What If?

What if heaven

Wasn’t like heaven at all?

No streets of gold

No cotton clouds to lay upon

No endless blue skies at your feet

Yes, what if it

Was like none of this?

What if it was more like

Some old town where spirits wander about

Like the rain swept streets of St. Augustine

Where shadows dance in early nightfall

From the soft sea breeze swaying slip-chain streetlights

Back and forth

Back and forth

And

Instead of tourist looking for ghost

On this spot or that

Ghost look for the best spots to communicate

With the undead

With the card readers

The mediums

With loved ones left behind

Trying to pick up the pieces 

Before drowning in a cold lake of tears

A sea of sorrow

Yes, what if

Heaven was more like the backstreets and alleyways

Of that old city?

Where old friends wander about

No need to eat  

No sickness

No fear

No money needed

No agendas by others

Just friends and family wandering about

Liz Worth : PostApoc

I opened my mailbox a few weeks ago and smiled from ear to ear. My friend Liz Worth had mailed me a copy of her new book PostApoc. I was lucky enough to be asked to read the first six chapters or so and give feedback while the book was being put together. So, I had a good idea of how good the book was going to be, but not yet the full grasp of how good it really was.

Book Description

Sole survivor of a suicide pact, Ang has fallen into an underground music scene obsessed with the idea of the end of the world. But when the end finally does come, Ang and her friends don’t find the liberation they expected. Instead, those still alive are starving, strung out and struggling to survive in a world that no longer makes sense. As Ang navigates the world’s final days, her emotional and physical instability mix with growing uncertainty and she begins to distrust her perception in a place where nothing can ever be trusted for what it seems to be. Bleak and haunting, PostApoc blends poetry and punk rock, surrealism and stark imagery to tell the story of a girl wavering at the edge of her sanity.

Liz is an incredible writer. One of my favorite poets of all time. She sees the world without blinders and when her pen scrolls ink softly across her paper, she doesn’t worry what words she uses. This is one of the hardest things to do as a writer. It takes guts to write this way. To write without fear of what some people might think or say. Anyone can put words together and call themselves a writer but very few have what it takes to pour everything out of them for the world to see.

This being said, I knew I was in for a good read as soon as I started PostApoc. But I didn’t realize the journey of thought it would evoke in me as I turned each page. I soon began to think where would this book fit in a list of other books I’ve read? Page after page, word after word, my mind kept wondering and comparing PostApoc to other books that moved me in the past. I soon realized about halfway through, it was tying for second place on my list of the best fiction I’ve ever read with Harry Crews’ Feast Of Snakes. Number one on my list is Harry Crews’ Scar Lover.

I kept thinking as I read, is it fair to hold Liz’s work up against such literary masterpieces as this? As the perfectly put together paragraphs flowed into my mind I answered, yes it was. This book made it to my list because it stirred every emotion in me. It filled me with creative energy. Made me want to start writing my next book. PostApoc did exactly what the others on the list did to me when I read them. It took me to a world of literature few, very few, have the ability to create. And that is why those works of art are still being read, and discussed to this day. 

About three quarters of the way through the book, I started to think about another book on my list, William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. Although, PostApoc is a book with teeth, sharp teeth, like Feast Of Snakes, it also has an unfiltered undertow of dream state terror pulling you into a world few could imagine. Was this what it was like for Allen Ginsberg and other Beat writers to read Naked Lunch for the first time? Seeing something so shockingly honest and creative put out for the world to read. Did the Beats have the same excitement I do now reading PostApoc? Then my mind opened to the possibility that I might be reading our generation’s version of Naked Lunch.   

As I turned the last page and read the last words, I came to the conclusion PostApoc is our generation’s Feast Of Snakes or Naked Lunch. On my list of best fiction ever written, it comes in at second place. For books in the category of post-apocalyptic worlds, it’s number one as far as I’m concerned. Many writers have come close, but Worth’s words allow you to choke on the sorrowful truth of it all, and smell the death in the wind as it blows its dark fear over what is left of that bleak world.            

