he'd knock on the side of the house anytime he needed something from inside, like a box of matches or a knife or something. The first two knocks would be to get my attention. They'd sound urgent. The third was soft, as if to say please. When we went to bed, he always waited for me to fall asleep before he even tried. He knew his snoring kept me up.

On the last day, Robert handed me his shotgun. Says, "I love you, Mary." He was so choked up, I didn't know if he was going to kiss me. So I kissed him. Says, "I love you Robert." And that was pretty much all. We got in the buggy and headed off to my mother's.

I wanted to bury the shotgun. I knew I'd need a place to visit, a place to talk to Robert. And it had to be a piece of him. I dug the hole out behind my mother's place. Henry, he must've thought I was crazy, digging that hole the very next day. He asked me what I was going to put in there. I says the shotgun. He says, "No, ma'am, you isn't." I says, "Yes, son, I is." He says we need that gun. Get squirrels. Get rabbits. Make it count, he says.

I was pretty sore about it, but I ended up throwing my wedding ring in that hole. It being the only other thing that was him. We put the shotgun over the door frame in the kitchen.

I miss him every day. I feel it in my body. Feel it down to my bones. I imagine it wouldn't feel no different if I had lost a hand. But what makes me sadder than anything, sadder than not seeing Robert every morning, sadder than knowing he don't get to see what Henry makes of hisself, is that Robert didn't get nobody's attention.

He never said that's why he had to do it. I just figured as much. He wouldn't die for nothing. That wasn't him. The paper wouldn't say nothing about him other than he was dead. I wrote the T.V.A. Never heard nothing back. It's like the world mumbled, "I'm sorry," and just spun on. That's what they give the good men: a mumble. Killers make the front page. They're in the pictures. The good men? For the good men, the world has to keep asking for their names. The world says, "Oh, Robert, right," and "I'm sorry." But the world don't mean it. The world's got dams to build, valleys to flood. Graves to move. People to uproot. Why? Do you know? Course you don't. God hisself would shrug his shoulders and tell me that's just the way it is.
Mike Hauser Mar 2013
It was late into the night
When Bert Ernie and I
Were traveling across the plans of Nebraska

Much to my surprise
Bert looks me straight in the eyes
And says Mike, I gotta question to ask ya

With Big Bird wrapped up in the trunk
You'd think that he'd already thunk
About this night long before it already happened

When we took Oscar the Grouches can lid
And whacked Big Bird smack dab in the head
Then tied him up tight while he was napping

We rolled him out to curb
Believe me it looked quite absurd
Ernie grunting with Bert complaining as feathers went flying

But as would be our fate
Able to make our planed escape
When Count Von Count took time out to do some feather counting

So this is now where we are
Bert, Ernie, Me, and Big Bird in the trunk of our car
Not really knowing where it is we are heading

Our thinking went only as far
As nabbing Big Bird and the get away car
Putting Ernie in charge wasn't such a good idea is what I am betting

Ernie says he's figured it all out
Bert says we need this, but still has his doubts
Cause Bert owes back pay alimony and Ernie his ******

We head to Ernie's planed drop off spot
And of course it's swarming with cops
While our inside man " The Monster " gave us up for Cookies

They let Big Bird out of the trunk
Who proceeded to slap us punch drunk
Then straight to the judge to pay for this hideous crime

