We placed a pine box casket on a sawhorse table.
There weren’t but little notice, did as best we able.
I watched the flowers wilting in the heat of August.
It seemed a shameful squander given what they cost us.
She was a stoic widow, though a might diminished.
She clutched a carved wood angel, one he never finished.
Then came a stovepipe preacher, smelled of hair slick tonic.
He kept his manner formal and his speech laconic.
It was a simple service in a smoke wood setting,
Another taproot sermon I’d be soon forgetting.
He hammered nail to cross the way the Good Book reckon,
“All sinners need God’s mercy when The Judgment beckon.”
He spoke some other hoo-ha ‘bout “The Lord's forgiveness,”
And I just shucked it off to get about my business.
I might be pissin’ sawdust when it come to prayer,
But when they toss on vittles, count me first hoss there.
PIN THE TAIL
O’Haggard Hoarfrost, she plays winks,
rocks on a sawhorse, tweedle-dee drinks.
Mad Merrie O’Boyle slays lightning from nails —
dazed loony-toon, wears out his flannel tails.
W’cked, their niece, says, “Take them away,” bickers,
with Midnight Judge in his moonwashed-knickers.
Their nephew, hees and haws, a blinking donkey-in-law.
O’Haggard and Merrie pinned his tail on his sacred flaws.
Force-swept, Hoarfrost and O’Boyle, under-dressed,
spoiled with lots of off-the-rocker friends to impress.
W’cked and her donkey are still looking for his appendage.
Facial features are pinned-up on the craziest stages.
5/29/2021
cussing bout
sumthang wrong
guess I better look into
getting it fixed
the problem comes with
instuctions
these intructions
are the jinx
cussing bout sumthang special
tired of crawling
on my knees
call up
ole bouis Gembo
ask him to
come help me please
we sip sodas
and talk bout whiskey
drag onna coupla cigers two
flip thru manuels
to find out
how to do
he karate chops
the sawhorse
bends my wrench with him
bare hands
" I say Bouis
you need sum loving
I'm soory I can't help you Man
Gembo makes it simple
he grabs the bolts
and takes ah squeeze
when he couldn't
find a vise
he simply used his knees
I gasped and wondered
and grab the rest of my stuff
I noticed he was looking for a shorter
crowbar
and went out to my truck
" I say , Gembo
look now,
that a very special rod"
he looked of and said okay
getting leverage aint that hard
he put on a pair gloves
not to scratch his pretty hands
he used his hands to pry it open
and chocked the space
with his soda can
PaULY WALLY
THERE ONCE was A Carpenter
That fell off his saw sawhorse
Had a wife but she divorced him
Cause of the nails he left in the kitchen
He framed a wall but it fell
Only thing left was the hole in the floor
O how can you tell
Pauly Wally was a carpenter
Whose bed was a wooden accordion door
The sky is a lesser blue now,
but the same winter-knifing wind I remember
off the ridges, across alfalfa fields….
Just condos now, impervious to weather.
Cantering bareback on Molly –
saddle on its sawhorse back in the barn –
I was Lone Ranger, last of my breed.
A flake of hay for Molly, years gone by….
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