Watch Out For Falling Rocks

When someone I love more than life itself was seriously ill, he said two things I’ll never forget.  He said he hated it when people treated him like a prophet or a sage, just because he was sick.  He also said he could handle the days when he woke up in great pain, because the pain let him know that he was still alive.  

But wait…there’s a happy ending here.  He has been completely well for years now.  

I still think he’s a sage. 

.

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Edges

Julie Buffaloe-Yoder

Waking with a disease creates edges.

Edges of light around closed curtains,

beneath my morning door, the promise

of hospital corners, angular faces

with masks, the knife.

.

Edges are safe.

Without them, there is bottom,

beneath a cliff no one has seen,

the other thing I must avoid

by breathing.

.

Edges can be lovely, a dull hum,

the gentle bleeding of a tongue,

waking underwater shades of gray

puddled voices in the hall,

behind dark doors

elbowing slow into my sleep.

On those days, I can tolerate

pointless conversations about rain,

the spin of earth, breath, sky.

.

Sometimes the edges are angry,

a thousand thumping veins,

the drip of drops

in the crook of my spine.

On those days, the edges bite

my ribs, blacken my eyes, shove

slow blades beneath yellow nails,

swell the glands in my neck like fists,

leave me on bended knees, praying

by the bloody toilet, panting

under sweaty sheets, loving

every thin blue breath.

.

On those days, I cannot stand

the petty crusts of burnt bread,

neighbors with toothaches

and complaints about my dog.

Only the edges matter.

Only the edges are real.

.

When the edges weaken,

the slice of sheets grows small

and I am floating face down,

a jellyfish drying in sun.

The day is a rendering of skin,

lines that sift slowly, broken feet,

stopping an elevator between floors

to be able to breathe alone, in peace.

The nights are bright in the bathroom,

mirror sharp, thickening

red stars on the floor, crescents

of moons beneath my eyes.

.

No one understands why I love edges.

The edges are always there

in the pillow, the glass, the jagged trees,

each deep sharp blade of green. 

The edges are mine.

So full..  So full of me.

.

Life is not circular.

The earth remains flat.

The bottom, not so far away.

.

I can live with edges.

Edges are good, even those

that have eroded.

When I see splinters

of sky in the window,

when I taste the sharp

dark blood of my tongue,

when I hear the broken echo

crumble across the canyon,

I know the rocks have fallen

instead of me.

.

 

TWISTED SISTERS

For lack of a better term, I’m calling this one a short story. It’s really more of a sketch. Maybe a rant. I met this woman and her little girl this week, and I wonder what will happen to the girl in a few years. I’ve never seen a more miserable eight-year-old in my life.

They were part of a caravan of mothers and daughters on their way across the country to some kind of beauty pageant.  Nope.  Little Miss Sunshine this ain’t. 

The big topic of discussion among the mothers was what product to buy to spray on the little girls’ asses to keep their bathing suits from riding up.  Little girls’ asses!  I’m still reeling from that one.   

Mothers.. Please.. I’m begging you. .Stop. .

There are enough screwed up women in the world already.

.******************************************************************************************************************

.

An Ungrateful Daughter

Julie Buffaloe-Yoder

.

…..All I ever wanted to do was help that girl. The money I have spent on her! Ballet, tap, jazz, gymnastics. All those cute little outfits at two hundred bucks a pop. A professional makeup artist. On my salary. Running around to the local events. Then County.. Regional.. State. .All those trips in sweaty vans with all those no-talent brats and their snooty mothers. I worked overtime, on my hands and knees, to pay for those contests. Virginia, Texas, California—my little girl won them all. Without even trying.

…..What a beautiful baby she was. On day one, I looked into those big blue eyes and saw something special. A shining star above all the rest. It was like God said to me, “Jennifer, I took your mother when you were five. I gave you a drunk, no account father. I stole your childhood and made you work like a mule. You had to drop out of high school before your sixteenth birthday. You married a man you didn’t love to get away from your father. But now I’m going to reward you for all that heartache. I’m giving you the perfect little girl.”

