"sheriff" poems
On the ferris wheel we steal a kiss,
careless zeal, no bits amiss,
slip into this, mind and timelessness,
twist wrist, spit lip like starshine, crisp.
Down below the kids get lit,
ripped,
hair wind flipped out,
broke mouths sip doubt,
shout fire-light, ice pout,
grown out the hometown,
grown loud, a fun crowd,
one's got the know how,
the others got the low down,
one shot the sheriff,
then the others hit the ground.
When he shot the sheriff
he kneeled,
we saw it from the ferris wheel.
Mar 7, 2014
Mar 7, 2014 at 3:33 PM UTC
I don't live here
I'm only camping
On this planet
I didn't plan it
Yet I feel the need to explain it
As the plaintiff
To the sheriff
Imposing tariffs
Money is their concern
While my emotions burn
They are somewhat surviving
At the price of dying
That's the cost of lying
It makes us stop trying
Only commodity buying
While silently sighing
And violently frying
Through fruitless searches
No matter what we purchase
Or how much we spend
The gripping grief never ends
When there are no hands to lend
There are no problems with these items
When we willingly refuse to sight them
They are from where our problems erupt
For we neglectfully allow them to disrupt
The connections that our hearts yearn for
And our wallets burn for
When we spend our emotions on inanimate objects
To avoid the intangible subject
Of love
We're frightened of phantoms
A life heightened by tandem
Is not in the cards
We buy for each other
They don't begin to cover
The way we feel
They are a shield
For our true emotions
Objects can't evoke one
Yet that's our language for expression
Consumerism acts as our lethal injection
Nov 30, 2017
Nov 30, 2017 at 4:56 PM UTC
I
I stole my brother’s car and drove to Phoenix in the dark.
The blue-green glow of dashboard gauges, the biting scent
of roadkill and desert marigolds. Tap. Tap. Tap.
Insects slapping the windshield, incipient rain.
Keep driving. Drive until the sun blooms.
II
Some days were more dire than others. CCTV footage confirms
I pawned a shotgun, a Gibson guitar, and my wife’s engagement
ring at the pawnshop next to Fatty’s Tattoo parlor on MLK Boulevard.
The typographically accurate Declaration of Independence
inscribed on my back also confirms this.
III
I ran the tilt-a-whirl at the Ashtabula county fair,
fattening up on fried Oreos and elephant ears,
twisting behind tent ***** with a one-armed
contortionist with strawberry-blonde hair.
IV
I derailed in a dive bar.
V
I disappeared in a city lit by lavender streetlights,
where buildings blotted out the stars and the traffic
signals kept perfect time. I picked through trash bins.
I paid for love with drugstore wine.
VI
I closed my eyes on a mountain road.
The sheriff extracted me from a ****** snowbank.
VII
I holed up for weeks in an oceanfront motel, dazed
by the roar of the breakers. Each morning I drew
back the curtains and lost myself
in the crisscrossing patterns of whitecaps,
the synchronous flight of sanderlings above the dunes.
I dreamed of dead horseshoe ***** rolling in with the tide.
VIII
The moon over my shoulder
tightened into focus like a spotlight.
One night the barking dogs undid me.
I caved in to the candor of a naked mattress.
I grew my beard, an insomniac in a jail cell,
clinging to bars the color of a morning dove.
IX
I coveted the house keys of strangers.
X
I opened and closed many doors.
I sang into the mouths of storm drains.
I stepped out of many rooms only
to find myself in the room I just left.
Despite all my leaving, I remained.
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 1:45 PM UTC
August, the Red Line,
connected tanks
of bolted plastic vertebrae.
Every seat gone except
five rows up, where a sea lion
sprawls across two,
stuffed backpack, yellow jacket
spread out like caution tape.
His grunt a wet bark
at the glow of his screen.
Middle-school deer slip into the aisle,
chatter clipped when the sheriff drifts past,
their ears flicking, smiles bitten shut.
Not a predator- just a gelded ox,
chest puffed, badge sagging, glass-eyed,
chest rig clattering with blanks.
