"tupelo" poems
Daddy takes me to the greenhouse,
behind our rotted trailer, deep in sovereign backwoods.
Marsh voices, thick like tupelo honey.
The coo of a loon, hiss of a cottonmouth, shiver of a snapping turtle.
The silver of swamp lilies lip the land in wild haze,
a veil of ochre moss tickles my nose like gauzey ginger ale
and soil clings to my ankles like a lonesome hound.
Daddy’s greenhouse is a shed, a haven.
A milieu of magic and fleur-de-cannabis
where pixies pull my curls and gnomes dance
under mushroom parasols.
My hands dip into a hollow of muddy earthworms.
I feel akin to the yellow blood of a butterfly
or pale jade of perplexing geckos.
Daddy is a shaman.
He trims holy blooms that come from spirits
who sing in the wind like the whippoorwill at dusk.
Snipping sticky bushels, he pads tufts into his pipe,
carved in the shape of a sullen armadillo.
I watch him inhale.
His breath
stiff
as a braid of mangroves.
He exhales a ligneous cough.
I don’t mind,
much.
Jan 26, 2015
Jan 26, 2015 at 3:18 PM UTC
I
Stacked green crates by the futon,
records sealed as buried letters,
each sleeve longing
to be drawn out into daylight
by her small, thoughtful hands.
I just want to play that Nick Cave again
teenager’s resolve in her voice,
she drops the needle on "Tupelo",
traces Peter Murphy with her thumb,
holds Kate Bush to the light
like stained glass.
She laughs
at the ****** box on the speaker.
I tell her it’s never going to happen.
She grins, unbothered,
says she only came for the vinyl.
I watch her tilt each sleeve,
never touching the grooves,
brush the dust,
lay the needle like a secret,
slide the disc back without a wrinkle.
Each time I’m surprised
by her precision.
It’s the third time
she’s dropped by.
She makes mixtapes.
Pressing pause,
pressing record,
stitching songs
into a spine of hiss.
Once, to me, or to herself,
she said her father wanted a tape.
She’d mail it when
he had somewhere to send it.
She follows me across the bridge,
talking about her brother,
an ex-best friend,
mimicking her professor,
how he wags his tongue
when he writes on the chalkboard.
I haul a duffel:
apron, uniform, boots heavy with grease.
She skips in the rain,
strumming cables, humming
the last song played, still in the air.
II
I unlock the door,
steeped in garlic and kitchen sweat,
boots leaving grime on the boards.
She isn’t there-
only the crates, stacked neater,
jackets squared, spines aligned,
as if her care was meant for me.
The room settles with her absence,
yet holds me upright
in its small, thoughtful hands.
Sep 17, 2025
Sep 17, 2025 at 8:11 PM UTC
Prisoners of their own success
Their world now micro-sized
Fan adulation to excess
Their love is just disguised
Their objects of affection
Live their lives inside a bubble
Leaving their prison, though it's self imposed
Could bring them worlds of trouble
A truck driver from Tupelo
A pop band from the 'pool
A superstar from Hoboken,
And one...the King of Cool
The superstar from Hoboken
Became the Chairman of The Board
If you made it into his 'rat pack'
You knew you'd really scored
His movies and his music
Made him the world's number one
But he had to minimize his world
When someone stole his son
His boy was kidnapped, truthfully
Back in 1965
And through his contacts in the mob
He got his son back home alive
This is the price of fame folks
Behind the glitter and the glam
They've got to have their safety
But the fans don't give a ****
Prisoners of their own success
Their world now micro-sized
Fan adulation to excess
Their love is just disguised
Their objects of affection
Live their lives inside a bubble
Leaving their prison, though it's self imposed
Could bring them worlds of trouble
The Memphis Mafia gave protection
To The King of Rock and Roll
But, by choice his world got smaller
And he went into a hole
He built a house in Memphis
To protect him from his fans
And thanks to Dr. Feelgood
He died a lonely, broken man
He couldn't live the life he earned
He was a prisioner instead
It's a shame he has more value
Now that he is dead
Prisoners of their own success
Their world now micro-sized
Fan adulation to excess
Their love is just disguised
Their objects of affection
Live their lives inside a bubble
Leaving their prison, though it's self imposed
Could bring them worlds of trouble
He'd a partner and was cool
He was suave and sang songs
And he worked with a "fool"
They conquered the nightclubs
They were known near and far
But his created alter ego
Lived his life at the bar
He ran with Frank Sinatra
He was the King of Cool
But when The Chairman started lessons
Dean was right there in his school
The Beatles broke in Hamburg
But way back in sixty two
Their bubble was just forming
There was nothing they could do
They lived their life behind the scenes
For when they did go out
The girls would all go crazy
And the world would twist and shout
Privacy came hard for them
They went four separate ways
These four young men from Liverpool
LIved life inside a maze.