…..My girl could sing like an angel. She looked like one, too. Everybody on both sides of my family has frizzy brown hair. But my girl was a real blonde. Golden. Corkscrew curly blonde hair bouncing around those sweet pink cheeks. People couldn’t stop admiring her. And not just family, either. Total strangers stopped us in the street to ooh and ahh.

…..Then she had to go and get chunky. Sure, every girl has an awkward stage, somewhere along about ten or eleven. But no matter how many calories I counted, no matter how many exercise classes I enrolled her in, that girl just kept eating nonstop. Out of spite. Nobody in their right mind unwraps a stick of margarine and eats it like an ice cream cone. But she did. It doesn’t matter how much makeup you put on a pig, well…chunky girls don’t make professional cheer squad.

…..Then there are the years I don’t even want to think about. Other women got to take pictures of their cute teenage daughters in strapless homecoming gowns. I watched my daughter stagger in the house, reeking of smoke and alcohol. If she even came home at all. Those weirdos she hung around with changed her. “If you lay down with dogs,” I tried to tell her. But she ended up in juvenile detention, no matter what I said. Then there went more money for lawyers.

…..And the purple hair. Oh, God! The night she shaved it all off and told me…her own mother…to go to hell. It was like the devil was standing in my living room, blowing smoke out of her nose. Then all that money I spent on all those shrinks. That fancy mountain retreat where they said they’d cure her. She ended up finding more drugs there than she did on the street.

…..Now she finally decides to get her act together. Thirty two years old. Still ungrateful. Still rolls her eyes and snorts when I open my mouth. I guess every mother has crosses to carry. Believe me, I’ve heard a lot worse on talk shows. Kids see too much violence on TV and those video games. Drugs are everywhere. It’s a wonder any of them ever come out okay.

…..They’ve got her on some new nerve pills, and that has helped a lot. She still looks pretty good in makeup, considering she’s over thirty. As for all the things she could have done, well, there’s no need crying over spilled milk. Her ship has sailed.

…..At least we can laugh nowadays. We go shopping. I buy her nice ladies’ dresses or we get botafirm facials done at the mall. It makes us feel like young girls again. Today, we’re having the baby’s portrait taken at a professional studio. She’s an auburn haired beauty. Only the best for my granddaughter. Now that one—she’s my real heart.

He Ain’t No Senator’s Son

They Bill Him Out

.

They named him Bird Dog

in Vietnam; he flew home

with silver rods in his arms

and a purple heart he won’t

talk about to save his life.

.

He started drinking

with a good stout blonde.

Dreamed of owning a hog.

Grew porkchop sideburns,

a garden full of greens

and six kids raised

in a lopsided trailer

on Credence,

macaroni and cheese.

.

Now he works Haz-Mat

Emergency Response.

24/7 he’s ready

with boots and a pager

and a face respirator.

He cleans toxic waste

with a half broke shovel

when the EPA calls his boss.

.

Each grease hot hour

on the side of the road,

in a tank, underground,

in the thick, black air,

they bill him to the client

for a hundred twenty bucks.

They pay him twelve.

.

Boss buys another boat.

Bird Dog goes fishing

on a muddy riverbank

with a cheap six pack

and ten grandkids

til the pager beeps and

they bill him out again.

Julie Buffaloe-Yoder

 

Vanilla Yogurt & Water

People keep telling me how much I’m going to love the movie, Nights in Rodanthe. How can anyone who’s been around me for more than five minutes think I would love a gush flick starring Richard Gere as a screwed up rich dude? “Go watch the trailer,” they say. “You’ll really be able to relate to it.“

Yeah, yeah. People told me the same thing about Sweet Home Alabama, so I was instantly suspicious. But I googled the movie trailer and watched part of it. Here’s a five point comparison of how much I have in common with Nights in Rodanthe:

1. I’m from North Carolina. The film was shot in North Carolina. Okay, I’ll give you that one. 

2. I have been to Hatteras Island and the surrounding area many times with friends and some tents. Rodanthe is a beautiful place, rich in history. The surf is awsome. Amazing lighthouse. The locals are friendly, good people. But wait…this movie’s not about Rodanthe, is it?  Too bad.  That would be a cool movie.

