Kiss me Kate! You fucking Bitch! You had it all! Easy. Everything! Husband (and a Hot one!), Children (they loved you), and barely Knew me (queer uncles are like that). And still you have the nerve to leave? The Nerve! To just up and go! On your own Terms, you said. Because it was just too much, you said! Leave. Me. Leave them! I am so angry! But I am here now. and I will make sure these babies, and that man, make it through this. You asked me. You knew I would be. Sitting here. Without you. Watching other people cry. Catching all the looks. All the people thinking You should be sitting here instead of me! It’s not even so much that I disagree. But You gave me no choice. Just took yourself out of play. So yeah. I’m angry. But don’t worry. I can counter all these furies, Bear all the Barbs - even be civil, sometimes. Extend a little comfort when it’s needed. Even shed my own tears when no one else is looking. But you’re not getting off easy. I’m still pissed. You lie there, hidden from view safe from harm now, Separated from your Pain, but also from all your pretties! Safe. And within in the arms of, who? Jesus? I don’t think so. You wouldn’t either, dammit! Bitch! Did I remember to call you that? Because if I didn’t, let me say it again. Dying was the easy way out!
Kiss Me Kate.
Cousins
Cousins. We were all the inheritors of the same set of genes, more or less. Changed, a little, by the introduction of a separate set of fathers or mothers. But overall, all the same. We came out Ragged. Ripped from the same tapestry, made from the same fabric, but built by different women’s wombs. So where did we go different? What specific splice made us come undone, fraying at the ends, falling further and further apart from each other? What kept one sane; caused one to fade - Made another into a hermit. What was there deep inside us that turned us all apart, and into such separate selves; with separate lives and divergent desires. What made one so obsessed with life and living; another, not caring! What kept one safe from addiction, while another turned first into an addict, and then into a whore. Are some of us lucky to be still alive? Still breathing, while others lie still? Or is our future fraught with sorrows you’re happy to have missed? And how are we to know.
(No title)
Passing, Strange.
And so the days just keep on passing,
whether I do something with them or not!Days. Pass.
Weeks and months turn into years.
and here I sit.Looking back, I wonder -
Did I move?
Maybe make the World move?Or was my sad intention,
too fraught with indecision?Too -
Weak.
Watered down.Stuck in the shallow end of the talent pool
with no ability to swim deeper.Did the Days Pass?
Weeks and months, and even years...
I’d like to think I made some moves.
Even if it was something smaller than I’d hoped for -
Something less than I had planned?Too weak to make the Earth move,
but just maybe -Enough to send some strange.
Expectation.
Expectation. What did you want to be when you grew up? Did you want to save the world? I’d be happy just to save a Soul or Two, Maybe Mine! Were there days when you - Couldn’t cope? I think the world was made for mediocrity. So maybe my contribution could count for something after all!
No Instructions.
No Instructions. I heard She left without instructions. No letter for the wise, nor words for the selfish. She left no answers. Not even an unfinished song! And so the pieces fall where they will, with All souls reaching their hands out for something - Some “rightful” Thing they so richly (and urgently) desired, errr., deserved. Some “knew she meant” to leave instructions. Others cried out for Justice, and a bigger share. I stood apart and wondered how the World would fare without Her.
Separation Anxiety…Seeing Stars.
Separation Anxiety. You touch stars every day, Or so They say. I can only view them from afar. See bright pinpoints, blinking and twinkling in the night. Tempting me, taunting me.... Why, then, do you choose to burden me with Stars? Make me See them - Wish to know them, Understand the Nature of Stars! You know, it’s nothing more than foolishness - This need - No, this damn desire to see Stars. I could (should) sooner touch the Earth, smell fresh cut grass (why on earth, does it not die after repeated cuttings?) roll myself in a field of fresh cut hay, or roll careless through someone else’s carefully raked piles of Autumn leaves. I could, you know... and have, among other things, and on other occasions - When I have seen Stars! Oh, Damn you, Daddy! That I should See Stars! With all the views on Earth that lie unseen, Why should you make me look up to see Stars! You could have kept such things to yourself, you know. Stars! Could have kept them, and all of us, closer - Held us tighter in your Everlasting arms. Kept us safe from harm...and Dumb!
Fishing.
Fishing. I keep hoping something will catch. I keep casting, Fishing. Never was a fisherman, but the concept works - so I keep fishing. One of these days, something’s gonna catch. take the bait, and make me write things out. Make me want to - Need to. Take my hand and put the story there. Something will Catch. Keep me casting till the BIG one comes along.
Heart.
Heart.
Here’s my Heart.
you can have it,
If you want it -
If you’ll take it.
I’ve turned it out, you know.
set it to work,
and left it in the sun.
It needed to be tougher -
learn rougher skin.
This heart.
My heart.
Have you seen my heart lately?
You can have it if you will.
Take it shaking,
beating,
weeping.
This heart,
My Heart!
You’d think it could take temptation.
Afer all, it’s failed enough,
been a fool enough.
Been the Fool.
This heart.
My heart.
Lint head.
Lint head.