Two lemur-children cling to their tortoise elder,
her shell steady against the sway of the car.
She shepherds them from the surge of riders:
loud Dodger blue parrots in cholo socks,
moth-women with plumed lashes beating the stale air,
a stray dog, gutter musk dragging at its haunches.
And one gray bear
muttering alone,
arguing with her reflection.
Between Koreatown and MacArthur Park,
somewhere the sea begins to breathe again,
then, feathers forcing through my skin-
an alley gull knifing into this clamour,
scavenging inside its exhaust.
The car rattles, its ribs plated with blistered posters:
museum wings open to no one,
‘register to vote’ fading into graffiti script,
flu shots promised by smiling ghosts.
A bruised hatchling staring out beside the words
See something, say something.
The warning lights glow
like eyes hunting in the dark.
From its flanks the train
unfurls iron claws.
They rake
the tunnel walls,
the city’s bones,
the dark itself.
Sep 29, 2025
Sep 29, 2025 at 10:00 PM UTC
© 2009 (Jim Sularz)
Quiet mounds of yellowed tailings and dead weeds whisper low.
And proud rusting relics telling tales of striking gold.
The rush from East, from North and South, by wagon, train or foot.
Days not all that long ago, in tall ships made of wood.
“A gold rush struck in’49, all quite by accident.
A burning fever that cut men to bone, in a sea of dingy tents.
Day and night, they toiled and tolled, many headed home without a cent.
But some packed out bags of glistening gold, and made a stop at "Buzzard’s Breath."
"The town’s mud logged street, deep with horse manure, bubbled like a shallow grave.
With a Sheriff’s office, a livery stable, and a church for souls to save.
And a fancy house, on a grassy knoll – sign read, “Madam Lil la ****
With soft, curvaceous ladies who mined for hearts – and gold of a different sort.
Didn’t take long before easy gold, was extremely hard to find.
And burly miners, tough as steel, moved in to hard rock mine.
With bloodied knuckles, dented hats, they blasted at a furious pace.
To find the gold, called the Mother Lode, yellow blood coursing through their veins!
The mine they worked was called “Long Shot”, the men thought that name a curse.
But the miners hankered for the handle, "Buzzard’s Breath”, and the mine’s name was reversed.
As luck would say, they held a royal flush, when they hit that horse-wide vein.
Of the purest gold, yet to be found, this side of the Pearly Gates.
Eyes wide as saucers, they were all in awe, everyone was filthy rich.
The miners should have all retired and should have cashed in all their chips.
But a man’s hard to figure, when his blood is yellow, and he’s stricken with a gold fever.
“Eureka! Boys, *** the dynamite and a whole lot more mining timbers!”
They mined that vein to the bowels of the Earth, and the heat increased by day.
"Buzzard’s Breath" became the hottest place, to Hell – the shortest way.
And then one day, the men never came back. – Hell must have jumped that claim.
Of the purest gold, yet to be found – that’s where the Devil mines today!”
Quiet mounds of yellowed tailings and dead weeds whisper low.
And proud rusting relics telling tales of striking gold.
The rush from East, from North and South, died a slow and quiet death.
Along with days of tall wooden ships, and the ghosts of Buzzard’s Breath.
Jul 8, 2012
Jul 8, 2012 at 5:46 PM UTC
There's no place like home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home. Dorothy's Kansas never looked so comforting, her black and white world never so safe--never so flat, so barren.
Didn't she learn her lessons? She caused such trouble! She gave Auntie Emm such a fright! That bump on the head must have caused her brain damage. After the "big storm" was only a memory, and the terrible twister only a town tale, Dorothy did it again.
She ventured out on her own.
Yet Mrs. Gulch was still a witch. And Dorothy's "nasty, little dog" still got into the garden. The sheriff was ready to track her down and clamp down on her for good! Running home frantically for help, Dorothy realized that Auntie Emm was still too busy ******** at her shiftless farmhands, henpecking tired, old Uncle Henry,
and he was just too cranky to care. The farmhands were supposed to be her friends, but they just started crabbing at her again.