3. The trailer preview began with a gigantic mansion built on sand. Anybody who really knows me is hee hawing on the floor right now. The places where I’ve cleaned toilets aren’t even half that fancy. I think it’s supposed to be an “inn.” What a quaint little getaway. If the hurricane blows it away, I’m sure they’ll be first in line for FEMA money. Nope. Can’t relate to that, either.  We did get some free shingles one time after a hurricane.  Sometimes they just blow into your yard.

4. There’s a doctor. Oh yeah, I can REALLY relate to his world. Next.

5. Mr. Doctor meets a lady and there’s some kind of relationship boo hoo stuff going on. Is it just me? Or does anybody else smell vanilla yogurt?  Or lettuce?  I like stories with gravy, extra thick.  Stories that leave a grease stain on the plate.         

I couldn’t even watch the whole preview, so I know I’m being mean. Sorry.

Maybe I should have stuck around to see if they have a maid with an attitude who serves the doctor blue crabs. Now there’s somebody I can relate to.

Jeeves, hand me my lyre. I feel a verse coming on.

.

We Leave The Beaches For Tourists

by Julie Buffaloe-Yoder

Let them have the new white path.

We’ll keep our old black road.

We’ll keep the marshes, the bays,

the clam loved mud, the scaly

smell of fish house sweat.

.

We’ll keep the hard blue hands

of net menders, carvers, pickers,

oystermen, crab pot makers.

We’ll keep little wooden boats

churning foam, the musk of nets

hanging with vines in front yards.

We’ll keep the grit in our teeth,

the red bent backs of generations.

.

We leave the beaches for them,

the growing rows of condos,

swift internet access, dry stack

marinas, three story malls.

.

We’ll keep the slow turn of fans

in the heat, mosquitos, the creak

of sticky wooden floors, stepping

in the sweet shit of wild horses,

pickled smells of general stores,

old fishermen who sit on benches

and tell outrageous stories.

.

Let them have country clubs,

golf courses, famous actors,

casinos, beachside showers.

We’ll keep green garden hoses

and a beacon that opens and closes

its bright midnight eye.

We’ll keep sharp September stars

and the soft secrets of girls

growing up on salt water.

.

Let them have all that.

We’ll keep all this.

But all that keeps

moving closer to

our old black road.

How quickly

it all erodes.

Miss Sopa: A Great Woman

Note: This background goes with my poem, The Fall of Miss Sopa, Eater of Clay, in the preceding post.  Thanks to everyone who requested it.

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I met Miss Sopa when I was a kid. When she walked into the room, it felt like God had just thudded up to me in a pair of muddy men’s workboots. She took my face in her warm hands and said, “Girl, there’s some stories going on in them big eyes.” I only saw her a few times after that, because my family moved. But I have loved this woman for many years. She appears in my work in different forms, sometimes in different races or genders.

Of course, Sopa’s not her real name. I barely knew her, and I only knew she was Katrina’s grandma. Even in a relatively modern era, kids in our neck of the woods didn’t run up to adults and address them. The Sopa stories I know are from Katrina and from sneaking around the edges of that adult world and listening. I can’t swear to the accuracy, but the stories fascinate me.

Miss Sopa ate clay. According to Katrina, Miss Sopa made all of the girls in her family go to the shore every week for worship and clay eating. Growing up in the American South, I have heard many stories of people, both African American and Caucasian, who eat clay. I’m certainly not an expert on geophagy, but as far as I know, the origins in the U.S. come from slavery. Many people worldwide still eat clay from hunger. Some people just like it or say it has nutritional value, though I have read articles that warn against it due to toxins in the soil. Some get “hooked” on the taste and crave it. The ones who are hungry haunt my sleep.