 The release date is October 15. You can preorder her book here http://www.amazon.ca/PostApoc-Liz-Worth/dp/1926942299

Jason E. Hodges Quotes

Writers live within their mind for their flesh and bones are stuck in a far worse place.

Sometimes people just can't take how real the world can be. Even if they're your friend they’ll drop away from you like petals to a dying flower to keep their own sanity. 

A poet writes what they see every day, what they know, what they’ve lived or barely lived through. 

Sometimes the rules of writing get in the way of a good story told.

A shovel is the greatest motivational teacher I know.

Sleeplessness and being a writer seem to go together hand in hand. 

If you’re not going to immerse yourself in your work as a writer then don’t write. But beware, if you’re a writer who does not write, you stand a good chance of drowning in the world that surrounds you. 

For some folks the world is filled to the top with hurt.

For the writer that has truly suffered, their pen, their words, their art will become as important as breathing.

Lies are served like a fine delicacy. But beware, the truth of it all will sour, lodge in your throat, and choke your very existence if you continue to believe them.

Sweat, blood, and tears mean nothing in your writing if you’re not willing to burn what doesn’t work.

The Mailbox : A book by Jason E. Hodges

The Mailbox is my first eBook on Amazon. It took three years to make it there. Writing is never the hard part, it’s the rewriting over and over along with my crazy life that seemed to slow its journey at times. Click the link below the cover photo and info to take you to Amazon.

Thanks, J

Jacob moved from the edge of nowhere, the Okefenokee Swamp, to the transient sometimes twisted town of Gainesville Florida. He was following his dreams of becoming a writer. Jacob wanted words to flow from the scroll of his pen in the same county as his literary idols Harry Crews, and Marjory Kinnon Rawlings. But sometimes following your dreams can be more cumbersome than one would imagine. Trying to make it as a writer while living in a trailer park filled with misfits, retirees, man eating monitor lizards, and pit bulls would be enough to distract the best writer. Especially when they come to Jacob to salve all of their problems. But add in a young beautiful amputee named Ronnie with a violent past that haunts her, Jacob has his hands full finding time to write and get his first book published. Things really begin to spin out of control when Ronnie’s past follows her to the trailer park, all while Jacob falls helplessly in love with this mysterious one armed woman, knowing he might not be able to save her from what’s to come.  

Jason E. Hodges follows in the footsteps of his mentor and friend Harry Crews to spin a quirky hero tale of trial and redemption in the hardscrabble blood and guts world of a gritty North Florida trailer park that is stalked by insanity, loyalty, pit bulls and beauty in all its mutilated forms. A fifth-generation Floridian, Hodges embraces his freak-and-geek Greek chorus with a touching humanity, and weaves a story of life lived right at the marrow of the bone.

Janis Owens, author of My Brother Michael, The Schooling of Claybird Catts, Myra Sims, and American Ghost.

Jason E. Hodges has a way with words that cuts clear to the bone. 'The Mailbox' vividly seeps lucid grit and underbelly grime. Hodges had created an unsettling yet disturbingly charming story that kept me coming back for more.

Liz Worth, author of PostApoc and Treat Me Like Dirt

The Mailbox can be found here.

Skating Subcultures And Memories

Charles Bukowski said, “Beware the average man, the average woman, beware their love, their love is average, seeks average… Not being able to create art they will not understand art…” No truer words could have ever been spoken. I’ve seen this in the art/skateboarding world time and time again, or I should say, the rest of the world’s involvement with us.

Something I’ve noticed about skateboarding, it seems to draw in many creative types. It’s a subculture artist can move about freely in without being judged. I’m a strong believer that creative people will find each other in our world. Like magnets we are drawn to one another. Whether you’re a writer, painter, musician, photographer, sculptor, skateboarder, or surfer, to me it’s all under the umbrella of art.

