Brevard

First draft after I read, Mr, Scott's "War", Me outside the laundry in Brevard one June.

Two 55 gallon drums bridged by a rough cut
Warn smooth board plank.
Surrounded by a ice-cream and Beer crowd,
A fiddle adds sugar to the banjos call to the wilting evening light,
Hoisted up are two daughters, great gran daughters,
Of the bearded on lookers, now into their shine.
A Southern beauty with laced boots Vs.Tennis shoes with freckles on her... but...
We love her sort of gal.
The leather and rubber teasing the plank,
Me set back away from the light,
Now building a cone of yellow with little tracers flying left and right.
A Fire -fight of Fireflies, indifferent to the clogging match ,
Indifferent to the girls whose men had gone,
to coal, to meth,to somewhere away from,
French Broad flat water, Toxaway-Roster- tails.
Gone from the hardwood thick of Devils Court House,
Left the rough ridge lines now covered in houses,
Men gone to war,
Left lonely "tar heel dead",
Girls to clog ,
In a parking lot in
Brevard.
Their babies soaking up the,
Life of a
Crying fiddle.

Me so deep,
Searching, patterns, paths,music, light,
Fireflies,
"Cold Light" in unison,

They stole my load of
Whites going around and around.

Posted

Author's Note

My mother,My country, court ordered incapacitated,but in my humble view very present, Add twenty years to her birth and there she is parked. A "Tar Heel born, Tar Heel bred,and when I die I'll be Tar Heel Dead" So she likes to say. From the fields of Fletcher North Carolina,Arden,or Lynn on the border , where Sidney Lanier died(Great Poet) America wakes and dies for us to watch,My Mother wakes and dies for us to watch and she will smile so bright when you read and write about the south of her youth. America will too.

Reviews

[Vincent Moore]

Being from the north, reading about a time in the south, sure triggers my aspirations to visit. I enjoyed the language and descriptive words used so vividly in this interesting piece of literature so cleverly crafted from your brilliant mind. I see you are a very visual writer, I too like to take my reader on a journey into my world and live and breathe the events of any given day from my past, present and hopefully some future. Bravo, well done, I loved it and rate it high.

[Einstein Noodle]

i can hear Gillian Welch in the background as i read ... not from the south so some this get passed me ..but the tone and flavor of honest hard driving life .. your poem brings vivd images of the clogging and freckles ..glad you shared this
E.

[Angi]

This little snippet of life had me tapping my toe and grinnin'. Women are so strong when they have to be. When they need to be. I picture the speaker running around commando with no skivvies to his name. Ha! Loved this piece! Angi~

[lee von cleef]

Gotta love the South, G R I T S

[David Scott]

I would have loved an invitation to read this poem!
I'm glad I found it.
You have caught the feel of a Thursday night on mainstreet and without sugarcoating the culture you serve a tastful treat!
I guess this poem was not so much a response but rather you were reminded of this small slice of southern Appalachia.
I think we have shared the joy of Brevard!

[Cherrie Palmer]

loved it, noth'n better than a day down south

[lee von cleef]

If you can find the cool of the shade, and sweet tea,and love.

[Cherrie Palmer]

They are a must have and at the moment a four year running thru the house sining hot-dog

[Aethereal]

You tell a good poetic story. This was fun to read. Ah, the life of a crying fiddle! Love those fireflies.

[lee von cleef]

So does my Mom..

[John]

Brevard is also a town in Transylvania, and if I were asked to link the two, I might suggest the notion of the 'living dead'. There is life in the scene you describe, music, conviviality, young attractive girls, but there is also the overhanging pall of death, men gone to war, lost to drink and depression.. Most interestingly, there is the isolated and self contained speaker, so self absorbed that the poem can be read as his expressionistic fantasy. Amid so much life, he focuses on death, the inheritance of every generation, and what ultimately is bequeathed, 'babies soaking up the life of a crying fiddle'. Though, it is not so conclusive, for he continues to seek paths and pathways, searching for the fire.

[lee von cleef]

Kick a*s and take names ,coool you can skin a cat,and read the bones, you know the Navajo women would put a rock on top of a piece of jewelery then toss bones to see who would win it.Interpreted all but those dam fire flies blinking in unison,I don't know how they of you do what you do, mirrors I guess.P S Rockey died, was a carpenter in Hawaii.54.

[John]

Read what's there before me. It's you that has done the work.

[lee von cleef]

Well it did flow through me, a conduit of sorts....

[Frieda P]

I don't know of many of these memories of which you write, but you've written them so creatively that i get a perfect picture in my mind. This is one I could read a few times and come away with a new understanding of where it's going....nice one lee, enjoyed reading.