They soon gave her what for. "Dot, didn't you learn a thing in life?" "Didn't we rescue you once from a pigpen?" "That heart of yours leads you in the wrong direction! " "Where are your brains, anyway?"
Heartbroken, naive Dorothy realized something that was quite profound. Her heart was always in the right place--she just needed the courage, the courage to know she was smart enough to make it on her own. So Dorothy packed her bags, especially remembering her red ruby slippers. She would never forget her loyal friend and sidekick, her beloved pooch, Toto. If she was going, he was going with her.
So there she stood, suitcases in hand, in her bleak, little, colorless world. Terrified, she stood upon the precipice. Fear or faith? And all of a sudden she was noticed again! Just what was she doing? Who did she think she was fooling? Was she crazy!?
"You'll never make it!", they all warned. "You don't know the first thing about how to live in a Technicolor world!"
"Sorry, I do love you", Dorothy answered back. "But I disagree and I will forward you my new address". So off she went finding the path down the yellow brick road.
Jul 4, 2010
Jul 4, 2010 at 3:54 AM UTC
The casket was coming up, swaying and wobbling
Like a novice skater’s layover spin,
The workings proceeding apace,
The stillness of the August heat
Punctuated by disinterested growl of the backhoe,
The occasional out-of-place jocularity by the excavators
The creaky jingle of the chains holding the muddied box
As it proceeded skyward in its clumsy poor-man’s Resurrection.
The affair was being observed by an elderly couple,
Old enough to be of no particular age.
Their car had Carolina plates,
But their inflections, their casually-tossed idioms
They noted that ruefully The grass needs mowed)
Marked them as natives.
They’d returned (Last time, most likely,
The wife uttered mournfully)
To take their son with them; he’d drowned when was five? six?
(The years will do that to a body, apparently)
In Kinzua Creek some half-century ago,
Back when little boys weren’t under a mandate
To be safe from themselves, as it were.
He was our boy! We’ve never forgotten him!
The old man said, the words snapping off
In a manner that spoke of something else altogether,
How the whistle at the Montmorenci
Went off at three and eleven for second shift,
And your *** had better be there,
As those were good jobs that didn’t wait for bereavement leave,
Because there was always someone
Just itching to take your spot on the line,
And anyway life went on,
At least in the sense that television screens went all to snow
And tires went flat and fuses blew
And eventually a dead child
Is not always in the forefront of your thoughts,
Only tiptoeing in when the Press ran a picture
Of the Montmorenci Area Class of whenever,
Or there was an item about some other family
Who opened their front door
To a grim sheriff’s deputy with his hat in his hand.
Eventually, after some time
And in defiance of both the odds and gravity,
The casket was settled into the back
Of the undertaker’s huge old black Caddy,
And the couple cane-toddled back to their car,
Following out the through the old spider-like gates
And onto the main road.
The brief procession fading from sight,
Until there was nothing left to see
Save the hillsides covered in old growth pine.
Sep 21, 2018
Sep 21, 2018 at 11:00 AM UTC
**** the Police
Coming straight out the underground
Young brother got it bad
Cuz I look Mexican and I'm brown
Can't forget to do diarrhea
on the sheriff deputies
Cuz you wear a uniform and a badge
think you deserve respect like a G
Biggest violaters of civil rights
in the ******* land
take advantage of everybody
cuz you think we're stupid and you can
Where are you going? What's your name? Are you on Probation?
California is not a stop and identify state
How about I cuff your ***
Take you to an alley and let out all my frustration
Am I under arrest?
Or am I free to go is what I ask
Boo bop & slit your throat
come up from behind with a ******* Chucky mask
I'm the worst ******* nightmare
there ever has been
A conscious, Chicano, 5 percenter
Moorish American free national citizen
How about next time you **** one of us
We hunt you down, home invade your family
and launch you all of a cliff in a bus.
Quick to leave a pig bleeding left for dead in a ***** ditch
***** sewed to your mouth, you wanna be me punk *** *****
Or we'll cut your head off
and stick it to a thousand foot pole
start the vampire nation, count Vlad's idea yea I stole.