Skating also draws in others trying to find their niche in the world, but they usually leave after the first few falls or when the scene no longer fulfills their needs of popularity. In other words, they don’t speak the language for very long.  

The strangest encounter I had was at my dentist’s office. I was lying there waiting for the dentist to begin drilling my tooth and his assistant asked me, “Are you a skater?” Her brow lifted upwards. I had noticed her looking at the years of scars on my lower legs. She had also been looking at my shirt which had some sort of skate logo on its front. I answered, “Yeah I skate.” Then she said, “I’m a skate groupie.” “Ummmmmm, cool,” I said because all words had escaped me. Her boss, the dentist, looked like he was going to fall over. Needless to say, it was an awkward visit. Picture, the two of them only a foot away from my face sticking sharp objects and drills in my mouth; him embarrassed; her wide-eyed and all smiles; me, um, yeah…               

When my friends and I skate the topics of conversation naturally revolve around art and music. One such day my friend Sean Garrity, who played with the punk band, Billy Reese Peters, started talking to another friend, Mario about a Charles Mingus documentary he’d watched. Mingus had calmly fired a shotgun into the ceiling of his home while being interviewed. Mario laughed and said, his dad knew a lot of those guys like, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk, from the Jazz scene back then.

The first thought that ran through my mind was a Henry Rollins interview I had seen years earlier on the Dennis Miller Show. Rollins who once fronted the now legendry punk band, Black Flag told Miller about the musicians he listened to growing up, Sonny Rollins, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk. When I watched this interview in 1992 I was impressed. I knew the association the Beat writers had with Jazz but now for me they were connected with someone like Rollins.

As time went by I talked to Mario about his father’s musical career. The more I learned the more intrigued I became. Yeah, the Internet is filled with his father’s achievements as a musician but it didn’t have the insight someone like his eldest child, Mario would have.

Mario’s father, also named, Mario Rivera, was born July 22, 1939 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He passed away August 10, 2007 in New York City after a long battle with cancer. He was a world renowned Jazz musician. Starting off as a saxophonist, eventually he would master playing 27 different instruments. He played with Tito Puente for many years. Their song, Oye Como Va would eventually be covered and recorded by, Carlos Santana. Rivera recorded an album with Stanley Turrentine, The New Shuffle in 1967 and one with Dizzy Gillespie, Afro Cuban Jazz Moods in 1975. He appeared in two films, The Mambo Kings and Calle 54. In 1988 Rivera would play with Dizzy Gillespie in the United Nations Orchestra. He also perform with his own bands, The Mario Rivera Saxtet and The Salsa Refugees. In March of 1996 Rivera put out an album called El Commandante.

The info in the previous paragraph is the common info I ran across doing research on the web. But the more human side came from sitting down with my friend Mario after a long session of skating. His eyes grew wide as he talked about his father being a father.

He said his father was a firefighter back in Dominican Republic. That he had put together a band and his first gigs were covering Buddy Holly songs. We talked about photos that came to his mind of his father playing with Chubby Checker. “I saw the pics when I was about ten to twelve.” With a slight grin he remembered his father teasing him as a kid about missing Aretha Franklin stopping by their home. Mario reflected that it was a common thing for folks like her to pop in. But the best for me as we talked was seeing the kid-like glee line Mario’s eyes as he told me how impressed he was that his father knew how to play games like Tops and Marbles. That his father spending time with him not only playing the games but knowing how they were played meant the world to Mario at that time. “Man, I thought that was cool,” Mario said followed by a wide smile.