I can't think of any worse fate
I now know this was a fatal mistake
The sentence...
Banished to Sesame Street for life, now that is hard time
Zulu Samperfas May 2013
His hand was outstretched, nabbing a pesky windswept hamburger wrapper
near a garbage can alongside the exit to the cafeteria
Bent over, exposed, frozen, pretending the hamburger wrapper
required more effort than normal to dislodge it from the open air just above the ground
Perhaps it was a turnip or a beet, that he had to carefully, surgically remove
and it was only that he saw me coming
if I could have slowed down time, to slow motion
Seeing my boss, the principal of the school, up ended like this
for the sole purpose of not having to look me in the face, I would have
more kids would have had a chance to stare at this strange posture,
and wonder how a hamburger wrapper could have such a difficult
time being removed from the ground and I want to remember this pose
it only gets worse, and as my exit comes nearer, I feel lighter
but he still can't look me in the eye
if he felt secure in his decision, in all his decisions about me
he could, but he doesn't
So he will focus more time than needed to grasp that delicate
wrapper, which contained a stale bun and the remains of a dairy cow
spent and gone before her time on a factory farm in the central valley
and if insecurity can impose such ludicrous postures on a person
I will take this lesson, and remember always to be brave
Love, this is the home of craggy sorrow
Each bleak house hugs a solitary widow
Waiting more at a pale silent window
Which portends the dead empty path
This carry the northern cold winds
Of early mornings into the gloomy strath,
Folding time, impatience and wrath,
And all day long, become friends
Footsteps' echoes and pattering of little ones,
Nabbing illusions of joyful shades of tones,
And miserable hearts those endowed anxiety,
And eyes, lips and noses always ready to cry,
Yet how they are innocent, ignorant and pretty.
O love, how the untold words are never dry,
And never desert me like the green in a cedar
Everlasting homage to warmth of leaves,
I doubt that my absence should less differ;
I believe when time rashly counts and leaves,
I should feel your waiting when I disappear
Holding close to my soul your rich serenity,
I should roam your world like a dead star;
Long ago vanished, yet glistens bright and clear
Like your sad eyes when full of precious tears
Those guard your peace and banish your fears.

Written by
Jamal Abboud
dan hinton Nov 2011
I remember sitting in
Numerous wards
And clinics
With all the madmen
Around me –
Wondering if they are dying
Or whether that
Scratch has turned
Septic.
I think people enjoy
Thinking there’s something
Seriously wrong with them,
It gives them
Something to do
With their dull lives.
But it works both ways,
Doc can feel a hero
And he can tick a box.
God incarnate,
Allah, Buddah, Jesus.
I am called in
I’m sure my diastolic is up
After nabbing a handful
Of pear drops.
“Right, Mr. Hinton, please sit down –
Are we feeling okay today?”
“What can I say, I’m in a
Practice when I could be writing?”
“Ever the pragmatist... Now let’s
Have a look – your blood pressure’s up.”
“You just stuck a rod on my arm
And contorted my arm, I’m sad
It’s not through the roof.”
“Now, you take it easy on
The beer and the women.”
“You know I won’t, see you in
Six months time, John?”
I shake the Doc’s hand and
I slink away.
Immortal for another day
*******.
(alternately titled: ah me go march'n home on derange)

I'll play the devil's advocate, yet
prepare a stance with pitchfork
     against misinterpreted faux attempt
     to describe, how whet
d'ya column re: immigration officials coe vet

patrol, police, and poison tranquil casa blanca
     where killer attack dogs fiendishly pin set
     ting sharp fangs at jugular vein of respectful,
     dutiful, and blissful (or at least

     prior to being sniffed out) innocent
     long time laborer on American soil now get
     ting Das Boot to their unfamiliar Motherland
     (despite living social
     as law abiding righteous folks) fret

full, cuz unfairly punished, and
     cruelly deported, dispirited, doomed
     pained visage non verbally articulates
     at un war rented deportation you bet!

with just a flick of the wrist
and alien hated, pigheaded,
     and xenophobic ventriloquist
bring back the Alien and Sedition Acts 

     with a Trumpeting Latina, Hispanic,
     and for good measure Mulatto twist,  
     where original writ (signed into law 
     by President John Adams in 1798), 
     historical footnote, aye cannot resist

spooking (like a ghost), those *** pill 
     born south of the border pooped and ******
in potties of this proud country, sans free and brave 
     now frightfully get flushed out 

glad to feign dis guise 
     as one among select Geronimo cadre 
     we henchman lubricate 
     wheels of injustice myst
     tuff hie hiding dark shadows 
     (along the edge of night) 

     thence paddy wagon comes 
     to screeching halt nabbing 
     an "illegal alien" name on hit list 
code word "bag dad" (biggest quarry)
     and score a win
     for Barren Trump Tah Mahal Incorporated

