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

She Now Runs A Store In Heaven

A few days ago, I learned of my friend Glenda Kelly’s passing. She taught English at the high school I attended. I never had her officially for a teacher because I was an ESE student. But a few times when our teacher was out for one reason or another our class would sit in with her class. She was well aware of our struggles with reading and the insecurities we faced being mixed in with her honor students. It was a strange dichotomy but one she balanced beautifully.


I can’t remember her ever calling on any of us to read out loud from a textbook, which I appreciated at the time. Yet, she did have us once write a report after watching, The Grapes of Wrath. Then we had to stand in front of the class and read our reports. At that point in my life I didn’t think I would finish high school. Although I loved the movie I had just seen, I wasn’t going to write anything to read in front of anyone. I knew I would stumble trying to read even my own chicken scratch. So, I used my time wisely and sat quietly in the back of the class drawing. Glenda’s insight into people was remarkable. She knew I hadn’t written a word. But she also knew the world I came from, and what world awaited me with few educational skills. So she called on each one in the class to give their report until she reached my desk. “Hodges, your turn.”


I walked to the front of the class with a piece of paper folded in half. I opened my paper and began to speak. Never looking up, I slowly recalled the movie we had watched. I finished and started to walk back to my seat. Then, I heard Glenda’s voice, “I need your paper.” I turned to see her eyes slightly narrowed looking at me with a half smile. She knew my paper was blank. With a wink she said, “Good job. Now take your seat.” At the end of class she handed our papers back. I tucked mine in my book and went about my day. Later, I opened my blank paper to see a C+ in red ink scrolled across the top. This was the start of our friendship.


A few years rolled by and I would see her passing in the hallway always smiling. Somehow, I made it to my Senior year, and we had a dinner at school the night before graduation. I sat with her and talked for a long time. She asked what I had learned my four years there and I jokingly said, “How to spell ‘car trouble’ from skipping school and checking in late.” Again her eyes narrowed, “Well, don’t share that please.” Then she gave me that same wink I had grown to love. We talked a little more and I said that the yearbook printers had left out my senior will. There was a kid in my grade named Jason B. Hodge. My name being Jason E. Hodges, along with a graduating class of ninety something kids, the printer assumed it was the same person. So mine was left out. I told Glenda “for once I wish someone would say my name with an S.” By that point it really got under my skin to be called Hodge. Probably from all the mix-ups over the years and yes to this day I still get phone calls from strangers looking for him. So, Glenda said “I’ll make sure you get your S when I call your name for your diploma.” Ever true to her word, she paused in the drizzling rain and called my name correctly. I can still see her smiling face as I walked up to get my diploma.  


The years went by and I would see her from time to time at the different places I worked. Usually some type of working-class job like when I worked at the carwash she frequented. She would always stop and fill me in on her family and the different things going on in their life. The years, as they always do, drifted by and I found myself working at a hardware store. She came in and bought something and I loaded it for her. I can’t remember at this point what it was but I do remember her tipping me five dollars. I tried to refuse the money and only got her narrowing eyes and the reply of “You did work for me so you are taking this tip!” She was the only one over three years of carrying everything from lumber to cement out to people’s vehicles that tipped me.


A few more years went by and I grew to become pretty good friends with Glenda’s daughter Diedra. We went to school together but never really knew one another until the world of Facebook. We had a lot of common interest but most of all she was a good listener. She always had kind words to say as well. I was going through a lot of health problems at the time with my lungs, and she was always there with good advice.


One day Diedra invited me to spend the day at her mother’s shop. It was an old wooden building full of all kinds of odds and ends. Everything from antiques to used books. Glenda had beaten cancer and was enjoying each and every day. I pondered going down to the building. I wanted to see the two of them and get out of the house but the doctors had successfully filled my head with fear about my lungs and my biggest enemy being dust.


Saturday morning came and the urge to spend the day with Glenda and Diedra outweighed the doctor’s warnings. I remember the three of us sitting and talking the afternoon away. We talked about family, literature, friends, and the past all while customers strolled through the store. Previous students would stop in and Glenda would always call them by name no matter how many years had passed since she had taught them. This was almost always followed by a hug and a warm smile. Glenda always had her little notebook jotting things down after each person would leave. I finally asked what she was writing and she said, “Oh, just this and that about the people I run across during my day.” I ended up spending the next three Saturdays there before Diedra moved away to California somewhere around the Spring of 2011.