Miss Sopa’s family came from slavery in Georgia. In brutal conditions, some slaves ate clay in order to survive. There are accounts of bastards who would actually put masks or wire cages on the faces of the slaves to keep them from eating clay. They were afraid they’d lose their “possessions” to sickness from eating dirt. In reality, the people were eating clay out of hunger and malnutrition!

Miss Sopa’s family was eventually freed and moved to Carolina to be closer to other family members. Needless to say, even after they were free, they still had an extremely rough life. Miss Sopa didn’t live through legal slavery, but she lived through the effects of it, which I am told were just as bad. She lived through the Depression as an African American. She lived through Jim Crow. Even after laws were changed on the books, she lived through attitudes. And on top of all that, she was a woman. She worked the fields with babies strapped to her back. Her lot was not an easy one.

By the time I met her, Miss Sopa wasn’t hungry and her child bearing years were long over. But her clay eating had turned into a ritual combined with Christianity and elements of worship from her African homeland. Miss Sopa shaped this into her own form of Christian worship by the shore.

White clay is often the choice of clay eaters in the South. But the clay I recall was either red in the piedmont or bluish gray on the coast, hence the blue in the poem. Miss Sopa’s “fall” in the poem is her fall from grace, but in a good way. It was a fall from the role white society gave her to play as as a black woman. Once I heard her say that when she got old, she stopped caring what white people thought of her or did to her. She said that freed her to do as she damn well pleased.

I used to give Miss Sopa birth and death dates, but now I just keep her at around 100. Now I’m old enough to realize that Miss Sopa will never die. I’ve hesitated to post the poem, because I want it to be perfect, and it’s not. I’ve been working on it for a long time, and it’s still not finished. I could do a thousand more revisions, and it will never be half as good as she is. My poems aren’t worthy enough to tie Miss Sopa’s shoes.

In this quick bloggy world of ours, if you have actually paused long enough to read all of this, I thank you. And I hope you love Miss Sopa as much as I do.

Miss Sopa: Matriarch of Clay

The Fall of Miss Sopa, Eater of Clay

by Julie Buffaloe-Yoder

Sopa Abraham Botswana Johnson

b. 1907

.

  Before three men and ten babies

parted her legs with a prayer,

Miss Sopa danced at the shore

with the women of time,

the women who ate clay

and kneeled naked

in autumn water at dawn.

.

She danced to the beat

of the beacon, bright

in her bones, then gone.

She danced a celebration

of Someday.

She danced in the breath

of the water,

water the breath

for all men.

.

Makers of clay, eaters of clay,

morphine for the women—

blue gray and smooth,

cool through her teeth.

Her stomach filled with clay.

She sang for breath

in spite of the clay

in her throat.

.

Men came and babies came.

Only the babies stayed

to bite the ends

of her night numb breasts.

Only a scar remained

on her sweet dark cheek,

shaped like an open mouth,

full of fat, white teeth.

.

She lived in a shack

held together by shadows

and filled the holes

in her walls with clay–

.

Clay that cracked

and crumbled on the floor.

Clay swept outside

by a pinestraw broom.

Clay gummed babies

(eight was all she had left).

.

One got caught

in a chicken wire fence.

One lost an eye on Good Friday.

One lost her foot in a Goodwill shoe

when an axe dropped

from a large, hard hand.

.

Summers, she worked in quiet dirt,

through shimmers of heat, each year

a baby strapped to her back, rocked

to sleep by the bending; her songs

captured in straw baskets rustled

tobacco leaves like hungry birds.

.

She taught her daughters

how to walk tall

in thick-skinned mud

where she learned to crawl.

.

One by one her babies left.

One by one they came back

like cats, proud of the clay

they held in their mouths

but not enough teats

to go around.

.

Stretchmarks of red spread

across the setting sky

that last fall when Miss Sopa

led the women, hand in hand,

clothed in skin, three miles

to the Promised Shore

beyond sun dotted woods.

.

They covered their tongues

with a thunderstorm of mud.

In a crash of tambourines,

they washed away the blood

beside a leaf-wet, fallen pine.

.

A shrine for the sinners,

the makers of clay.