It's sad that adulation
takes their freedom, makes them hide
But they're safer locked away from us
They're safer locked inside
Prisoners of their own success
Their world's now micro-sized
Fan adulation to excess
Their love is just disguised
Their objects of affection
Live their lives inside a bubble
Leaving their prison, though it's self imposed
Could bring them worlds of trouble
May 8, 2012
May 8, 2012 at 8:21 PM UTC
still be on my feat
oh Joni you showed up at my door once more, Saturday morn,
blonde bangs and ***** voice, two octaves below shrill,
right about where the register intersection of
heart piercing, me humming, memory smiling,
poetry inspiring, yeah memories crying, that too
together, we have had more than many,
one case of you, a million sips, and I am writing
to see how you're feeling and to let you know
I never drank a case of you that left me,
being still, left me standing on my feat
my feat?
drank de-feat like it was the sea, boundless but not soundless,
sweet waves repeating, sea tears tinged with bittersweet cries of
Tupelo honey,
cause you were one of my angels,
lifting me higher when love was saying
not!
this time kid,
place, babe, not this peculiar particular apparition,
wrong rendition,
and at last, finally, long time later, sheepishly, sweetly only,
what was her name
your voice stood me up, your words still slap my face with
cases of kisses upon my neck, tune-turning prophetic notions of
what's next still be only just around the corner,
waiting on a new, simple twist of feat,
another song, poem, lover, and yet another,
case of you, so we can always see both sides,
and when I think of you Joni
my mind seesaws,
and I, still be on my feet, and thanks to you
ready for my feat
<•>
10:59am 10/28/17
Oct 28, 2017
Oct 28, 2017 at 11:00 AM UTC
My tailpipe spewing acid rain
I am M-i . . . on my way
To s-s-i-s-s and be ******
What I say . . . i-p-p-i
Memphis coming home
Crossing state line is heaven's door
I'm released now hit the floor
Old lead foot is on his way
You'd better believe it
I'm Memphis coming home
Coffee and whiskey my mainstay
Haul'n fast and reliably
No matter what my dispatcher say
Memphis coming home
Tupelo . . . past it's gates
New Albany approaching , now it's gone
Holly springs was a pleasure passing
I'm Memphis coming home
Cotton dust
Taste bud stuff
You can call them hills
Now if you must
Pine or oak , whatever's your choice
Tunica technically kicked your dust
Ole snake eyes soiled your luck
Broke , Memphis coming home
78 or 55
No matter I feel alive
Inside I'm outside myself
As I glide between the white lines . . .
I'm Memphis coming home
Jan 11, 2015
Jan 11, 2015 at 8:33 AM UTC
After what feels like
a plethora of years
I've fallen in a hole
that may be love, but I'm not really sure about it
because once in a while
after a plethora of days
or hours
I am pulled apart by emotion.
No, not emotion--
the repercussions
thereof
The repercussions,
the repercussions of those repercussions,
and the repercussions of those--
A plethora of consequences
Have you ever been so stressed out
that you actually vomited?
Me... neither?
Instead I sway
from side-to-side
like a swing pushed
in the wrong direction
and as the sky turns
I make corrections
only hoping my wisdom is
"grammatically",
structurally sound--
unlike a skyscraper
pushed in the wrong direction--
As my eyes begin to burn
I wish the sky
would just stay dark
and that morning would never come
so I wouldn't have to meet
my daily migraine
nor the time of day
when I have to stop
wait
listen
learn
work
negotiate, speak, drum, impress,
produce, create, multiply
add and subtract
all in one sitting
all in one hour
every **** hour
Nor the time of day
when I start
to think
about
you.