14th amendment, 85 percenter
corporate security guard
driving a big *** truck with your undersized *****
and you think your all hard, you ******* ******
You're obvious and pathetic
I got no time to play
We don't die we multiply and the movement is here to stay.
Get off me stupid I ain't signing no autographs
Che Guevara reincarnated now who has the last laugh?
Sep 14, 2018
Sep 14, 2018 at 6:48 PM UTC
Gemini sheriff of happy town
kills all the frequent cow-catching waffle machines.
He rounds up all his cowboys
and retires all the shepherds in a cloud most curious.
Somewhere soon there will be a better thing to do
than reach for the cookie jar all life long.
Unfortunately there will come so many who also wear the star.
All them good folks are stuck in a stampeding herd of confusion.
Oct 25, 2014
Oct 25, 2014 at 1:50 PM UTC
even teddy said i got the sickest tricks brah.
like my abilities source from some kinda legendary liquid
/ praise the lord /
monster energy should sponsor me.
a kickflip over the king’s *** hole
& a halfcab for the looky-loos.
i feel so tall when i climb that heap of asphalt trimmings
& see clear from the water tower to the bluffs.
gimme a good day, any day at the bluffs,
bottlerockets & girly birds.
her body brings a swarm of worms.
decomp,
said the f.b.i. men one by one with tweezers.
not quite the homecoming queen, still
wrapped in plastic.
look up.
see that great mess of wires, nest of powerlines and owl bones?
it crackles and croons its electro-spectral purr
all night and day.
new neck tat &
cody spends his paycheck on a crossbow.
we target practice on a bull skull.
wet cigarettes and turpentine-soaked socks for a good huff
in the dry of the roofline as it dumps.
there’s that little boy in a ghost mask again, tap-dancing
in puddles below the streetlamp,
& oversized shoes.
his grandmoms always be watchin’ from the window.
[whispers] she’s teaching him magic.
lucky unit 19: where our young dead damsel once dolled
herself up, you see
men and headlights would roll thru thrice nightly,
maybe more.
& i remember her punch red lips &
big whicker hat; while she weeded and watered her garden of begonias.
the sheriff’s deputy, hart? hicks? hogan? well he loved her a bunch.
stole her clothes in the middle of the night,
& sat beside the river sobbing into clumped fists
of bra and blouse.
i bought ******* from that guy once or twice.
harold? howard?
guess who showed his face today?
josiah, from unit 08.
since the incident with molly’s beagle, he’s been rarely seen.
took a bee line straight for the mailbox.
a package. a prize. a decoder ring/secret map sweepstakes
to be seen and deciphered.
Nov 5, 2015
Nov 5, 2015 at 1:44 AM UTC
an aerosol angel with college-ruled wings
and paint stained fingertips
stranded in a sea of pigmentation
lately, she's been feeling out of place
not all compasses point due north
a parrot in a sea of sharks
who's never learned to sail
they're selling tickets to the shit-show on the shore line
catch the half priced sunday matanee
save the date
a trapeze ******* with a choke hold on the universe's coat tails
tap dancing through star charts and love poems at the pace of lightning's strike
some failures just have to be public
if lessons are to be learned
the prettiest ballerinas aren't afraid to fall
she's learned the hard way to find beauty in skinned knees
strength in stubbed toes
and faith in a broken heart
no point in dressing up, honey
prince charming doesn't frequent freak shows
he's an arrogant flake, anyway
her best bet is a strong man
or a fire breather
when looking for a boy to bring home
one man to bare her burdens
and another to scortch the wreckage of what's left
careful what you wish for
butterflies the size of funnel cakes shake her rib cage to pieces
silver confetti on pitted pavement
he looked so handsome beneath the neon lights
horrified and ecstatic all at once
like a lost boy in neverland
scanning the crowd of strangers for any possible princess tiger lillie's
someone to ride alongside on the ferris wheel all night
untill the sheriff shines his flashlight down the path that points them home
alone
but handsome boys know little about matters other than themselves
so she's gotten good at feeling bad
it's time to find a man
someone who can build things instead of just break them
Nov 19, 2012
Nov 19, 2012 at 3:17 PM UTC
Every morning
I feed the mewling cats,
chug my hot instant coffee,
sit at my rickety linoleum kitchen table
and peer hopefully out my thin window,
through the cracks in the glass
beyond the rusted screen
into the acres of wet trainyards and commercial blocks.