impossible mission special ops sentry slithers as trained
     fearless to shackle ******* ranked big hest
catch also including ***** prize,
     as you correctly guessed.
Hallowed hill birdlife from my bedroom window
My bold , fellow agnostics working hard -
on the ' Sabbath ' like any other day
Warblers and Finches with no time for play
Red headed Woodpeckers tapping away
Orpingtons , Dominiques and New Hampshires -
leading a busy parade
Bathing Geese , scratching Hens , Crows in the corn
An Egret rides the wind while a Robin feeds her young
Bluebirds on the hunt , Thrashers on the run
Jays nabbing Figs in the scorching midday Sun
Copyright April 10 , 2016 by Randolph L Wilson * All Rights Reserved
Tommy Johnson Dec 2013
As we sat side by side
Belting out a terrible
Scream for relief

Straight is striped
Soft is solid

There are many a things
That are used to see the truth

Standing there nabbing
For the truth for the truth

Eyes torn open
For thirty some odd hours

Left soulless
To face the dawn

Clubs smash against their skulls
War drums pulsate on and on

Crawling on my leg
From the floor

The morning sun rising
Cross fading darkness diminished
In its radiant beams of shimmering brilliance

Dust clouds
Rock formations
Out in the desert
Outskirts

Cupping your hands
Sipping from the water hole

Dance, jump, flail
Friction
Of my thoughts
Spark a flame of action
Monika Oct 2017
Making the most out of it.
Everyday finding new things
An adventure of old and new tales.
Never a dull moment.
Indulging in experiences.
Nabbing every delight you can get.
Getting ready every night for tomorrow.
Loving everyone and everything.
Exciting to the core.
Surprising us with new challenges.
Seeking our selves over time.
It's sorta a prose but I hope it is fine to post it here. Thanks~ :)
Adulterous besieging capstone damnation
exploitation foists groping, heaving
insidiously jerking
knowingly lunges
machinations notoriously nymphomaniacal
officiating ****** quests
rapaciously, sadistically
tenaciously, unstoppably
vasocongested wickedness
Xerses yawped zeolously.
********
All throughout history of  man/woman kind
ascendent civilizations extensively gouged,
impailed, kindled, murderous outrages
quashing sacred urges, women yearned.
*******
Versatile thematic refrain punctuating nubiles
maximized looting, pillaging, ******
visited upon females via decimating fountainhead
guarding brestworks of vestal virgins,
innocent youths (little boys and girls).
*******
Twenty first century **** Sapiens male population continue to applaud, covet, extol, gloat, invoke, kickstart, ****** outrages, quest savagely thee unbridled wedded yoke appropriating coquettishly enshrined gals imposing killing mandates okaying queasy sordid ugly wretchedness yanking aborhent behavior denigrating, fulminating, harrassing, jawdropping lewdness, nabbing prized rearends, twerking, violently whiplashing, yelling zingers.
*******
Now not a day elapses with instances women claim untoward advances, and/or forced coercion to satiate and temporarily slate the ****** thirst informing prononced picadilloes (philandering if married pompous head honcho demands appeasement of coitus, *******, indecent lowball outrageous ribald uncouth ******* animalistic, carnal, feral, gonadal, immoral, kleptomaniacally misogynistic, narcissistic, opportunistic, pathetically reprehensible, torturously undervaluing, validating virility within Yankee Doodle, haply lambasting, proudly touting, vaunted wayfair zest.
********
The above meandering stream of consciousness attempted to amplify, a recent spate of accusations figuratively slapped against a male *** mongers, who specifically rule roost, and blithely, demandingly, forcefully, hideously, impishly, killingly, malignantly, opprobriously, powerfully, repeatedly, terminally, vindictively, wantonly, yearningly acrimoniously belittle, demean flagrantly, harshly insinuate keeping mindful, not publicize rabid ****** unwanted villainous withering zeal!
To live another day.
To know God.
And to help someone
Find their way.
These are grand opportunities.