That's when my mind
finds my heart.
They don't speak--
They just listen to one another
smiling sweet as Tupelo honey
I can almost imagine it
through the blood rushing
in my ears when I close them--
But it just feels
like a fist fight in my chest,
and the rage of it burns in my throat
and the spectators cheer them on
which resonates in my hands
which are then unable to write
which is a sad fact
that keeps my eyes from shutting at night,
at least not as soon as I want them to--
You don't have to tell me I'm crazy--
It screams at the back of my head when
you stare at me like that
thinking a plethora of
things that I can't keep in
a jar so that I can spread it
on my toast in the morning--
Saying a plethora
of things I misinterpret
to silence this
plethora of thoughts
that fall from my eyes
without ever reaching the ground
and the plethora
of grass-roots
who wouldn't know how to drink them
if they did
The plethora of times
I passed opportunities
without saying a word,
disguised them as reasons
not to say a plethora of phrases
in reply--
The plethora of plethoras
that communicate through an alphabet
of more than twenty-six letters
so that, in the middle of the night--
when I don't know what to dream about
and therefore must think instead--
it can irritate me
in more words than belong
in a dictionary.
But sometimes there's just one word
and the word that haunts me tonight is:
Plethora...
Plethora...
Plethora...
That's the flat sound of Pl-,
a soft, tender eth-
and the gasp of an -a
Plethora--
Plethora--
A hundred things yet to be said
Plethora--
So many crises
so much time
Plethora--
Not quite enough to make you mine
Plethora--
Plethora--
Plethora--
Plethora...
Plethora...
Plethora...
Plethora...
Plethora...
Mar 9, 2016
Mar 9, 2016 at 3:35 PM UTC
It came at night,
a howling wind,
when gentle Spring
had been expected.
Gumtree pond
Homes destroyed,
bodies everywhere,
devastated.
In the silent
aftermath
there , the sound
of a baby
crying.
Baby Elvis
had survived
when all around
folks keened
for those
who died.
Nov 19, 2011
Nov 19, 2011 at 9:01 AM UTC
for SJR
who lets me borrow his voices, a good man, asks for nothing in return
and therefore, is given all I got...
~~
“She's as sweet as tupelo honey
She's an angel of the first degree
She's as sweet as tupelo honey
Just like the honey, baby, from the bee
She's my baby, you know she's alright.....“
Van Morrison
~~~~~~<<<<<>>>>>~~~~~~~~~
*old folk listen to old folk
and rock,
stung and sprung
from Pandora's box
someday
maybe,
you'll understand,
certain phrases,
from certain phases,
first tasted at a flavored oxygen bar
where youth drank,
worshipped and adored
and when those certain
word combinations reenter,
slipping in from unawares,
recalling easy the first time
you tasted with your ears,
Tupelo Honey
but what you remember is
that differentiating phrase
and
what you believed,
what you needed,
why you existed,
all because there was a new knowing*,
that
an angel of the first degree,
was out there waiting for you...
May 11, 2014
May 11, 2014 at 5:07 PM UTC
In the beginning were the chords
Seven days of rataplan;
The kind of week that John Lee ******
Dreamed in blue and 4/4 time,
Newport on a 60's binge.
Palinodes on saxophone lips
Refusing to look back on Memphis,
Chilling out to Tupelo time.
Spin him a lyric Lady Music,
Camber a tone to smoky heights.
Walk the blues round Jim Beam shores
And drown them in N'awlins nights.
Riff the waves to inner ear
Like satin on the low strings:
From frets on legacies
Feel the descant fade away.