By the end of the interview I decided it shouldn’t be an interview at all. It should be a blog about one friend telling another friend about the memories of his father. All while hanging out in our subculture of skating…

His Night In London With Anais Nin

“It’s always nice to wake up and see a photo of Anais Nin... It goes well with coffee.” I wrote this to my good friend Ellis Amburn after he posted a photo of her on my timeline in the wee hours of the morning. If you’re a writer you know these hours well…

 

Ironically, I’d just finished reading, Under A Glass Bell by Anais the previous day... I've been reading a lot of Nin’s work lately... So I found it interesting that Ellis sent me a photo of her… 

 

Ellis is a great writer and is among good company as a writer of Florida. Folks like Janis Owens, Ernest Hemingway, Harry Crews, Marjory Kinnon Rawlings, and Donn Pearce to name a few… A group used to pouring out every ounce of energy through the scratch of a pen, all while blanketed by the thick humidity of the day falling into night.

 

Along with being a writer, Ellis was Jack Kerouac’s editor… He has had many encounters with Hollywood types and other famous writers. So, naturally when we have lunch together or talk on the phone my eyes are wide and my mind eagerly awaits stories from his past. People he has run across in his lifetime,  like my first crush as a kid, Kim Novack. It was a surreal moment to be talking to him about her. Shelley Winters, May West, and of course Anais Nin were also topics of conversation…

  

So, I thought it would be fun to ask Ellis questions about a dinner he once had with Anais for my blog… Cool stuff, like did she still have an accent when she talked? Or did she wear perfume? Was it the kind a poet like her would wear?  Did her eyes pin him with a gaze that made him forget all about his dinner?

 

Ellis, being gracious as he always is, took the time to tell the tale of his time with Anais once again for my blog. He is a true wealth of knowledge and life experiences few only dream of… 

 

Here is his night in London with Anais Nin

 

Hi, Jason. Here goes: Anais Nin was as gentle and beguiling as a butterfly, enhancing and endorsing rather than challenging. I could see at once, when she greeted me at the door of her London townhouse, why men like Henry Miller had fallen in love with her. Without smiling, she had an expression that took you into account as a human being and specifically as a man, making you feel not only accepted but original and . . . tall. Her voice was soft, matter-of-fact yet friendly, her touch firm, letting you know she was yours for a moment. I don't recall any perfume other than the metaphoric one--congeniality--surrounding her and the subdued, elegant party she was hosting. And hosting well: She introduced me to two of her guests I would never forget. Young Christopher Reeve, who was in London shooting "Superman" but loved talking literature, and Luise Rainer, who had won two best-actress Oscars but wanted to discuss (and evoke) the horror of Kent State, which had just happened. "Oh, you poor, poor thing," she said, oozing geuine compassion, when I told her I was an American. What a contrast between the two women--Luise, as intense as she'd been in her famous phone scene in "The Great Ziegfeld" when she said, "Oh, Flo," and Anais, exuding serenity. Both lovely in radically different ways. That's for your blog, my friend, and have a wonderful day.

