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Open Poetry #37
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ice
Member Elite
since 2003-05-17
Posts 3404
Pennsylvania

0 posted 2006-01-23 12:14 PM


­Because they don't pour
Overflowing into streets,
Get arrested selling crack-or
Pimp themselves for bling;
Rural poor, are inoften seen,
Because they make no news
Except, perhaps as names,
Found in obituaries:

They stay hidden from other eyes,
In broken down houses-baking  
In unvented ovens, come August-
Invisible in wood or metal prisons,
Until death demands eviction...
*
The fault is deep, she cannot climb:

To blame, is poverties bottomless pit
(Always narrow, with steep sides)  
Whose cliffs are far too slippery,
For shoes with worn soles, to climb;

And so she bodes this muddy hollow
At the end of mud-lane...trapped,
Like a collier, when a mine subsides.

Her front yard is a graveyard of parts:
Where a torn southern cross, still waves
On the rear-glass of her dead-sons truck,
Still up on blocks, just how he braced it
In sixty eight, when he left for Viet Nam;

The same year he came home in a box.

The snapping shreds of a prayer flag,
Once bright with stars and stripes,
Fly tattered, above the mess that is her life...

But...she salutes each time she emerges,

To feed her mongrel, table scraps... the cur
That makes residence in the rusted F-150-(65)
Its bed still littered, with empty Bud cans.

Thin plastic on her port holes-bellow
In the winter-winds where Allegheny
Meets Appalachia-respiration shows-
As a weak pulse in cellophane lungs,
Wheezing in, and out, as the coal fire
Loses heat, with every breath they take.

The elastic windows are clear enough
To show the gray stripes of cheap fix-
(ducttape) pasted to dull sharp points,
And cracks, of broken window-glass.
*
A Saint Francis, she is,
Holding out grits in her palm
To birds in her yard

...as I pass, I wave
But she barely lifts her head

She is

Eighty now, but no one calls to visit,
To hunker down and glean the weeds
Of lonely from her life..her living kids,
Not far away, demonstrate their pain
By laying on her.... blame by silence.

Wasting lifes time alongside
Other country poor, invisible
From others eyes,
Up muddy roads that wind
Up other muddy-hollows.
­­

­­
­


© Copyright 2006 ford hume - All Rights Reserved
Seymour Tabin
Member Empyrean
since 1999-07-07
Posts 31720
Tamarac Fla
1 posted 2006-01-23 12:26 PM


ice
A very warm piece for ice. Enjoyed the read

Martie
Moderator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-09-21
Posts 28049
California
2 posted 2006-01-23 12:31 PM


Ford

Your description has painted a most poignant picture of this woman and her life, better then any photo could.  I feel her life because of your words.  This should be in your local paper!!  

Sunshine
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-25
Posts 63354
Listening to every heart
3 posted 2006-01-23 01:31 PM



Actually, it should be placed
in papers across the Nation...

you just stepped us all back some 40 years
or more...
to today, and the things that
haven't changed.

Hugging you for this heart-stopper...



and keeping it, too.

" It matters not this distance now  " Excerpt, Yesterday's Love
~*~
KRJ

The Lady
Member Rara Avis
since 2005-12-26
Posts 7634
The Southwest
4 posted 2006-01-23 02:56 PM




Incredible portrait. I enjoyed it immensely.

Gentle Spirit
Member Patricius
since 2000-10-09
Posts 13989

5 posted 2006-01-23 06:58 PM


I have know such a woman as this Ford,
although residing no where near Allegheny.  
Poignant potrait you so caringly display here.  Thank you for this...

Midnitesun
Deputy Moderator 1 Tour
Member Empyrean
since 2001-05-18
Posts 28647
Gaia
6 posted 2006-01-23 06:59 PM


quote:
A Saint Francis, she is,
Holding out grits in her palm
To birds in her yard


I love your perspective, tweetie.