Jul 3, 2012
Jul 3, 2012 at 10:29 AM UTC
I'll show you a place
Where no one ever grows old
Where life is ever stiller
And love is still a killer
A place where every dream is pure and bold
And the pavement it shines like gold untold
Down on Tupelo Road
I'll show you a home
Where togetherness reigns
Where laughter is ever after
And dreary is out to pasture
A home where every heart is whole and remains
And the hearth it glows like hope unchained
Down on Tupelo Road
©Jason Cole
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 5:08 PM UTC
I met an Eskimo heading South
Asked him what that was all about
He told me to cool my heels
He'd had enough of frozen meals
Passing through the Northern states
Spent a day in Bangor Maine
Got out of there post haste
Before the cold froze his blubber brain
From there headed down to Tupelo
But Mississippi was still to cold
Spotted a bit of roadside trash
Where he found a Florida map
Made his way down to the warmth
Florida and bought a farm
Now grows pecans whale big in size
Where he puts them into pies
Set up a country roadside stand
Oranges and fresh pecans
RC Cola and Eskimo moon pies
Right along the ocean side
When he's not picking nuts from the trees
In the sunny heated down South breeze
Sporting the best in bronze tans
It's good to be an Eskimo Floridian
Dec 12, 2015
Dec 12, 2015 at 6:45 PM UTC
It’s true my friend,
She did leave again,
Though I did believe that
This time she would stay.
But I won’t regret,
Nor will I ever fret,
It’s only in
The game she plays.
And I just don’t
love her the same;
There’s not enough
To go around.
Though, when I
Hear her name
It’s such a
Lovely sound...
But she doesn’t care,
She only compares
Her field of daisies
With her field of hay;
And I’ll never know
What she’ll never show,
It’s only in
The game she plays.
And I just don’t
love her the same;
There’s not enough
To go around.
Though, when I
Hear her name
It’s such a
Lovely sound...
It’s two below
Here in Tupelo,
And I cannot feel
My fingers as they play;
But I can’t forget,
So maybe I’ll just sit
And think about
The game she plays.
Aug 23, 2017
Aug 23, 2017 at 2:50 AM UTC
the blue neck.
the lonely echo.
tomorrow, in the light, where
a gurney is perched, they will
mourn the coming doom
of cold silence.
the ethnic way.
the soft blonde, tupelo honey lays
lifeless with open eyes and
weary hands.
a eulogy for the fair.
an effigy for the unborn,
and those left to live
in voiceless absence.
here, the merry men play, dancing
suede suits to disguise
the cigar, a facade to hide
what the crooked, blue neck won't
an hour hand that spins
faster, faster
loud, louder
as the whisper of a youth
bleeds the ears of 10,000 demons.
Aug 14, 2012
Aug 14, 2012 at 12:21 AM UTC
Mississippi, let the good times ramble
Biloxi, and Jackson
Flag raised high
Passion,
Tupelo rocking and roar
Hattiesburg for a show tonight
With my wife
My girl
Aug 4, 2015
Aug 4, 2015 at 8:57 AM UTC
Pink marmalade
smeared all over my face,
traces of pistachio ice cream
on my lips,
chocolate icing on my fingers
& Tupelo honey on my toes.
Are there any dreamers
still around,
thinking of leftovers,
sweet tasty leftovers.
Sep 12, 2014
Sep 12, 2014 at 6:37 AM UTC
I still can hear the train
it left here hours ago
It rattled past me down the track
on it's way to Tupelo
I hear the singing rails,
the lonesome whistle song
The earthquake feel of strength and steel
and the quiet when it's gone.
Sep 27, 2014
Sep 27, 2014 at 9:32 PM UTC
There are some aromas
you never forget,
like jasmine in the summer,
freshly brewed coffee
and woodfires, but
the taste of Tupelo honey
on your parted lips
is primal & trumps
any sweet scent,
it's more unforgettable.
Apr 28, 2014
Apr 28, 2014 at 10:48 PM UTC
It was on a quest we left Tupelo one night
about ten after midnight and made the coast of South Carolina
and her salty air at four carrying our backpacks loaded with Jack Daniels
We shoveled with worried brows we were followed.We had honey hope and innocence and our quest would not be denied. We dug four million holes just in Alabama, no telling how many , as we slept many times in strange foreign lands and read of the locals and ate their bread with gladness.
Walked and swam in currents that pulled and tormented, as we continued following our heart and torment and a little harder we got and stronger in this deed until we discovered Atlantis.