Poem : The Fox

One morning I see two eyes peering my way

Glowing bright from the dull gray cast of my headlights

Illuminating the dark shadows of winter

Much like the glow of two fireflies chasing one another

Through the hot humidity of southern summer nights    

Yes, the eyes of a fox glowed that morning

Pinning me with her gentle gaze she did

As I drew closer

She stood motionless underneath the undergrowth

Of lime green leaves now frosted

From winter’s white wind wiping their surface with ice  

Her breath shows in the cool air escaping through flared nostrils

The fox seems unbothered, yet keenly aware of my presence

Her gaze, piercing, as if she knows me

Like she’s carrying a message

Then my mind wanders for a moment

I think of my friend from a faraway land

She’s been there for me when I was alone

I reached out with my tattered life

She listened then sewed my frayed existence with kind words

Holding me together with strings from her heart

With positive energy

She cast a stone ever so softly

Into the dark waters that had become my life

Making these waters ripple with hope

With understanding

With support

With friendship

With kindness  

Good energy transferred through time and space to heal

So I thought, as the fox broke from her cover  

Her tail wildly whipping in the wind

Could the feelings and support of another

Be transferred through the sighting of a fox

Or a hawk calling overhead

With its speckled wing mass cutting the blue skyline in two

These creatures crossing our path to remind us of the ones

That send positive thoughts our way

Their words and feelings carried from a faraway land

To ours on the backs of these wild messengers

Yes, I believe so

Poem : Marilyn

Oh Marilyn with your sweet stare so sad

Oh how you put on a show for us all

Your lips were the color of

Red twisted licorice

Your skin so soft

Like silk

As you lay stretched across the flip page of a centerfold

Your body

Your breast

Your hips so curvy

Your legs dressed with stretched diamond netting

You were every man’s perfect obsession

But it was your eyes that told your true story

The gaze of the lonely never lies

You knew, your bargaining chips of beauty would fade with time

Old age slips into our lives like a thief

Steals what once was

The fear that comes from not being loved

To becoming the most loved

Then knowing old age would eventually take it away

Had to be a burden to carry

A weight, unbearable to lift

For rejection is a demon that haunts with great regularity

Spreading his fear in your mind like a wildfire spreads through the forest

Engulfing all of your thoughts if you’re not careful

So you fought these feelings of fear 

The pills and smooth swigs of whiskey work well at first

Like candy they comfort

With their sweet outer shell they slide down with ease

They made your worries slip away for a moment

But the pressures of the past always come back

Abandonment is a scar that runs deep

After your mother left for the asylum

Life was never the same

Walking out of your world

Your mother would eventually walk the streets of my home town

Walking the streets of Gainesville

Listening to the voices in her head

Oh Marilyn, I understand your frustration

My sister and grandmother heard the same voices

Maybe there’s more voices to hear in this town

Or maybe some are chosen to hear the ones no one has time for

Oh Marilyn, with your sweet smile and beauty

I can see why it was easier to be numb to the demands of the world

Numb to your past

Living life in the flash of a camera could not have been easy

Trading one lonely world for another

It all takes a toll in the end

A pill to wake up, a pill to fall asleep

A pill for the everyday demands

If two pills fix what’s wrong on Monday

Three surely will fix Tuesday’s problems

This thinking catches even the beautiful

Oh Marilyn, at least you’ll never grow old

And have to listen to the voices of the city

You’ll live on, young, in still photos

With a smile and loneliness clouding your eyes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem : God Ran Out Of Parchment

Last night
I looked up
In the pale blue sky
Submerged in the darkness of life
Dotted with stars that sparked like pinholes of light
Through the worn and tattered curtain
On the stage of our world
Light from the beginnings of time
When God picked up coals from his fire
Then blew them from his palm
Into the universe
Creating the heavens above  
I sat in silence as the moon’s dull light washed over me
And tried my best to think of nothing at all
As the cold wind blew through my bones
Finally
Exhausted
I was ready to sleep
I awoke the next morning
And a thought crossed my mind
As I stepped out
To face the world once more
I think
God must have ran out of parchment
For it looks like
He colored the sky with a crayon
Scribbling zigzag lines of gray
Splitting the sky in two
Down, down, down
These lines did fall
To the red top horizon
Mirroring itself just before me
Yes, today
God used the sky as his canvas
Splashing spotted specks of pink and blue paint
On the backdrop of our world
Creating some colors
I can’t even describe    
Yes, today I believe
God ran out of parchment

