Tagalongs

Everyone should
Consider broader,
Anamorphic picture,
Before grabbing
Unwanted extra.

Cheap riders,
Curious lookers,
Lonely others,
Accident brother,
Luggage eyes.

Clothing keys,
Meadow watchers,
Abstract barrier,
Echo mouthpiece,
Bitter additive.

Faded romance,
Friends, love.
Soured, tainted,
Expired date.
Gladly forgotten.

Witch Grass

Deep in the forest
There was a clearing.
Beside a granite slab
Grew a magic grass.

Woodland creatures
Ate this grass and
Lived longer and better
Lives because of it.

One day a wanderer
Was so hungry that she
Chewed some of the grass
After sliding off the rock.

She glowed inside then,
Revived, vitalized, able to cast
Spells, she built a shack on
The border of the glade.

Sick people began to come,
Word spread of doctor arts.
She gave to all that asked,
Happy to share Earth spirit.

Fear caused rum scented
Men to burn her alive at
Midnight Christmas day.
Birds and squirrels wept.

The slab sunk downward,
Like a frown, the grass soon
Browned and withered away,
Nothing now but memory.

The Real Good Ole Days - Fragment #8406

A true country store in purest form,
Ran by Rank Holcomb and his wife.
Sunday morning ride down there,
Buy the paper, pay in a cigar box.

Or during the week, buy some gas or milk
Or cigarettes, go in and talk a bit.
Rank didn't say much, but when did,
It was really interesting, not filler.

Sign inside "Guarded by a pit bull - with Aids!"
Rank liked to smoke little Italian cigars,
He first had them when he was in WWII.
He didn't talk about that, but his eyes would.

Drinking Lesson

San Diego is a hot place.
This bears notice when
Planning to try and get
A girl from there drunk.

Sherry's dad was on the
Bar code team for Big Blue.
Her mom and sisters, I'm
Really unsure what they did,

Other than visit relatives here.
We were paired up by some
Patti Stranger cousin of hers.
A drive-in date was then set.

Double-feature, looming sex,
Action, and dark car privacy.
Pilot stop for beer and chips.
Warning sign ignored suavely-

"Will that be enough?" she
Asked looking at the Coor's case,
Smiling as Miller longnecks made
Counter contact from both hands.

Drive in to the drive-in, metal
Band Accept "Balls to the Wall,"
Cassette playing, she smiled and
Said she really liked that song.

Date ends for me too early,
Passing out before last call for
Concession stand pizza, pickles.
She drives us back to her Auntie's.

Wakes me up and kisses me
Goodnight, smiling as she invites
Me out to California to visit.
Home James, I whisper inside.

Next day I go out to clean
My car, not a sign of last night's
Beer, chips, nuts, and fumbling.
Fuel tank filled, carpet spotless.

California girls, well one at least,
Showed me what it was like to be
"Drunk under the table," proper.
Zander's ex sure did it with style.

Meeting Soloman on Route 66

One day on my way to L.A.
An old man, he had something to say,
"Hold your friends with regard,
As you do poker cards,"
He said that, and then he walked away.

Heat Fashioned in a Smile

Mississippi perdition beyond Benjy's fury.
Waning days of summer vacation, blinking past.
A need for Oxford welled in my bones,
So a road trip ensued while OPEC laughed.

What makes a state but its people?
The landmarks, the history, the smell
Is not the tipping point of its essence.
The 'pians I met took me back, too far.

Roadhouse tavern had gallons of beer
Cheaper than motor fuel, and a barmaid
Holding Helen's beauty captive behind
Eyes like twinkling binary nirvana bound.

Offset by that bastard cousin hate,
Reared in realtree camo, uttered drunkenly,
"That nigger thinks he's a White man."
Man's damnation, the vilification of his brother.