A small way, or half between Spain and France and Alabama, we found her. Buried by Shakespeare and covered with the ***** words of humanity, we dug up and exposed, our muse. She was death , and bones and honored her. We spoke of her beauty, not once but now.
For she symbolized destiny and how nothing really matters.
Dec 27, 2014
Dec 27, 2014 at 2:55 AM UTC
Amongst all reflections,
glass proclamations
they sit, stare, and
superficially surmise.
Coffee aromas and
veracious Blue eyes.
Why the disguise?
The rainbows, the waterfalls
into puddles of
Tupelo Honey, for
the Giddy Butterflies.
The sublime silence
composes a void
between the notes.
Mozart envies
the way the
music floats; lost amongst
winter's sinister breeze.
Dancing between the
New Moons,
Frusciante's guitar strings
ocean melodies and
a song Yogi sings;
2 souls exhume
from the depths,
a groupie swoons.
Feb 3, 2018
Feb 3, 2018 at 4:42 PM UTC
I grew up as a poor white kid
Soul stations were the best I heard!
I flipped my lid! I was 12 despised high school military nerds!
My friends laughed at my musical taste
Memphis east tupelo James Brown
Even Elvis above the waist?
The Supremes Arthur Connelly Wilson wicked picket made me wanna dance!
Old school radio 1960's still the best.
Back then before civil unrest...
Lets get drug dealers off our backs!
Jan 10, 2015
Jan 10, 2015 at 5:12 PM UTC
thanklessly the bankers
of Wall Street
meet in discrete fields
just outside of Tupelo
plotting to further victimize
the middle of America
through interest rate hikes
and trickle down economic theory
clearly they only have our interests
in heart…
corporate hedge funds
send tons of
industrial sludge
to ponds near elementary schools
where the rules are
pick up your messes
I guess they skipped that day of class…
rash covered babies
with minimal lung function
sit at the crossroads
or junction
of a nation in transition
the plight of the people is lost
on the wealthy unregulated
impoverished men sit
waiting for a V.A. date
and the medication necessary
to combat PTSD and hold down a job
loggers with broken backs attack
environmentalists
for risking their lives to save
species…the flora and fauna
but the powers that be don’t wanna…
the United States needs a comma –
Mar 21, 2016
Mar 21, 2016 at 5:17 PM UTC
It was on a quest we left Tupelo one night
about ten after midnight and made the coast of South Carolina
and her salty air at four carrying our backpacks loaded with Jack Daniels
We shoveled along with worried brows, thought, we were followed.We had honey hope, innocence, and our quest would not be denied. We dug four million holes just in Alabama, no telling how many , as we slept many times in strange foreign lands read of the locals and ate their bread with gladness.
Walked and swam in currents that pulled and tormented, as we continued following our heart worrying a little harder we got and stronger in this deed until we discovered Atlantis.
A small way, or half between Spain and France and Alabama, we found her. Buried by Shakespeare and covered with the ***** words of humanity, we dug up and exposed, our muse. She was death , and bones and honored her. We spoke of her beauty, not once but now.
For she symbolized destiny and how nothing really matters.
Apr 2, 2015
Apr 2, 2015 at 9:21 PM UTC
Toledo money
has made
tv honey
wherein Tupelo
love is
luxury and
the maid
so revolutionary
that swept
the air
there constantly
but suddenly
she sipped
where Saint
Joseph on
her trip
from earthwork
Aug 6, 2018
Aug 6, 2018 at 3:18 PM UTC
Met a girl in Memphis,
home to Mississippi,
4am to Tunica or Tupelo,
I got lost in the mix of it.
She stole my breath that morning, knocked the wind out of me,
lost the lights of the discotheque,
we were pollinating free.
Psilocybin chocolates and silk ******* stars as far as eyes could see,
city lights replaced by fireflies,
the Delta's soul soothes a detoured man's decree.
Scent of perfume or poison,
could have been the peonies,
moon shined on domestic horses,
staring back cautiously.
Breeze sang static harmonies through the telephone wires,
And we whispered our hearts desires.
If you asked us,
about the world back then,
We'd have a laugh for an answer for you my friend.
Jan 2, 2018
Jan 2, 2018 at 9:45 PM UTC