All of these poems are available in HorseFurniture on Apple or Amazon (hardcopy or Kindle)
Heroes #
‘Heroes just happen,’ murmurers Butch looking out
a window of the student’s café. ‘We
were freedom fighters.
Family and friends against
government troops brought in from West Pakistan.
Soldiers far from home who killed
my cousin as he lay next to me….a
bullet between his eyes.
I screamed and
jumped up and ran. Ran screaming. And
running and
running
straight at the enemy.
Several of my brothers jumped up and
ran shouting and shooting trying to catch me and
suddenly more and more of our soldiers joined the stampede.
Just as suddenly the government soldiers jumped up and ran
away.
We won a great battle that day and
i was a hero.
A hero,’ he sighs looking out a window full of yesterday.
‘A man with a blank mind and
a rifle-full of hate.’
Horse Furniture 2nd ed
The Wall #
for Candy
James Sherman Roberts stands in front of
the wall folding and
unfolding and
folding and
unfolding and
folded a piece of paper.
A newly written poem he’s
carried around for
50 years.
James Sherman Roberts kneels in front of
the wall and
props his poem against the glossy black granite.
James Sherman Roberts steps back from the wall.
A few feet
and 50 years
watching his reflection fade into
Muskrat
leaning into an M60 mounted
in the door of a Huey.
From ECU type.cast 2019
Lakeside Park #
I’ve gone to find you
beneath the trees where
we lay
looking for stars hiding
between rainbow leaves.
Leaves now buried white.
Their homes creaking from the weight.
Too weak to fly i lay in
duck packed snow
melting
memories.
Jumper #
But you haven’t changed
your muscles tight and hungry for women and life
your back bent over a guitar stained and
dripping with sweat and
songs of all the girls we’re going to get
when we get home and change
everything.
And i have changed and
changed and
changed.
But you haven’t.
Forever
a frozen ball of muscle and dream
wrapped around a grenade.
Horse Furniture 2nd ed
R and R #
So here we are mom
lying among chocolate bar wrappers and
nylon stockings and
girls
bills tightly clenched
selling what
we never could buy
back home.
Horse Furniture 2nd ed
He Fell Facing the Foe #
Butch turns off the news. Leans back in his chair and
stares at the computer monitor.
Eventually it becomes a screensaver.
Eventually, it falls asleep.
Miles from sleep, Butch whispers to the blank screen.
‘My grandfather was a Naik, in the 129th Duke of Connaught’s Own Baluchis. Served with Khudadad Khan. My grandfather was wounded at First Ypres.
My father served with the 10thBaluch in Italy. My father was wounded twice.
I was in the 1stSector of the Bangladesh Liberation Army. Was captured.
Tortured.
Escaped.
My son….a corporal in the Senior Tigers during Operation Desert Storm was killed in Kuwait.
He fell facing the foe.
Throughout the 20th Century every generation of my family has fought in war.
We’ve fought enough.
The next century belongs to someone else.’
Horse Furniture 2nd ed
Indian Fighter #
Old Daddy McClaron is an Indian fighter and
carpenter who walks to church.
three miles there and
three miles back
through rain and snow and sleet and August heat
Old daddy McClaron walks
to church and back.
Granny McClaron rides and
waves as she goes by, but “I
walk,” says Old daddy McClaron, “because once
we was ordered to ride down on this Indian village and
kill everyone that was there:
Men, women, kids, horses, dogs
kill ‘em all.
Then bury ‘em and
burn everything that was left.
I never killed any women or kids but
i buried a bunch.
As i walk,” Old Daddy McClaron says, “i
recite all the Indian names
i ever heard.”
Horse Furniture 2nd ed
Collection Plate #
The preacher is long and
lanky.
His collection plate is a
brass barber’s basin.
‘Because’, he smiles ‘we do hair
when the preachin’ ain’t so good.
It takes a bus load of faith and a few
hot towels to make ends meet.’
The Florist #
‘It’s the artillery’ he confesses,
rearranging the bouquets.
His brother’s wedding will be in a few hours and he is
after all
the best florist everyone
knows.
‘We can get flowers again’ he smiles, ‘now
that the war is over’ he pauses
staring flatly into the silence ‘the artillery is
what scared me.
Not the blood or
the smell or
the screaming or
the dying.
It was the artillery.
The thundering of artillery’.
He runs a finger
along a rose petal ‘the
only time the artillery didn’t terrify me was
when i held my rifle.
Cradling it close to me turned all the madness to
fantasy’.
Horse Furniture 2nd ed
Granny Clayton is Dead #
She died one Winter
hung in the fence.
It wasn’t the first time the Ledbetter boy
found her caught in the barbed wire,
but it was the last.
The Ledbetter boy? He would stop by
Granny’s farm on his way home from school
just to check on the chickens and sheep and Granny who
more often than not
he found stuck in the fence trying
to take a short cut to the back pasture to count the cows.
‘It saves a lot of time, ‘Granny, said, ‘exceptin’ when
i get snagged.’
So, we took Granny to a nursing home and there
she found religion and Luke,
the janitor.
Religion she left.
But Luke, she brought home to the farm,
when oil was discovered.
Together they added on two rooms and
an indoor toilet. ‘For when
we get old’ Granny said.
Luke never did.
At eighty Granny took up flying.
She bought herself a biplane and
spends sunny afternoons circling cows like an
airborne Border Collie.
‘Oh i guess it runs a little weight off-em’ Granny says ‘but
if sure is fun and besides
i got oil.’
Horse Furniture 2nd ed
newhouse notebook 