There in one non-descript grey building
underneath the watertower
beside the Sheriff's substation
a band of laughing saints
craft delicate malas of lapis
and manzanita windchimes
while diaphonous angels all a-hover
manifest vast verdant grassland prairies,
great ocean waves, sunsets
and spring flowers hidden in rock crannies
where nobody will ever walk,
and they launch grand air balloons
bulging with epiphanies
that may drift my way.
Jan 27, 2013
Jan 27, 2013 at 6:33 AM UTC
*Slammed to "Pick Up the Pieces"
by Average White Band*
Life's a jungle I have found
Torn to pieces all around
There are foxes - there are hounds
Zoos where wild things abound
Just listen to the funky sound
Now we're going underground....
Underground where rabbits go
Down tunnels in a faster slow
It's all over, don't you know
Pick & Shovel, Rake & ***
You're down with it, on the low
Like you're Edgar Allan Poe
Feast or famine - friend or foe
It must go on... The Truman Show...
*Jigsaw pieces - play the game
It is just a crying shame
Dance for dancing - Fame for fame
Break a leg and you are lame
No one'll ever know your name...
**PICK UP THE PIECES
PICK UP THE PIECES
PICK UP THE PIECES
PICK UP THE PIECES
PICK UP THE PIECES***
You're a tiger, nothin' nice
You've been bought, you had a price
Yeah, you tore off quite a slice
Well, some are men and some are mice
Some eat meat and some eat rice
Some are fire - some are ice
Some are ticks and some are lice
Let me give you some advice...
Just so you are never boring
While you're out there pimping, *******
While you're the one they are adoring
Just watch out for polished flooring
Don't break loose from your fast mooring
Into the pit you will be soaring
After that there's no restoring
Listen to the lion roaring...
Chorus
Here we are in the U.S.
We are pampered we are blessed
Sometime soon there'll be a test
We'll ride the Bronco way out West
The Magnificent Seven rides abreast
There's a new Sheriff, have you guessed?
With a tin badge on His vest
He does not play - He does not jest
I'm afraid, I will attest!
It won't be fun, just wait and see
It will be "pain" with a capitol P!
On this bus, don't ride for free
This is not a game of Wii
There's a port and there's a lea
There's a shrub (Bush), and there's a tree
There's an us, and there's a we
**There's a YOU, and there's a ME...
PICK UP THE PIECES
PICK UP THE PIECES
PICK UP THE PIECES
PICK UP THE PIECES
PICK UP THE PIECES**
SoulSurvivor
(C) 9/14/2016
https://youtu.be/xpflST8xWm8
"Pick Up the Pieces" extended version
Average White Band
Sep 14, 2016
Sep 14, 2016 at 4:51 PM UTC
The sun is a glaring Mom. She has
Nine toddlers in pull-ups robbing a liquor store
They scream like goblins coated
slippery in A+D,
(but the money tastes like sand)
buttery streams of light in the air that smells
like chewed fireworks.
Baby Blue silence. Then
“Langston McCaw! LA County Sheriff!”
the Sheriff is dead McCaw is an accountant over at Sherman and-
But he doesn’t like to talk about it.
Sun setting sets the air habanero
“Look about it” the babies cry
Those chubby voices of rage.
Liquor quivering milky and hot
I ripped the roof and reached-
J-Dog has snatched another thief
And he will take the lil’ ***** to the
holding cell that thinks
Where he will be questioned by
ten petite police
These babies won’t bite the bakers back again!
“Si tu vois ma mere”
broken Bombay bottle sings in despair as
Giant mother tomato sun fell,
Madness doesn’t cease it goes around.