Since then all has seemed to be a whirlwind in my life. Time goes faster and faster with each passing year. I did manage to call Diedra on her birthday this September and she returned my call while I was on my fifteen minute break at work. We didn’t have long to talk but she filled me in briefly about her mother’s cancer numbers acting up and that she might be fighting it again. I told her I would keep positive thoughts going her and Glenda’s way. A short time later, I found out Glenda’s fight had begun once more.      

           
Glenda was a teacher by profession but her teaching skills went far beyond the walls of a school. Her study was life and the people she came in contact with each and every day. Her example of grace, kindness, and understanding is one we all should look upon for guidance in our everyday lives. Be kind to others, for your days with them are most certainly numbered. No one lives forever and life moves at an unforgiving speed especially the older we get. Treat people the way you would want to be treated and always give of your best, all the way down to the smallest detail like pronouncing someone’s name correctly. But most of all, live every moment with meaning. Don’t waste your days with the negative, fill your days with the positive.      


For years I’ve pondered the saying “rest in peace.” As I write this and think of Glenda passing, I think these words are not fitting for her. The words should be awake in peace. Your spirit is now on the other side. Unlike this world where our feelings are constantly dictated by our body’s need for food and sleep, or being worn down by sickness, anxiety, or depression. Glenda is in a place of love surrounded by the loved ones of the past. She now runs a store in Heaven. Her inventory is the loving memories and prayers we now send her. Notebook in hand she awaits our arrival most certainly with a wink and a smile.

Poem : The Tower

The tower on the hill
With the faraway eye
Blinks red in the shadowed sky
Of early morning darkness
Like a ruby
Like a rose
Burning a thousand shades of energy
Shouting silently
Secret thoughts of serenity
With each flash
Like a beacon it calls to me
Each day’s dawn
Through the rolling fog of the faraway farmland
Falling from the end of night
I see it on the way to the factory
To the time clock
I see it glowing in the distance
As I make my way through the small town
The place of my work
Riddled with tin roof houses
And cars resting on blocks
I know this light well
Its steel frame jutting far above the forest’s canopy
Its support cables wound to the ground
With secure pulling tightness
This lighthouse of blinking
It stands on the hillside
Calling to my mind
To my memories
Through my wary bloodshot eyes of sleepless nights
Reminding me of the past and of the future
With each illuminating flash
Flashing forward and flashing back

Poem : X-Ray Moonbeams

Bitter meals in the desert
In the colored sand stone mystery of summer
Blowing in the wind
The wind did blow that night of nights
As I chewed my meal
I felt it slipping into my blood
My bloodstream it slipped in so softly it did
Slowly melting all that I saw
And I wondered
What is this strange new world that surrounds me?
A new world incased by the old
One that has always been here, but my eyes could not see
Until this night, when I was awakened by flashes from cameras
Their bright trials streaking in the air just before me
So I walked around to see what this new place had to offer
And I heard the full moon breathing just above me
Its edge moving in and out, in and out
With each breath
Its soft moonbeams of light now shine upon me
These beams look like long sheets of x-rays falling from the night
So I took refuge underneath a mesquite bush to shade my eyes
But this only complicated matters
For it shattered the sheets crashing through the tree limbs
Turning them into tiny tumbling triangular diamonds of color
My eye’s perception of this was like peering through a kaleidoscope
Melting shards splashing the air all around me
My old mind, from the old world asked, “Is this real?”
My new mind from this new world replied, “We’ll ask Alice.”
Then I think
Or maybe a rabbit with a wound watch of gold
Maybe Alice would offer me something to drink
Something that would make me a hundred miles tall
Tall enough to give the moon my inhaler
Its breathing must have been hindered by the smog of the city
So, beware of meals in the desert
You might run into Alice or a rabbit
Maybe even a moon that wheezes with asthma
All possibilities
When the moon shines upon you with x-ray eyes

Poem : A Far Away Place

Away, away, in a faraway place
My mind does often go
Drifts and dreams
With imagination
To this faraway place
Where the hills are green and flow from my eyesight
Like green waves disappearing into the horizon
A place where streams trickle with blue water magic
Where plush treetops sway against the skyline
And small creatures scurry about
Without a care in the world
A place where clouds don’t exist
Except when I need them
To shade my morning eyes from the sun
When I lay back in the meadow
And feel its warmth upon my skin
Then
In a moment
I’m brought back
Back from this far away place
By the morning grumbles of the boss man
“Production! Production! Production!”
“I WANT PRODUCTION!!!”
I guess production is the name of his faraway place
For it’s hard for big fish to flow freely
Outside of their small pond

