Plain seeing Flash, and the flatlander eye swoons with star glint and eardrum roaring crack, a copper spark in sight sounding It was everest over town’s end the thunderhead on high rising to ordovician climes Nearly alleghenies, still half atlas with shoulders lowered since the dislocating swell in pangaea’s heartContinue Reading
Poor Boy’s Gospel My dad died before I could kill him. I always imagined reading back his sins like Saint Peter. I’d reprimand his absence, scorn the idle time he’d wasted, and end with the two kids he’d failed the most. But by then, the man dead to me hadContinue Reading
Tennessee Red Cob Grasping the bound ear with the heel of my left hand, I pierce the top shucks with both thumbs, punching open a slit. Dry husks rip with a groan and squeak as the great creamy teeth gleam. Another hard tug frees the whole magnificent horn ofContinue Reading
grandmother she lived in that dirt and baking- soda soil, her drywood fingers cradling book pages gentle as if she were holding a bird, turning those well-worn wings, their songs rustle the living room curtains. her feet shuffled through breakfast with black coffee, and she napped late in the afternoon.Continue Reading
The George Scarbrough Poetry Contest is now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted such outstanding poetry! We certainly have challenging decisions ahead. Winners will be announced on the evening of Thursday, December 9. Good Luck and Best Wishes! ** Featured image by Voltamax on PixabayContinue Reading
Appalachian writers breathe words. Like meditation. They might gaze out the window, past that liminal space, and describe simple raindrops, circular, solid, and sparkling atop thick green leaves after a summer shower, each one a separate little universe, a micro-microcosm disturbed, perhaps, by a lone redbird landing abruptly on aContinue Reading
Pears and figs pregnant and poised to drop – all but a few hangers-on tendering pulpy flesh for sacramental consumption construed as high magic from remotest times. Tonight an awakening amid yawning oaks, one, a three-headed high priest cloven by lightning, presiding over a ceremony feting one-third of the fallenContinue Reading
Stroll (For Henry) The sidewalk, his nursery. The stroller, his crib. Together my grandson and I cruise the Low Country bejeweled in dew after last night’s downpour. Our gentle jostle over humpbacked pavement signals our arrival. We attract a following: first, a neighbor woman rushing across the street to catchContinue Reading
“Only one thing in my life has been constant: my interest in words. I should say “devotion” to words – for it has been a devotion, rarely known, I suspect, except among the more megalomaniacally linguistic lovers who have always come to people by way of words rather than theContinue Reading
Christmas Eve 2018 A clock tick away from thirty my grandson lowers onto a chair beside me where we stare at the curious chiaroscuro of Christmas lights blinking in a pattern as undetectable as the reasons for his diagnosis. He sips air with the feeblest exertion of swamp-diseased lungs. SomeContinue Reading