Sep 23, 2014
Sep 23, 2014 at 1:33 PM UTC
Through all this strife
We create life
It's not wrong or right
It's humanity's plight
Whether it's with a wife
Or a stranger
We create life
Despite danger
There is a new addition
He could end repetition
Of negative patterns
And social ladders
But there is a competition
Between the new editions
Of positive versus negative
He'll be the one ahead of it
In a world plagued with stabbings
By the greedy money grabbing
Not to mention the beastly bombings
That endear retribution wronging
And elusive peace longing
There is a birth
Amongst death
That makes it worth
That first breath
Which provides hope in promise and potential
When they could be the positive differential
That could change this planet
And the hearts made of granite
We are born screaming
And never stop
We find ways of teaming
To be cops
Imposing our will on others
Through fascist force
There are many ways to cover
How this ruins discourse
But I sense a new sheriff in town
Our old ways he'll bury in the ground
He might be one or two now
But he'll change the world and I don't know how
For he brings hope
To a world with none
He helps me cope
A compassionate son
He'll make the world brighter
By not being a fighter
In a world of strife
He'll create life
Dec 26, 2017
Dec 26, 2017 at 2:47 AM UTC
Here I am,
In a long, low, valley,
On a horse, under sweltering sky.
A single trail runs East to West,
As far as the eye can see.
The sheep-skin bags,
Strung low off the saddle,
Are empty.
Bandits rode into town last week,
And made off with a couple of dreams,
Now I must know,
Which way to go,
I am the Sheriff,
The dream-catcher.
Jul 26, 2012
Jul 26, 2012 at 1:36 AM UTC
There's gonna be a gunfight
Out there in the street
All the stores closed early
To see who would be beat
The gunfighters got ready
Neither would back down
Each one gave the other
24 hours to leave town
Bifocal bill was ready
He said " That drunkards gonna pay !"
Then stood there shouting " Draw ya punk "
Facing the wrong way !!
The Whisky Kid stepped into sight
And staggered about the place
He looked bill up and down a while
Then fell down on his face !!
The crowd stood waiting eagerly
And as they booed and hissed
Bill squeezed off the first shot
To no surprise .. he missed !
The whisky kid then stood up.. swore
Cursed .. some foul abuse
Then called to bill " i need a drink !
" howz about we call a truce ?
Bill fired his gun repeatedly
Bullets spun off left and right
The whisky kid fell on the ground
The crowd went silent at this sight
The whisky kid just lay there
With a bottle in his hand
Bill grinned and said " The kid is dead !
But he was just too drunk to stand
The sheriff said " i guess that's that "
And as they turned to go
Bill's gun slipped from it's holster
And blew off his big toe !!.
Sep 6, 2010
Sep 6, 2010 at 12:56 PM UTC
she came in out of the dark rain
her guns hanging loose at the ready
her worn leather death hand just driftin above
the handle of her colt
eyes searching for the hard glint of steel
in the faces of the saloons crowded floor
but none had noticed her come in from the storm
she walked to the bar and called out
for a whiskey
leaned and let all but gun hand rest
as one of the prettiest bargirls came up
and smiled for a drink
without conversation the girl lead her
to a backroom
and this gypsy's night was filled with hot passions
and the gun hand was forgotten
in the sweet arms of virgina citys sweetest rose
but morning came with the rolling
of the steamtrains whistle
and the sheriff calling out the gun hand
she had laid some dog of a man low
for putting his hands on his woman
now she got to hang
cant be shootin our law abiding folk
we don't take kindly
this gunhand
this leather clad hard riding woman
with the softest sweetest heart
the kindest of souls
wasn't gonna let em hang her
for shooting down a ***** dog of a man
so she kissed sweet rose long an deep
and bid that sweet girl fare thee well
took up her colt
out into the dusty raw heat of
noonday sun she stepped with
her gun hand driftin over the **** of her colt
eyes blazin for the fool of a sheriff
who had come to lay her low in the name of justice
in the name of their lie of a town
they faced eachother and drew pistols
both got off a shot
one fell to the dusty earth
never to rise again
the other laid down pistol
and walked away
Mar 14, 2014
Mar 14, 2014 at 2:29 PM UTC
after Sanam Sheriff.