Poem : Caught By The Wolf

Looking back and looking forward
Has always been the same for the blue-collars
For our fathers taught us well
Wise words of their teaching
“Don’t let you wants out weigh your needs.”
Sayings that kept us safe from the wolves
But the wolves were never dressed in sheep’s clothing
They were crafty and came in so many forms
They wore hardhats, and called themselves supers
They came to us in suits
With promises of bigger and better tomorrows
They said “No money down.”
“Your dreams can start today.”
The wolves now call themselves collecting agents
But still no sheep’s clothing
Each day I see so many that are struggling
Caught by the wolf
And the ones that are not caught
Are just one or two paychecks away
From his teeth gnashed waiting to bite
We’re working while looking over our shoulder
We’ve sold ourselves back to the factories
To the scratches of raw flesh infection
To the cut-saw
With its carbon tips braking off and flying like bullets
Yes we’re doing the best that we can to make a dollar
At least this is what I tell myself
As I see the workers that have managed to hold on
That start their morning with a beer in the shower
Their skin glows a light pink florescent
As they work their ten hour shifts
To make cheap rent and a case of even cheaper beer
All to burn away the memories of what once was for the working class

Democrat vs. Republican vs. Beetlejuice

One of my coworkers today broke the monotony of classic rock playing on the radio by telling me about her recent encounters with a one legged man she refers to as Charles Manson. This was a welcome story because 10 hours of classic rock mixed in with political commercials this time of year make 10 hours feel like 20 hours of hell.

My coworker, who we will call Jane, started telling me all about Mr. Manson. She said he was constantly trying to flag her down for a ride when she passed him walking the long dirt road they both lived on. Jane’s face pulled tight with disgust when she described how filthy he was. She said he never wore shoes, or a shoe, on his one good foot, and he smelled so badly it was almost impossible to stand within 10 feet of him without gagging. But topping off all of her descriptions was her saying how one day in her home town’s convenient store she saw a roach on the floor run to him not away from him like they do with most folks. This is about the time my imagination started to take over. I pondered questions in my mind all while giving an occasional nod and smile to Jane’s ramblings. How dirty do you have to be to have roaches run to you in a store? Does Manson’s wooden foot look like it was made by the same guy that made the Happy Gilmore hand? Why doesn’t he wear shoes or a shoe? Man he must have one dusty ass foot…

Jane finally finished her tale and I went back to work. Now with yet another ad playing on the radio. I had to wonder, with all these political promises being made, what would the politician do for this one-footed, roach drawing man? If he had the power to vote would Mr. Mason suddenly become part of their demographic? Each ad I hear these days the  politician sounds more and more like a used car salesman. The only difference they’re selling dreams instead of cars. I guess the easiest way do describe my line of thinking on this is, each time I hear these ads I instantly think of that commercial in Beetlejuice. You remember, the one with him riding the mechanical bull swinging a lasso, claiming to be the afterlife’s leading Bio-Exorcist.

As the day drug on, I amused myself with the thought of the politician selling their dreams sitting on a bull with a lasso dressed like Beetlejuice each time I heard an ad. In my mind I could see them approaching the one legged Mr. Manson with their best smile, “Good day Mr. Manson. What a lovely roach you have on your shoulder. Let’s get down to business. What would it take to get you in to a new leg today? I really need your vote, you see. So, if I get your support, there may be a new leg in this for you. Well, kinda new. Well, newer than the one you have now. The only real problem it’s a left leg and you’re missing your right. But think about this. How much fun would it be to leave footprints in the sand with two left feet. Folks would always know it was you. I may even be able to throw in a pair of new shoes with it. It’d be hell getting the right one on but we could grease that bad boy up and get you where you need to go. I just need your vote and we can make your new left foot a reality. So, what do you say Mr. Manson? Can our party depend on you?”

I know after reading my absurd thoughts on these political commercials you may think I’m way off base with how ridiculous I think some of these ads have become. But listen to them for 10 hours a day loading splinter filled wood and you might see that they are sounding a little more like Beetlejuice and less like people that will lead us. But what do I know, I’m only a writer with a big imagination living one day at a time…