I was walking along Decker's Creek trail today and came across a woman speaking angrily into her phone. "There is a rotten deer corspe only a few yards from the trail!" she was saying to someone on the other end. "It's obviously been here all winter. Your men should have disposed of it months ago!"She had on expensive walking shoes and carried her cell phone and iPod in a Chanel pouch. Obviously not from around here. I kept walking, but stopped on my way back to grab a few pictures. The spring thaw always unmasks winter's carnage here in the hills.
The spring deer reminded me of why I don't write poetry. Here is one of only three poems I've let get beyond my grasp; this one written for the Baber Mountain Poultry Read many, many years ago... but never read. We were living on "the farm" that year and never did get a vehicle together that would make the trip.
Hillbilly Love Song - 1993
Baby love, if you was some dead critter by the side of the road,
Festerin' in the summer sun,
And I was just a lonesome old hound dog walkin' along that highway,
And I happened upon you there,
Happened upon you rottin' and stinkin' in the sun,
I would roll around inside the empty cavity where your heart used to be,
I would roll around until I had your rotten, dead stink all over me...
That's how much I love you.
One has to imagine the world of poetry will survive without any future contributions from me...
Peace!
Sarah
3 comments:
Sarah, this is Cynthia Allison from tNBW. I saw in the forum you had a Blogsite, so I came to check it out.
I felt better about your poem when I read that you wrote it as an entry to a worst poem contest. The poem is terrible, so in that respect you are a very successful poet! The poem is also terribly funny because you, Sarah, are SO NOT HILLBILLY!
From reading other things you have written, I know you are an exceptional writer. I think you can write poetry; in fact, I see you as a writer of sonnets!
Cynthia... That's sweet, although I am so very, very hill trash. You just don't know. The police are looking for my drug-addled brother as we speak, who has stolen yet another woman's car and probably traded it for crack of Oxycontin. (How he finds so many women who will lend him cars, when his history is so well known, is beyond me...) Now, I'm on my way to clean up the dead voles in my basement. Spring rain is genocidal to voles, which is too bad, because we have hardpan here and my garden needs their tunnels to grow!
But thank you.
And promise, if I ever write a sonnet, you'll give Nadine permission to shoot me. I'm pretty sure she would, just for the sake of humanity!
Hi, Sarah. I like your lay out here a lot. Reminds me that I still have to tweak mine.
I read this poem on tNBW but didn't review it because I just didn't get it. I'm relieved that you're not all that fond of it either.
I loved the Poultry Reading contest. Nice name.
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