In this dream, the statistic isn’t 1 in 3 because there is no statistic. There is no **** whistle swaying from our necks. No Rohypnol swimming in our drinks. There is no need for colour-changing nail polish to tell us that the stranger we haven’t seen or the friend that we have is trying to take advantage of us in the alley behind the club. Or our cars in the grocery store parking lot. Or our bedrooms as our mothers think they have just gone to the bathroom. In this dream, we have no need to invent a word such as **** No need to be afraid of who’s in the dark. No need to be afraid for our daughters. No need to panic every time a man raises his voice. Every time a man raises his hand. Every time a man raises his belt buckle. In this dream, there is no more catcall, no ass-grab, no staring so hard it feels like his eyes have already touched us in places we never consented to. In this dream, consent is part of the foreplay. In this dream, we do ask for it. In this dream, they don’t touch us otherwise.
Apr 18, 2016
Apr 18, 2016 at 4:48 PM UTC
Prohibition came, but not to Whiskey Hill.
A man has got to eat; a drunk must have his fill.
Old Abner dug a basement before fall
Beneath the milking barn at night;
Dug down and mortared up a wall;
Bought copper sheets and hammer-fit 'em tight,
Disguised his vent holes in the stall
By countersinking posts to keep them out of sight.
Set down a trapdoor and a sturdy stair,
Strawed the lot and penned up his old mare.
In all he did, he didn't tell his wife a thing;
He reasoned there was money to be made...
More than the crops would ever bring,
More than the eggs the chickens laid,
He'd be enriched by moonshine in the spring.
He learned to ferment mash from an old book,
Soaked down a bag of corn and let it sprout,
Waited twelve full days before he took a look,
Cracked kernels, poured on water, boiling hot,
Then pitched the yeast and left his hidden nook,
And all the while kept his mouth shut;
Seven days and Sunday passing by,
Old Ab could wait no more;
Ate supper quick and told his wife
He'd one more feeding chore...
Stole to the barn and shoo'ed the mare aside,
Pulled up the vent posts from the floor,
Climbed down and lit a fire inside
Beneath the still to let the vapors soar.
A thrill began as drops began to fill the jug;
The fore-shot blended in as Ab forgot
That methanol would poison off the slug,
So when a shot he took, his breathing stopped.
Above, impatient Molly stamped, then paced
Hungrily in her pen, shoved to reach her hay
And dropped the standards in their place,
Plugged tight the vents, above where Abner lay.
When Hildy woke, her husband still was out;
She walked down to the barn, no sign to see;
And thought it odd the horse was out...
The cattle lowing hungrily for feed.
The sheriff came to have a look;
No luck had he,
Old Hildy sold the place and moved away.
Where she went and how remains a mystery.
A cousin bought the place: house and barn and still (unseen).
His sons, exploring, found old Abner in the spring
Beneath the horse's paddock where he lay.
Feb 10, 2013
Feb 10, 2013 at 1:40 AM UTC
she can look you in the eye
and stab you in the back
carry out a conversation
and still she keeps on track
she's just an evil being
and she knows how to attack
always watch her closely
or she'll stab you in the back
you know that when this woman dies
the devil will be cryin'
for it won't be long till she's in charge
and it will not take much tryin'
to make sure that she gets there though
they'll bury her face down
she's got the devil running scared
there's a new sheriff in town
she knows just one direction
that's why she'll be face down
she's got the devil running scared
there's a new sheriff in town
she'll cut you once and you'll bleed twice
you'll be under the bus
this woman is plain evil
she isn't one of us
she'll slice you , you'll say thank you
because she does it with no fuss
she'll cut you once and you'll bleed twice
because she isn't one of us
she's got the devil running scared
the grass dies where she walks
the devil will be unemployed
you know she's lying when she talks
she's the most evil vile being
they''ll put her face down in her box
she's got the devil running scared
this one's as crafty as a fox
Feb 22, 2015
Feb 22, 2015 at 3:57 PM UTC
"Welcome to the world of Crazy Cool"
The author said as he took her by the hand and guided her throughout this land
She was amazed at how even though they were cartoons, the look and feel we're almost lifelike
She became intrigued by her surroundings with the more and more she saw
As they were walking the sheriff's car of Crazy Cool pulled up right beside them
This one seemed different from the other characters in the comic book world
Although all of the characters seemed lifelike, this one in particular seemed a little too lifelike
"What's going on here?"