May each have the chance
To climb his Everest
And wave the victor’s banner—
Nabbing the opportunity
To overcome every challenge.
really trolley train hard to keep track of patients

Eye tell ya we (spuds)
pulled up stakes after four yar
and zero scores ago living in Bryn Mawr
salutary heart and lungs figurative
storied Main Line Health medical network
latter part of June tooth thousand seventeen

approximately July first
same year bidding au revoir
bid good riddance account
to slumlord - hood did spat and spar
moved to Schwenksville, Pennsylvania
unsafe to ride bicycle without handlebar

economical, geographical, practical...
subjected by Grosse and Quade tyrannical czar
dom low income facilities housing
nattering nabobs of nihilism whose intellect subpar
candidates vetted by Jaclyn Geiger registrar
courtesy nepotism unexceptional manager

thanks be to her papa, she drives fancy car
unlike this pauper and the missus
limited to schlep near and not far
afforded by rattletrap motorcar,
no driving prohibitive number of miles,
crossing sketchy territory warning signs

picturing dangerous avatar,
(especially during inclement whee thar)
determining risk to forego
top manic kin Michelin
money grubbing cannibalistic
surgeon's earning equivalent silver star,

or comparable civilian rating touting specialists
while bonafide topnotch indivisible tailors swifty
stitch ink, viz tattoo back parlor shop whar
exemplary Patients Matter Always
buzzfeeding, inoculating, kickstarting...
healthy medical network,

hobnob, kibitz, schmooze...
drown lackluster lovelife at the bar
parting paramour with such sweet sorrows par
for the course during pouring rain how bizarre
necessitated our lucky find locating physicians
supreme nsync with Google high reviews

receiving, scoring, nabbing,
incorporating... truevalue re: vector and scalar,
we veteran trooper seasoned renters
luckily blessed chance
cost us pennies on the dinar
general bang for buck amazingly
found yours truly strumming his air guitar

pleasantly situated among picturesque poplar
resort within Skippack Village, a tourist
mecca for devout or
secular gourmandizing, earning
catering and acquiescing savoir
ole mighty faire Benjamin
legally tendering expensive bazaar.
Time and again
jovial imp does succeed
at collecting aggregate of infinite moments
nabbing, snagging and yoking yours truly,
a fortitudinous erstwhile
citizen banker travels at warp speed
impossible mission to thwart tempus fugit
analogous to ambuscade by time thief
little rascal who steals
most precious commodity

right before mine myopic eyes
abstract artificial construct
hastens cradle to grave lifespan
hoping chance fellow
space traveler will read
these words, though quite futile
one skeptic could believe
he would experience salvation
prayerfully clasping hands
he doth gently plead

for nought, cuz greed
for immortality a wish
that does exede
by lightyears the outward bounds
for **** sapien breed
****** to die at birth
destroyed by space debris
aliens purportedly buzzfeed
feeling akin to crash test dummy
at mercy where asteroid
can annihilate me I accede.

Seconds, minutes, hours
days, weeks, months
and years speed away
free falling thru space/time continuum
superfluous to request belay,
nevertheless yours asks
for custom made sturdy rope
quite an accomplishment
given such short notice,
which said contrivance

would necessitate being wrapped
(while remaining rapt)
ensconced within outsize
full body jacket beltway
resembling human cocoon
after I pulled up the slack
essentially gifted to dark shadows
twenty four seven -
resembling edge of night
all the while

loosely tethered courtesy gravity
though feeling comfortably numb
zipping by the dark side of the moon
dreaming about Old rotten Gotham
sliding thru behavioral sink,
this while yahoo (me)
courtesy tenuous connection
suddenly severed Earthlink
simultaneously mouthing "Aw, Snap!"

No longer linkedin
with webbed wide world
bitta bing bitta bang
voodoo spell suddenly cast upon
uber hotmail, whereby
his poetic side tumblr unlocked
subsequently he resembles
an infinitesimal across
celestial sea ethereal
poetrysoup amidst creation,
a mere cosmic speck afloat
canvas studded heavens
starry night gallery.
Tomorrow all the pundits
Will show up in full view.
Each giving their opinions—
The many and the few.

So many a news station
Will chime in with reports
To bring cross-country polling
The nearby and remote…

As voters cast their ballots,
Nabbing a president
To lead us in the future—
The White House to ascent.

Thy will be done today, Lord,
And help us ‘long the way.
_______________________________
Footnote: Wont (accustomed).

— The End —