Poem : Petals Falling

Anne Sexton knew its secret
Kurt Cobain understood its allure
Sylvia Plath
Well Sylvia
She couldn’t make up her mind
Toying with the undertone
Hands outstretched, her head barely above water
Wanting the sea to take her away to its dark depths
Yet struggling to stay afloat
But isn’t everyday a struggle for the depressant
Yet, attempting suicide
Is almost as rewarding as succeeding
In some strange way it calms them
For it’s the only time they’re in complete control
But the toll it takes
On their family and friends
Is more than most can bear
All are there in the beginning
But they drop away
One by one
As the days drift into years
Like petals from a flower
The longer it lives, the more petals fall from its outside
And the ones left to pick up the pieces
Have to bear it alone
Lying to themselves if need be
That it will work out
Something will magically change
In the thinking of the suicidal
And death won’t be so becoming of an answer
Yes, alone is a terrible feeling
When your petals have fallen away
But the flower is still alive
At least for the moment
Breathing through a tube in some cold hospital room
While their family is cleaning blood out of a sink
Or sitting remembering the last conversation they had
With the ones now in a coma
When pills have jumbled their speech
Into a mixture of language no one can understand
But they still reach out, you know?
Their eyes somehow recognize you
Even clouded with death’s looming reflection
Yes, they reach out
For that last hug goodbye

Poem : Angels

It seems
We never look for our guardian angels
Until our world comes crashing down
No need
For the winged beings of goodness
The protectors of invisibility
Watching over us constantly
Not needed till it all begins again
When the cold hospital hallways become home once more
When the hypnotic chime of heart monitors
Put you to sleep
As you sit in a windowsill
Staring at the same view of the city
You’ve seen a thousand times before
When the fluorescent lighting hums softly
And you hear it
Because there’s nothing to say
So, we look with believing eyes
With the sincerest of stares
For the angel we’re told that is always there
Because we want believe
We need to see
When all is not right in our world
For most there is not even a thought
Till the days of darkness falls upon them
But in my world
It seems there’s no break in the needing of angels
For death’s been in the front seat with me
For far too long
So you see
They must be around me
For I am still here with nowhere to go

Poem : The Overseer

I’m sorry Mr. Boss Man
But
I have a good idea
You have
No good idea what’s going on
It’s just an observation
I may be wrong
But I don’t think that I am
You see
Not much has changed over the years in the south
Just the names of the foremen
The workplace is still the same
The ones that are on unemployment
Stay right where there’re at
For they know the overseer is waiting
With the promise of a raise in one hand and a pink slip in the other
Selling you a future with one breath
While reminding you
You’re not really needed if things get too tight
So, I do what I’ve done for years
I write and put all of my feelings
In this pen pushing across my paper
Dripping with ink filled dreams of hope
Hope that the right one will read my work some day
But until then
I’ll drink coffee to stay awake
With a warm shot of whiskey
So I can stand to be awake
Because working and walking on torn leg muscles
For ten hours a day
Feels like ten years
When your bones feel like they’re pulling out of their sockets
Or simply wake you from your sleep in the night
With an ache of dull hot pain
Like the marrow is boiling inside them
Whiskey becomes your best friend
But it will all work out
As long as I keep pushing my pen on through the night
And believing
It will all work out

Poem : Skating

The grinds I find today in the here and now
On the lip of a ramp or edge of a pool
Energize me as much as they did in my youth
Looking back
I now realize it’s all part of history
Ramps skated
Airs pulled
Jams going down
Some, captured these moments
With a click of their still photo lens
Holding the ones that were flying free in place for decades
On paper card photos tucked away neatly
To look back upon
To learn from and to teach the next generation
But the real lesson is taught by falling down and getting back up
By pushing your body to the point of breaking
It’s the only real way to learn
Yet, skating is also a place of balance
Where everything slows around you
In an extremely fast environment
Where one wrong move means pain or broken bones
But one right move brings you the feeling of being alive
When I don’t ride, I feel like I have ADD
People’s voices seem distant
My mind is moving so fast in this ever so demanding world
It’s almost impossible to concentrate on the simplest of task
But when I ride, it all slows to the perfect speed of understanding
Just wheels spinning
The wind on my face
Nothing consuming my thoughts
No worries saturating my brain
No bills
No phone calls
All there is to think about
Is the next transition
The next trick
This is my best explanation of why we skate
Why we fly, if only for a moment
For that moment takes us away from the mundane
The everyday
And makes us feel free once again