The sheriff said with a frown
"What are you strangers doing in this Crazy Cool town?"
And that's when he saw her, this beautiful woman dressed in all white
He might as well have fallen to his knees, not even putting up a fight
The author grew weary, for he secretly desired her too
"Hey smack that look off your face. Yeah, I'm talking to you"
Jan 19, 2015
Jan 19, 2015 at 10:40 AM UTC
It aint the same everwhere
I know it took a man
To stand and stare
Down them gallows
In Zebullon county square
Lil Mae
age of 21
saw her man with another
moaned
"I'm gonna make you pay"
now some of you wanna say
"Lil Mae get a gun make that man pay"
To mad to see
to hurt to care
Lil Mae stormed her way down to
Zebullon county square.
Bobby Lee wasn't a simple man
to proud to be dumb
could read and write
Yet he never let no one know
Bobby Lee workin late
bumped into a drunk,
back on that old alley
Bobby Lee took a beating by four whites
the blood poured out into the streetlight
Soon enough the sheriff came a runnin
"whats the matter here!!"
white men shouted
"the boy had it coming, he took my money
try to **** me, sheriff I had to do something!!"
12 days later 12 men had a shine
sentenced ***** Lee to hang
Saturday morning half past nine
sun be coming up behind him
so his shadow
would grow tall on that line.
Sun rose cool that day
Folks lined up to watch Ol
Bobby Lee pay.
Soon they all began to scatter
preacher man shouted
'"whats a matta"
Lil Mae had come with blade readied
for her last stand
"Preacher man" Lil Mae shouted
"you goin to hell, no doubt about it"
"Im gonna send you there by my hand."
silver plated blade glistened in the sky
"lord my soul , dont let me die!"
Blood sank from the preachers throat
Lil Mae watched til his last choke
Crowd screamed "NO!!" but it fell on Gods deaf ears
"Lil Mae" came her mans voice
"why you do it?"
She reckoned "I had no choice"
"I love you but you put me to it.
you and this preacher man ripped me apart."
Lil Mae's man stood in the middle of the square
tears draining life, sobs stealing air......
Bobby Lee innocent as he was
unwrapped his noose
and slowly walked away
Lil Mae stood her ground on them gallows
but it gave way
half pass nine
she fell in line
the sun made her shadow tall
dead before her body
went through the gallows fall
May 3, 2013
May 3, 2013 at 1:58 PM UTC
And let me down easy but do break my heart
Otherwise I'll never know if I should chase after y'all. And the longing comes nightly, the bourbon rings twice, every time I'm out living, y'all stop me from dying. But a man is worth pennies when his work is the dirt, and I've never known forgiveness I've only ever known hurt.
With my skin on the desert, my hands cut from the piste. If a man's responsible for fire, then it must be woman who's made the stream. Everything is an eyesore when plague cuts at your flock, and the shepherd is aching to be rid of his cloth, the end of evil corrupts it, the sheriff he breaks his own laws. They take all that they want, leave you to look up to the dust, you can't sustain the pains of heartache, you words shorter while you talk. So please take it away, the flat and the plains. And only fires concern them, water drowns for them and cries. I don't need no one to listen, no one to soften my eyes. I've been bit by the river, it's taken my breaths. Filled my chest full of water, brought my time to new depths. I saw the valley, and I saw the moors. I saw the valley, just tell me, will she be here tomorrow? I've seen the valley, and I've seen the moors, just please won't you tell me, will she be here tomorrow?
Oct 2, 2016
Oct 2, 2016 at 2:40 AM UTC