I never heard the term “lint head” when I was growing up. Never knew anybody far enough removed from the cotton mills to learn that disparaging term. No. Names like “lint head” developed in cities like Atlanta, where there were other industries, other ways of life, and other socio-economic lifestyles. It was a way to demean the country come to town people who worked in the cotton mills. In the rural community where I grew up, there was no diversity. Everyone either worked for the mill, had a family member who worked for the mill, or worked for a business that was either connected to, or dependent on, the local mill. Lint head? For us it was a fact of life. You left the mill and brushed the lint from your hair and clothes, and went home. It was the same for every shift. Clocking in and clocking out. Clocking out and clocking in. Meeting and beating production quotas regardless of the impact it had on your body or your health. Working overtime when you could, and making ends meet when the orders were light.
I imagine it was the same way for communities that were centered on other sorts of industry. I remember two neighboring communities that were homes to paper mills. We made fun of them because of the nasty smells that emanated from the paper mills. Maybe they called us lint heads. Never thought about that. Funny thing, perspective.
I don’t people from textile mill towns or people from paper mill towns ever had any kind of names for the people who worked in communities where the only business was a meat processing plant. We just felt sorry for them. Tough jobs. Bloody jobs. Ugly jobs. When you left those assembly lines, you had to strip off your coveralls and wash off your boots. I visited one once. They paid well, but the smell and the blood and guts were things I could never get past.
Lint head. I think now it was not so bad to be one.
Descent.
Descent.
I am descended from a mostly European blend of people, all of whom have lived in the Southern Tip of Appalachia for hundreds of years. This area, the Southern tip of Appalachia, includes the mountainous areas of Western North Carolina, East Tennessee, North Georgia and even a little bit of the Northwest corner of South Carolina.
Most of the people who settled in these areas had arrived in North America in the early 1600s and 1700s, and gone there from the Northeastern and Southern ports in search of new lives, religious freedom, gold, and land. They met the local Indian tribes, fought and warred with them, and later, sometimes intermarried with them. They had a completely different view of them that people who lived outside the area. These people were, for the most part, farmers. They hunted, farmed, went to church, married young and produced babies. They mostly lived off the land, and mostly that was a good way to live, at least until there was a hard Winter, or a Summer when the crops failed, or a bad round of the flu swept the area, killing off many members of the population. These people could have remained in this part of the country, largely undiscovered and undisturbed except for the incursions of war, when some would be conscripted to fight for one cause or another. And they fought. They were fiercely patriotic, even when they were largely destitute, and brely able to provide for themselves.
In the long run, though — several hundred years — the trouble with living off the land in a remote and rugged area is that there tends to be no cushion. No way to lessen the blows of bad weather and bad luck. In the early part of the twentieth century, the Federal Government came in and said the people needed help. They said that building dams would stop seasonal flooding and provide water in times of drought. That would at least bring some seasonal stability, and electricity, to the area. It was considered “progress,” despite the fact that it displaced hundreds of communities and thousands of people.
At about the same time, factories and mills began moving down from the Northeast. So the families that had been displaced, and/or those that just needed to save the family farm, flocked to the factories and mills for work, and ways to have a more stabile existence. That’s what my grandparents did.
They were part of an entire generation that left the farms, either partially or completely, and moved into ready-made mill villages. They got homes in exchange for working t the mills. Homes with mortgages that allowed them to eventually own the homes, and jobs in the mills that gave them the money to pay the afore-said mortgages.
Life in large portions of Southern Appalachia became defined by shiftwork and production quotas. Families grew, and parents made sure their children had places in the mills waiting for them when they finished high school. It was a simple life of sorts, not at all unlike farm life, except that it was generally more stabile, more predictable, and came with more comforts, like insurance, company picnics, and overtime. Even the Great Depression, when it hit the United States, was somewhat cushioned by the fact that the mills were busy turning out products for the Second Great War.
All that abundance that came in with the mills was not without its downsides, though. Many members of the first generation — the ones that had moved from the farms — continued eating and living like they had on the farms, despite living lives that, although perhaps no easier, were far more sedentary. And that, plus habits like smoking and over eating, eventually killed all but the most hearty members of that generation — at least almost all the males. Heart disease and clogged arteries, almost unheard of on the farm, claimed otherwise healthy men in their fifties and sixties.
Emphysema, brought on by smoking and the bad air in the mills, took more people, and cancers, which probably existed, but no one knew what they were, took even more. The result was an entire generation of widows, all of whom lost their husbands to the “lifestyle” that was millwork. That lifestyle, and the dangers inherent to it, continued into the second generation. I lost my dad, and saw many of my parents’ friends and neighbors succumb to the same health issues. It was not until my own generation that medical advances solved some of the problems, and healthier living (plus new drugs) solved more.
That was the good news. The downside, for my generation, the last of the baby boomers living and working in Southern Appalachia, was that the mills began closing, and all the jobs began moving overseas. Once again, the mountain people faced tough economic times. And although the “service” industry has taken a bit of the bite out of the area’s economic depression, it still suffers from higher than usual unemployment, lower overall education, and lower household incomes. Modern times and the twenty first century have created more diversity among these people, but, to me, the overall future outlook for many of them still appears grim. I hate to see it. Hate to see family and friends face a less than certain future in times that are more complex than ever.
I have to wonder, what will be the next lifestyle revolution for the peoples at the Southern tip of Appalachia? Will it come as a large scale change as it did when families left Europe for America, or when families left their farms for the mills? What does the future hold for that great, and unique part of the country? And when will nature, humans, or human government decide that it is once again time to intervene.…