The Poetry Collaborative

The good folks at The Poetry Collaborative invited me to participate in a poetry prompt. The exercise uses American Sentences written by people in the collaborative. An American Sentence is a poetic form created by Allen Ginsberg. Basically, American Sentences are limited to seventeen syllables.

Our exercise was to take the American Sentences and arrange them in a cento. Again, I’m being basic, but a cento is a poem which is composed entirely of lines used from another author (or authors) and arranged in a specific pattern.

My poem is not a cento at all. I was inspired by the beautiful sentences I saw over at the collaborative, and I just stole words.

That’s the beauty of The Poetry Collaborative. There are no rigid rules. It is meant to be a catalyst for creativity. I would like to do a cento with these sentences eventually, but for now, I have a working draft of a new poem. Please check them out. And play along!   

If you go to their home page, you can see the American Sentences which were written for the prompt.  Go to this link to see the original idea: 

 http://thepoetrycollaborative.org/2008/09/06/writing-prompt-the-cento/  

I’ve been having a lot of fun looking at what they have done at the collaborative. There is excellent work going on over there. Be sure to tell them just how awesome they are. 

Here’s my draft. It’s a love poem for my Mr. Gator. Come to think of it, a gator is a good metaphor for me. A female gator ferociously protects her young. Has a thick hide. Loves the swamp. Might attack if hungry. Otherwise, she’ll just stare at you and wonder why you’re in her woods. Has a big mouth. Yep. That’s me.

Intentions

Alligators have them.
Silent, surfacing slow
searching for dens
in winter, forgetting
water, food, breath.

.
I have them, too.
Salt-blue, suspended,
closing the lenses,
waiting for winter
to take me down
low, shifting
black water trails,

.
between sweet
cypress knees,
creaking pine, sky
split open, red,
where you and I
will dig deep

.
then sink soft
into a muddy bed
of bubbled swamp,
past sleeping snakes,
through dark roots,
one half-moment
of slow beats,
so warm, gone.

The A Is For Awesome

I tried to hold back in my last artist spotlight about my daughter, Amber. I don’t want to embarrass her with my gushing mother love stuff, because I truly respect her as an artist. But sometimes I just can’t help myself. Amber is an amazing talent. She also has a heart that’s larger than all outdoors. I could go on about Amber for five hundred pages and still have many stories left to tell. She is my soul.  She is my joy.

But before I break out the orchestra, please take a look at Amber’s beautiful art prints. She did them for a class when she was asked to create work with the theme of literature from her childhood. Have you ever seen Highlights magazine for children?  If so, you’ll probably remember the hidden pictures.  Inspired by the hidden picture format, Amber has created and “hidden” several characters from her favorite childhood books within these prints.  In one of them, she has also hidden a childhood picture of herself. 

Of course, the real prints are even more beautiful. I love the dark, dreamlike textures and colors. I wish I could show them to you in real life, as some of the smaller details aren’t visible in a limited blog space. But if you look closely, the hidden pictures will appear.

My poem below the prints is my attempt to do with words what Amber did with her pictures. I also tried to “hide” several references to my favorite books we read.

A tip of the hat to Amber A. Yoder. The A is for awesome.

 

Imagination

Four Prints by Amber A. Yoder

                                                                                           

 

Curls

by Julie Buffaloe-Yoder

 

Carolina August noon.

My feet stick on

the hardwood floor.

The humidity hangs

in unwashed sheets and

curls your hair in rings.

 

 

I tell you not to lick

the rusted window screens.

You hop from foot to foot

in little lavender sandals,

trying hard to wait for me

to scrape enough change

from the bottom of a drawer

so we can walk to the store

to buy sugar and eggs.

 

 

I knew it was too hot

to bake a cake

but you asked

so sweetly.

 

 

I load up a red wagon with you,

a picture book about a magic cake,

two dirty gray kittens, several rocks

of various shapes and colors,

a bear named Frére Jacques,

a dead lizard you found on the porch,

sugar, and I hope the eggs don’t bake

before we do.

