City Kids & Hillbillies

Playground in the big town
Manager reluctant to give us the horseshoe game
Later, “Put the horseshoes down,” is what the city kid said.
“That was your big mistake,” was Granddad’s claim.
Mom cautioned, “Martha should stay close to you.”
Another mistake and not a fighter, too
Sucker-punched and down
Slickers don’t like hillbillies, but bullies do

High school, the first days
Suddenly, I’m in the air
Reacting, I twist sideways
And land upright, while
Harold, a football player
Crashes to the floor
Reverberations through my high school years

College snack room
Jukebox blaring top 20 tunes
Black haired beauty at a table there
Approaching, I see her wrist scars
I no longer fear Raven Hair.

Decades later in another coffee bar
Neighbour table bemoans an idiot president
Are these idiot acts “pure evil”?
Was the idiot once a city kid?
Glad I don’t live there

∆
Multitudes of slicker leader charades
Idiotic twits and machinations
Reverberations lasting generations
Soon I’ll be among the shades*
Taking no notice of such deviations

LL Van Pelt August 2018
___________________________

* Thanks to the idiotic actions of various past and present leaders, my children are not planning to make me a grandfather. The world is not as friendly as it seemed 50 years ago. I have my suspicions, why. You have yours. Our ability to see through what idiots do, or say, can be a curse or a blessing. It can protect us from a world of trouble.

Orchestra Pit & Swimming

After a rain

Water recedes off the road

Night time, the “peepers” sing

Tiny frogs just changed from tadpoles

Lulling everyone to sleep

Tiger lilies growing in a ditch

Water looks contaminated

Probably a septic tank overflow

The smell of these flowers

Lingers over the decades of my life

Mornings in the summer kitchen

Hollyhocks below the window

Tiny legs and wings, zithers in a symphony

Altos and baritones of honey and bumble bees

Not a very beautiful plant, the hollyhock

But a wonderful orchestra pit

 “What will you do today?” Mom asks,

as if she doesn’t know.

“Probably look for frogs, Mom,

Or catch a green snake we can measure.”

Then she says, “Good hunting. Don’t go near the creek.”

The creek will be running high after the rain

I have another plan for today

Tree roots I can hold on to

Dunking below the surface, no longer fearful

Learning to swim

∆

Ringing sounds from across the street

Dad, Granddad and the uncles

A great horseshoe pitching time

My brother and I were not allowed

Shouldn’t we be learning?

In the fall,

I fired Uncle Ray’s shotgun for the first time

Blowing the nose off a rabbit

Next shot was fatal

I think I had help

LL Van Pelt August 2018