Oklahoma Homecoming

The chalky roads stretch among

the blackjacks, their summer cobalt skies

burdened with the weight of barn swallows.

Climbing the hills outside city limits,
farmers toss hay up to the rafters
a spit for each bale, wiping their foreheads
with red kerchiefs, stuffing antique bottles in their pockets.
 

If you’re from California you search for Redwoods
amongst the cedar trees bleeding sap
on this early June day, the breeze knotting
your hair, buffalo staring from every grassland.
 

Beyond a hedgerow of Bois d'arcs,
knee deep in blackberries and devilish scissor tails
a combine shuts down, its cab
curls up for a sun bath.
 

I know that. I want to tip over my engine,
let crickets carve a hole in my threshing drum
become a useless object in the underbrush
buzzing with warbles, drifting with pollen

put my arm around some little old woman,

braid her hair as cars drive by like safaris,
like I’ve dreamed of safaris and jumping on the back
of a blue wildebeest. But I keep driving with my hand cupped
in the wind, cradling the sunset like a dying bird.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Bev Ellington

Her coffee cups had lipstick stains even after washing. Grownups around her breakfast table talked politics and prejudice, smoked filled the room like a pub, her guttural laugh was a machine gun, hair twisted into a falling down bun, strands stiff like stems, bobby pins unleashed in the wind blew blue Jubilee Gem; basket of flowers.      She was a conversationalist. Her house was pink stucco when stucco wasn’t in style yet. She painted the still life of orange Pawnee fields, summer time hues in grey streams. I ran my hand against the bumps of her paintings once to feel the Lungworts, Larkspur, Cornflower spikes, I could’ve picked them like scabs.      She was an artist. In a June Cleaver white-belted dress hair still a mess, she played Boogie Woogie blues, Floyd Cramer’s slip notes, her legs danced in flat shoes, lips spread across her teeth as far back as they could reach.      She played the piano. Horses in the barn, cows in the mud patties, boisterous blooms grew in moonlit pasture hallucinations, beam-cast rainbows caked her face when she waved goodbyes.      She had two sons.   Glenn and Billy Jo were swatted when they didn’t lock the gate! lower the cattle guards! shut the shed door! always had that fly swatter in her hand, electrifying our indigo meadow.      She was the wildflower heads I plucked. .

Oklahoma

The winding roads swing with

blackjacks, their fall cobalt skies
burdened with the weight of barn swallows.

Climbing the hills outside city limits,
old farmers toss hay up to the rafters,
a spit for each bale, wiping their foreheads
and stuffing antique bottles in their pockets.  

If you’re from California you search for Redwoods
among the cedar trees sappy and running
on this autumn day, the breeze knotting
your hair, a buffalo stares from every grassland. 

Beyond a hedgerow of Bois d'arcs,
knee deep in blackberries, devilish scissortails
and evergreens, a tractor shuts its cab down,
curls up for a sun bath.  

I know that—I want to tip over my engine,
let crickets eat a hole in my threshing drum
become a useless object in the underbrush
buzzing with conundrums, drifting with pollen  

put my arm around some little old woman,
braid her hair as cars drive by like safaris,
like I’ve dreamed of safaris and jumping on the back
of a blue wildebeest. But I keep driving rolling the windows
down, cupping the sunset, tips of windmills.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

Front Porch in July

The cement sits blushed by the sunrise
simmering its steps, morning glories hang
from the corner edge, as if they can’t remember
the frost of fall or shade of winter.
A blue jay plunders an empty bird feeder
like the homeless man and his useless paper bags,
whistling, there is no food, nor water, or nectar—
the tragedy of concrete cracking.
The first step has pulled away from its foundation,
all visiting moths and salesmen should turn
towards the street a block down,
not be anxious about undergrowth
as time cools everything, one season at a time.












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Piano In Storage

A turtle rolls from its melodic
slough onto the highway
where it withdraws

an algae-covered head,
helpless
to unpack itself.

Everything That Mattered

I kept your blue pillow case with the smell of your hair,
oily and thick, wondered how long it had been
since you’d changed the sheets, how long
before your legs and suspenders tipped down
in sad motion stuffing the tight entryway
of a tiny apartment, disheveled kitchen with mismatched pots
and two hundred dollars in a pickle jar inside the refrigerator,
a disappointed clock stopped at some point
when books leaning on bricks and boards
were everything that mattered,
and plastic sacks held too many white cotton socks;
(you’d forgotten that you bought a pair week after week)
breathing containers that allowed you to inhale
the musty plot of your dark living room as even now
you dwell in a box on the top shelf of my pantry, a man divided
into so many compartments.














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Excerpts From Spring

                                                     Pawnee Homestead 1967




Along the winding path, a Swallow rings
from the damp wooden eave of the chicken coop.
A pasture breeze blows warbles and skittish calves
leaving cow pats across an insignificant palette of greenish—yellow.
Purple pops inside smoky rabbit brush, smashed
bright dandelions forge unrestrained along the milking stalls.
It’s like this every year.  I track the colors of spring,
pretending I'm prairie rose strolling across the face
of winter.













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