 

 

I have never seen anyone so happy

to heat up an old, pot scarred stove

on a ninety-eight degree day.

 

 

We mix and lick and before I know it,

I’m having as much fun as you are,

and you start shedding your clothes

until you’re buck naked, shiny, bright,

wild, eggshells in your eyebrows,

some of your curls paper machéd

to the back of your head.

 

 

Drumbeats begin and a jungle

of curls grows across the kitchen,

up the walls, over the windows,

to the ceiling, and we get lost

in the shimmer shake shine

of that slick curling rhythm,

sugar glazed drops in our eyes.

 

 

Over thunder cakes we fly

in a little red canoe, a wide tide

of wind curls and turns us to

the bright lumps of giving trees,

upstream fairies fighting pirates.

We chew through owl moons

to taste honey pots of tiny mice

under gold bridges where

rainbow scales float

and we grow sweet

terrible teeth and roar.

 

 

Big green monsters go away.

Goat-footed trolls sleep deep.

 

 

I take our chocolate flop

out way too late

and God bless you,

you look up at me

like I’m a genius.

 

 

I know you will tip toe

to my bedroom tonight,

dropping hot little feathers

of breath around my neck.

 

 

When the rusty windows thunder,

you tell me it’s only the lightning

that gets you in the end.

 

 

But it’s only in the end I know

we’ll hold each other in the heat

like strands of curls cut free. 

 

A Brief Intermission

Hey, y’all. I will be offline for a few days. The reason I tell you this is not because I’m the great and powerful Oz Blogger. The internet won’t evaporate into a thick, black hole without me. I wanted to let you know if you comment, it may take a while for it to appear. But I promise to get you up there as soon as possible. If you don’t want to comment, that’s okay, too. It’s all good, baby!

Now, my day job…that’s where I’m important. Why, I meet all sorts of famous people every day. I’ll leave Sir William in here to say hello to you. Even though I’m of such high importance in the workforce, I still root for the underdog. Even the annoying ones. Garsh, I wonder why.



The Day I Saved Willy Lowman

Julie Buffaloe-Yoder

I really should give him
the back of my hand.
It’s Friday, the boss
is golfing, and all
my work grows teeth.



But the door opens.
I smell moth balls.
and there he is in a
faded plaid green coat,
gray hair falling out,
shiny shoes cracked,
worn down into
the shape of his feet.



He has a picture of kids
hanging from a plastic
World’s Greatest
Grandpa key ring.
I sigh, grit my teeth.
But I just can’t kick
Willy Lowman
out onto the street.



I waste twenty minutes
looking at catalogs,
laughing at corny jokes,
worrying about what
I have to get done.
I order twenty dollars
worth of cheap BIC pens
and pray I have enough
peanuts left on the VISA.



He’s so excited he drops
his sample of multi-colored
paper clips on the floor.
I waste ten more minutes
picking up clips
and telling him it’s okay.



He drives away grinning
in a beat up Chevrolet
Cavalier, circa 1991,
and my phone screams
with fat boy clients
demanding reports they
should have received
thirty minutes ago.



Still, it makes me happy
on a sun shiny Friday
to know Willy Lowman
can take off that jacket,
those shiny old shoes,
drink warm home brew,
eat bratwurst and cabbage
at a creaky kitchen table,
and tell his little woman
how he reeled one in
this week.

Check It Out

Thanks to Hysperia for telling us about this hilarious article. I thought I’d put it up here, so no one will miss it. It’s a post called “If Writers Competed In The Olympics: A Horror Story” from The Fabulous Geezersisters’ Weblog.  Two sisters, Ruth Pennebaker and Ellen Dlot, created the blog. 

Check it out.  If you are a writer, you’ll surely laugh.   

 http://geezersisters.wordpress.com/2008/08/21/if-writers-competed-in-the-olympics-a-horror-story/

And stay to read the rest of their site, too.  The writing is so much fun.  There is also another link to Ruth Pennebaker’s site with some of her publications.  I’m sure there’s much more I’m missing, so I’d better get back over there and read some more.