Tag: poetry

What Will You Always Remember

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

What Will You Always Remember

There are no mahogany framed sepia photographs
Laced in chipped gold gilt, hanging by a thread of rust
Lining a narrow hallway by the newel post worn down
By palm and fist

No black and white, grey and tan or faded Kodak prints
With the look of Nashville filters on Instagram
We are not shown together much

Paired, twinning, con-joined or wrapped arm in arm
Serpentine limbs like Cherry Willow tree’s
Threaded through each other
In an overtly visible way

Not after those early years when
Nascent you
Held
Nascent me

But I will always remember
Tracing your blue-green bulging veins, pumping  crimson blood to the beat of  Onward Christian Soldier
(Or was it some other one penned by Wesley for the choir)
Running like rivulets down your pale underarm
The color of the underbelly of a flounder
Yours was smooth as the red velvet church pew in that
Methodist church
Where I did the tracing
You may have smelled of Jergens
And I may have smelled of intrigue

I closed my pre-mascara-heavy eyes
While your fingers played the piano up my arm
When your dangling digits like participles
Reached the bend
I was to tell you

Whisper that you were in the valley of the arm
While the preacher preached
And I wriggled in my seat

You may not recall at all
Perhaps you only remember the smell of Methodism
And the lingering scent of my wanting to know you more

 

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Ya’ll I Swear: The Lost Art Of Eavesdropping

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ Leave a comment

 

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Ya’ll I Swear: The Lost Art Of Eavesdropping

The girl in our tiny little library said she had no friends
(Picture the children’s section of Barnes and Noble
’bout the same size)
So in my defense
(Don’t pity the library for its size
Looks are deceiving)
Earshot and all that
The man on his cell phone was eighty or ninety or just old
Some folks can’t understand
Some of the folks around here
This part of the world has its own language
Like it washed up on the shore
Walked into the hearts, bless ’em,  of the people who came and never left
Who made it home
Still do
I swear I come home sometimes and ask my husband to translate
I swear he knows the language of the souls around here
‘Cause really he’s a better listen than I am
Beauty never sounded so lyrical, sticky sweet like pralines on Market Street
(Except really the sweet potato pies they sell at the bake sale for the church at the Shell Gas station are sweeter so that’s a better comparison
And the Cow Tales are sweeter than that)
Ya’ll I swear I stare with my ears when I hear Geechee
Gullah sounds like it drips off the tongue
(Like honey, ’cause nothing drips like that, but it fast drips
So honey sped up)
Breathless, like there are not breaths or periods or punctuation
And it just drop-drips off the lips, like a honey freight train
The Wiki people say its unethical
But then they show a painting by Henri Adolphe Laissement
Of the Cardinals eavesdropping in the Vatican
So I’m confused because
How can I know their stories if I don’t listen
(Plus when you are pumping gas you don’t have anywhere to go and we don’t have the tv on the pump like they do in Mt. Pleasant)
The librarian told me the girl was just joking
(She, the girl, didn’t speak Gullah or Geechee
She just talked boring like me)
‘Cause after she left and I was still picking out a book from the teeny weeny library
I said I was sad for her
She kind of put my in my place, she was the head librarian so she was in the know,
And I looked really gullible when I said if the lonely girl was still here she could do the 10,000 piece jigsaw with you
Which I am, gullible and an over-feeler
But the man at the BP station where I was pumping gas
You know the one who was just plain old
Well he wasn’t speaking Geechee real strong
So I heard him ask what anemia was to the person on the phone
And I wondered why he didn’t know and why he didn’t Google it
But then I worried about his data plan
And how sick he really was
And I swear I wanted to go tell him ’cause I knew
Sometimes the weight of the world
The truth and the fiction
They get all heavy and jumbly
And I swear ya’ll I want to plug my ears and sing Mary Had A Little Lamb
But I’d miss the music
And the stories
The good ones, the true ones
And I swear ya’ll I don’t know what is more unethical
Listening and caring or not listening and not caring or listening and not caring
I have to go back to the library to return my books
I hope the girl who said she didn’t have any friends
Is there again
‘Cause I want to be her friend
But I don’t want to do a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle
‘Cause I don’t like that kind of puzzle

 

 

 

 

 

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Spreading Your Wings

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

 

 

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Spreading Your Wings

I read that the brain has an odd way of interpreting cliche
Don’t quote me but
We can do better
Recycling phrases until they lose their punch

And then I wonder

How do they rise up and take power
Stay around, refusing to leave
Numbing us with repetition
Like the pileated woodpecker
In lieu of the pecan tree, he chooses the neighbor’s metal roof

And then I grab one
Line of low hanging fruit

Because I am so weary from watching you leave

It is easier on my heart to go
There
Onto the well worn path of tangent
Paved with pithy phrases, past their prime

To speak of you in tired worn out terms

I am loathe to say you’ve spread your wings

You can not find yourself in my words these days
You should know

Darling, I could write only of my love for you

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At The Goodwill

~ Elizabeth W. Marshall ~ 1 Comment

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At The Goodwill

This is how I remember it
Or this is how the poem demands the retelling.

You can break a word apart
Not unlike diagramming sentences.

(I loved that part of English class.
Chalk board, chalk, eraser, eraser dust, teacher

Back facing class, front facing board

All the tools for dissecting a sentence,
Splayed out on the operating table

They dosed off, classmates to my left and to my right
Unwilling participants, missing the point of the drill.)

The word is a brand, is an adjective, is a noun
Is too often lost on me.

Before I made it through the swinging doors
She snuck up on me in the parking lot

It was never about the bargain, the search, the thrill of the hunt
After all

It was never even about the monetary charitable contribution
(Who are we kidding?)

This is not the first time I have been tripped up
Just the first time
At the Goodwill

Blessed are the lonely
For they will go to the Goodwill in search of conversation

I give myself a C-