The Lessons
by Michael McFeeYou could see it, or it could see you, anywhere in town,the county jail crowning the lofty granite courthouse.I watched it as I rode into Asheville for weekly church;
Subjects: Poetry
Thunder and A Southern Rhetoric
by Cathy Smith BowersMy husband callsfrom his month-long trip to Californiastill nursing the angerhe left me holding like a small childin the dwindling window of the airport
Poetry
Goldsboro narrative #11
by Forrest HamerI sorely do love her, I thought said.Actually, he said he loved her surely,but Southerners mix words up sometimesand I have often taken them at face value. So as this Southern man was talking aboutthe Southern woman he would marry, it seemed to me grownups tangled their feelingsunnecessarily, and especially love. And,since we were in »
The Pond in Summertime
by Daniel Anderson“She is AM radio. Chevrolet. The hot blacktop outside the Dairy Freeze.” Gold pollen floated on the air, And through a sunlit galaxy of flies I watched a silver, glinting muscle rise, Thrash once, then wriggle quickly down.
Dollar Bill
by Michael Chitwood“Outside, in the parking lot, sparrows bathe in the dust. Empires rise and fall. He’ll notice and say nothing of it on the air.”” Small-town AM station, morning show, still doing a gospel number every hour.
Learning Strategy at English Field
by Darnell Arnoult“He is cocky. He’s also cute and a good kisser.” C. P.’s outlaws versus the Martinsville Oilers.Hotdogs and popcorn fill Friday night airalong with moths that flutter and flirt withdanger in the field lights.
In Memory of Brother Dave Gardner
by Henry Taylor“. . . if you wasn’t already prepared to stop, beloved, you shouldn’t have started.” 1.But you know, friends-blessed children of the all-encompassing spirituality-good advice is where you find it. Yes!
Audubon Drive, Memphis
by James SeayThere’s a black-and-white photo of Elvisand his father Vernon in their first swimming pool.Elvis is about twenty-one and “Heartbreak Hotel”has just sold a million.
Vietnam War Memorial
by Robert Morgan“. . . From that pit you can’t see much official Washington, just sky and trees and names and people . . .” What we see first seems a shadowor a retaining wall in the park,
Georgia Scene: 1964
by John Beecher“. . . dragging that 70-year-old white lady down the courthouse steps with her head going bam on every step . . .” And so this cat he was from the GBI that’s the cracker FBI kept feeling up the chick’s legs with his electric cattle prod and making them wiggle and holler
Mill Village and The Stretch-Out
by Ron Rash“I was only seventeen, a girl / who still could trust a suit and smile.” Mill Village Mill houses lined both sides of every roadlike boxcars on a track. They were so closea man could piss off of his own front porch,hit four houses if he had the wind.
Grandfather Long the Last Time
by Robert Hill Long“I am myself a history / Flanked always by A.D., B.C.” I. THE FRONT PORCH GLIDER Back and forth the glider heaves our strange bodies,eighty-eight and twenty-four,your head swaying on its stem like a balding dandelion:eyes almost frosted over,throat whiskers roothair-white, you smellof mildew and ammonia—Is this the God-haired evangelist whose supper prayerwas as big »