Poem : Blackbird

Oh blackbird
With your feathers strewn about
On your highway of travels
Your skyway of flight
It’s not just your windowpane reflection who sees
How exhausted you’ve become
Pushing yourself higher and higher into the clouds
Into the unknown
Yet, where you think you should be
Oh blackbird
With your dust covered wings
Now falling to the ground
If you don’t awake soon
Shake off the stress
The worry of what hasn’t even happened
Yes, awake
Spread your wings once more
Point your dull dark bill back in the direction of dreaming
It’s a far better place
Than having no dreams at all
Oh blackbird
Sometimes dreams are all we have to hold on to
In this world where most have no dreams at all
So Swoop
Dive
Plunge without fear
Whatever it takes
Grab hold of better tomorrows
Come alive and fly with your dreams in your grasp
To a place you’ve always deserved

Poem : Blood Clots

Hobbled on a full moon
My calf’s inside became black with pain
It felt like
It had turned to stone under my skin
Stretching it tight
Like a canvas  
So I sat in the ER
Waiting my turn to be seen
While the bright orange glow of moonlight
Peeked through the glass sliding doors of the entrance
I sat with the beating heart of the city
From the forgotten ones left behind by society
To the children of the privileged
With their mascara smeared tears running down their face
Turning their cheeks into a bluish gray watercolor painting
As I wait
A man coughs in the corner
While his wife meditates in a chair beside him
Dressed in bright red clothing accented with stitched swirls of gold
Her opaque eyes seem to look right through me
She had a gaze of a thousand gazes
Yes her eyes told the stories of many travels
Far beyond a laptop in some internet café
She had been there
She had been to the mountain
And now she sits looking
Waiting like me
For the next to be called
But aren’t we all the next to be called
When sitting in a hospital and there’s nowhere to go
A melting pot one could say
Filled to the top
With the sick and injured of the city  

Poem : The Scarecrow

The scarecrow that once stood in the farmlands of my childhood
Now, only stands in the faded memories of my mind
I think of all the time that has gone by
Since the scarecrow towered above me
His croaker sack face stretched tight with hay stuffing
Dressed with ink, were his round scribbled-in eyes  
Expressionless, even when the black clouds rolled in from the skyline
And the wind blew wildly whipping his pie pans about
Strung together and tied to his gloves  
His arms were outstretched and nailed to a wooden cross
Much like the man who hung on the wall of our small southern church
In many churches so small, I saw as a child
For my father was a traveling preacher
In the back woods of Crosscreek, and Ellzey Florida
But he gave all that up for a life helping the common-man
Showing compassion to the ones on the bottom
Living his life through examples of kindness
Showing forgiveness to ones no one forgave
His words were much like a poets
A master of metaphors was he
They taught me to look back on the simple life of the scarecrow
To remember him standing season after season
When the tractor would come and plow the fields under
When the cold mornings of winter
Set frost on his old tattered cloths  
When the blazing days of summer rolled heat waves across
A sea of green tasseled-top corn all around him
When the windmill stood in the distance
Spinning its rust covered blades in the sky
When the plow points sat waiting to work in between seasons
In the shadows of the pole barn
While a spider weaved its web between its earth ripping claws
A time when I watched the green hummingbirds
Get drunk from red flowering nectar
And blue jays rob strings from my mother’s mop
Drying upright in the sun
For nest building had fallen upon them
Now as I scratch these words out on paper
I gaze out a window from a towering building
On the city that now covers those fields of the scarecrow
With concrete, and roadways, and steel cars of moving
I remember the wise words of my father
And apply them to the thoughts I write today
People will come and go in your life
Much like the seasons to the scarecrow
Jobs you work in your twenties
Probably won’t be in business in your forties
What’s meant to be, will be
You’re not going to stop that freight train of fate from falling upon you
No matter how much resistance you put up
People ,places, and times gone by are just that
Gone by
Like the memory of the scarecrow watching over his crop
But like him
We all should stand looking and awaiting the future
For it might be the best crop to come