A Valediction For My Father, Ben Williams (1898–1974)

    all the old things
    are gone now

    and the people are
    different


    Bea Hensley Hammers an Iron Chinquapin Leaf On His Anvil Near Spruce Pine &
    Cogitates on the Nature of Two Beauty Spots

    in the Linville Gorge I
    know this place

    now it's a rock wall
    you look up
    it's covered in punktatum all
    the way to Heaven

    that's a
    sight

    * * *

    up on Smoky
    you ease up at daybust
    and see the first
    light in the tops of the tulip trees

    now boys that just naturally
    grinds and polishes the soul

    makes it
    normal
    again

    I mean it's really
    pretty!


    The Hermit Cackleberry Brown, On Human Vanity:

    caint call your name
    but your face is easy

    come sit

    now some folks figure theyre
    bettern
    cowflop they
    aint

    not a bit

    just good to hold the world together
    like hooved up ground

    thats what


    Lee Ogle Ties a Broom & Ponders Cures for Arthuritis

    lands them fingers really
    dreadfulled me I
    couldnt tie
    nary broom one

    had to soak em in water
    hot as birds blood

    then I heard this ol man from Kentucky say
    take a jug of apple juice just juice not cider
    pour the epsum salts to it and
    take as much as you kin

    bein fleshy I kin take
    right smart but
    boys you know it moves a mans bowels
    somethin terrible

    well boys it just
    naturally killed that arthuritis
    lost me some weight too
    and I
    still tie thesehyar brooms

    pretty good


    Old Man Sam Ward's History of the Gee-Haw Whimmy-Diddle

    some folks say
    the injuns made 'em
    like lie-detectors
    called 'em
    hoo-doo sticks

    feller
    in Salisbury, Noth Caylini
    made the first
    whimmy-diddle I seen

    I whittle seven
    kind: thisuns king
    size, thisuns jumbo, thisuns
    extry large

    here's a single, here's one
    double, here's a triple and why right here
    here's a forked 'un

    been whittlin' whimmy-diddles come
    ten year, I reckon you'd
    care to see my other toys,
    boys, I got some fine
    flippers-dingers, fly-killers
    and bull-roarers, I can

    kill a big fly at 60 feet

    watch here


    Paint Sign on a Rough Rock, Yonside of Boone Side of Shady Valley

    BEPREPA
    REDTO
    MEETGO D


    Daddy Bostain, the Moses of the Wing Community Moonshiners, Laments from His
    Deathbed the Spiritual Estate Of One of His Soul-Saving Neighbors:

    God bless her pore
    little ol
    dried up
    soul!

    jest make
    good kindlin wood
    fer Hell ...


    Laments from the Pigeon Roost News

    once we all grew shellot
    potato onions everybody
    around here have run out of
    seed E. E. Seaton
    of Jonesboro
    Tennessee done heard
    about this

    * * *

    the Fourth-a-July
    Holiday
    passed off in this part
    very quiet

    * * *

    that snake were such
    peculiar looking
    to me I'm afraid I
    couldn't give it justice
    trying to describing it but it
    didn't act mean like
    it tryed to be
    pretty like
    it did


    Three Thefts from John Ehle's Prose

    every night
    the possums climb higher
    in the persimmon trees

    * * *

    a red pumpkin
    in a row of yellow pumpkins
    in a field

    * * *

    better'n
    a creek
    fulla syrup


    Three Graffiti in the Vicinity of The Mikado Baptist Church, Deep in
    Nacoochee Valley

    bulldogs
    stamp out
    dragon fire

    * * *

    PEACHES HEAR

    * * *

    pleeze
    vot fer lindin


    A Pileated Woodpecker's Response to Four Dogwood Berries

    kuk
    kuk kuk
...