Bridget Shenachie
Senior Member
since 2002-01-23
Posts 1056
Kansas USA
7 posted 2006-01-24 04:12 AM


I still think that Country Poor is preferable to City Poor.  Whichever.  It's hard to romanticize poverty. "Better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick." Don't know who said that first.

Why can't we find a way to feed World Hunger?

Did you get me thinking, or what?!?  You can see that my heart is bleeding.

Nice Write!

Shenachie

ice
Member Elite
since 2003-05-17
Posts 3404
Pennsylvania
8 posted 2006-01-24 06:52 AM


See More...Martie...Karilea...Kate

Donna...Kacy...Story Teller (good to see you again)

Thank you for reading and the encouraging replies...

Sometimes I seem to get in a rut, and write several poems in a row that might seem gloomy, so I don't post them in a line...This one was written a while ago.

I calls 'em as I sees 'em...

Big hugs to all.....

_______  ___ice/ford  
     ><>

littlewing
Member Rara Avis
since 2003-03-02
Posts 9655
New York
9 posted 2006-01-24 08:01 AM


ice?

Striking lines, placed perfectly, made me see her:

A Saint Francis, she is,
Holding out grits in her palm
To birds in her yard


and this is why I have to take a serious road trip.

These are the people whose hands are stained with mud and blood and grit and sand.

froggy
Senior Member
since 2003-06-23
Posts 1893
Michigan
10 posted 2006-01-25 04:17 PM


I agree with all those before me on thie beautiful read.
Well done my friend.

:-)

Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things,
man will not himself find peace."

Albert Schweitzer,
Nobel Peace Prize Wi

OwlSA
Member Rara Avis
since 2005-11-07
Posts 9347
Durban, South Africa
11 posted 2006-01-26 02:37 PM


I really feel for her, so well did you paint her.

- Owl

serenity blaze
Member Empyrean
since 2000-02-02
Posts 27738

12 posted 2006-01-26 02:54 PM


We drive by these places so quickly, ice.

Thank you, for giving us the slow tour of what is only a mere glance through a car window, or a quick mention on the evening news, and only then if there happens to be a story in such a community.

It shouldn't be happening and yet it is.

*hard hugs* for seeing with compassion too.

(I just backspaced a soapbox commentary regarding judgementalists who equate poverty with laziness.)

You are a lovely man, and alas, it seems all the lovely men are "taken".




nakdthoughts
Member Laureate
since 2000-10-29
Posts 19200
Between the Lines
13 posted 2006-01-26 05:49 PM


Eighty now, but no one calls to visit,
To hunker down and glean the weeds
Of lonely from her life..her living kids,
Not far away, demonstrate their pain
By laying on her.... blame by silence


happens much too often~~

M

iliana
Member Patricius
since 2003-12-05
Posts 13434
USA
14 posted 2006-01-27 05:42 PM


Having been a farm-grown girl myself, I know this "woman."  This poem, however, is much deeper than just a portrait of a woman.  It is a portrait of what war can do to humanity, and a brilliant social commentary.   ...jo
latearrival
Member Ascendant
since 2003-03-21
Posts 5499
Florida
15 posted 2006-01-27 07:13 PM


Being old and neglected whether poor or middle class or even rich is a bitter pill to take. You painted a picture of all the old men and women I know who have one sort of sorrow or another. Especially those whose "kin" forget him or her. thanks for this one. martyjo
Klassy Lassy
Member Elite
since 2005-06-28
Posts 2187
Oregon
16 posted 2006-03-30 10:44 PM


I think of those others I once knew who lived dirt poor!  Thank God they weren't forgotten in their last years, though, and were very rich in spirit.  Some cultures revere their old citizens. I wish we did more.  They are treasures, and forgetting them seemingly reduces those treasures to ignominious trivialities.  How much we miss, and how much they despair and suffer unnecessarily!    

The pictures in your wordpaint make a vivid impact on me.  Very well done!  Thank you.

~ Karen

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