Back to the Barre
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Going Home
After endless miles of interstate, I have finally reached McMinnville, Tennessee. I immediately recognize the wagon wheels marking the entrance to a tree-lined lane. I follow the gravel stretch back to a semi-secluded cottage nestled in the heart of middle Tennessee. Exiting the car, I am greeted by a small black barking dog. I try to coax her to me. I even call her by name, but she stands back – barking. She follows me around to the rear of the house. Just past the wrap around deck – I see it – the rustic barn stocked with fishing rods, reels, and tackle for use at the bass-stocked pond. The air is filled with the sweet aroma of honeysuckle in full bloom. Rose bushes of every color are bursting with buds ready to blossom. The garden is a lush deep green. I spot large, juicy, green tomatoes and cucumbers that are almost ready for harvesting. Five acres of rolling green landscape display a sampling of the areas finest nursery stock from flowering shrubs to weeping willow and blue spruce pine trees. I wander through the back door of the small house. Everything is just as I remembered it. Approaching the front room, a lump forms in my throat. There is the bar. I run my hand across the smooth lacquered finish. Then I notice the t.v., resting on a shelf that is mounted from the ceiling in the corner. A replica of the Budweiser Clydesdale team and wagon are proudly displayed next to a Coor’s Light clock. It is a miniature version of my childhood home – the small town bar my parents owned for forty years. I try to hold back. I can’t stop the salty flood of tears streaming down my cheeks. My husband holds me tight and I cry longer and harder than I have ever cried before. This was the vacation destination I chose for my family that 4th of July. Instead of a relaxing week in the foothills of the Cumberland Plateau, I am here to bury my father.
Picture Spot
This isn’t over.
Vultures continue to roost on the turrets of Cinderella’s castle.
For one month—October—we didn’t mind, and we even added a few fake vultures for effect. Our imagineers even managed to overstate the qualities that make a vulture so offensive, eliciting praise from our guests. “So lifelike,” they would say, “so gruesome.” We caught all these comments on tape, and hence we thought we had the problem licked. We made it all look like design, and who could blame us for thinking that once we took down the fake birds, the real ones would go simply because, well, they’d just get the idea from our masterful simulations.
No, the vultures still roost there.
So we tried poison next. We called it “Project Apple.” We even propped bird feeders shaped like apples at strategic points along the turrets. From the ground, they looked like tiny hearts. We did this in February. All this by design.
Hence, our second mistake. The birds didn’t fly away to die. They dropped dead—literally tumbling from the turrets and striking the pavement below.
As if that wasn’t enough to horrify (imagine little Johnny walking along with his mouseketeer hat when something like that falls at his feet) what we learned next positively chilled us: vultures will feed upon their own. Our imagineers could never have foreseen such an abomination.
So we had no choice but to take out the guns.
And yes, we do have them.
Our imagineers make them look like muskets.
Then we found a coonskin cap that fit perfectly on the head of Bucky Johnson, who’d been asking for months for something to do other than operate the Dumbo ride.
He wanted to add chewing tobacco to his characterization. We approved bubble gum. We have certain images to uphold.
Bucky shrugged and started working on his Tennessee accent, and for inspiration, he watched Davy Crockett over and over again. By June, he had it down. He even added a little frontier swagger.
By this time, the vultures numbered in the hundreds.
So we started Bucky from Frontier Land to help him get into character. On the way to the castle, he stopped and took pictures with the guests. “How ya’ll enjoying your stay?” he would say. “Well, I’m off to do a little hunting, if you know what I mean.”
Actually, few people did. Few even stopped him. Our DVD release of Davy Crockett did not sell well.
But, let’s face it, we did not pay Bucky to talk to guests, and besides, we have it on good authority that, just before arriving in front of the castle, Bucky spit something suspiciously brown and acrid onto the ground.
And if only chew could make Bucky a better shot.
I know what you might be thinking: All that time on the accent, and no time on the firing range?
To maintain fairness, we should note that Bucky did wound a few birds. Unfortunately, the loud report of the gun, slightly muffled to sound like a fake gun, still drew a crowd of onlookers.
Once again, vultures do not practice discrimination in their feeding practices. And worse, some of the birds managed to survive both their wounds and the fall. I do not need to tell you that we had to become quite savvy with customer relations after that.
And even worse, the vultures have spread beyond the castle.
In some cases, we have taken drastic measures. The roof covering the haunted mansion now maintains a steady flow of electricity. The guns on the Jungle Cruise now fire real bullets.
But mostly, we just try to adapt. When a vulture crosses Donald’s path, he jumps up and down and shakes his fist. When Minnie sees one, she puts her hands on her cheeks and runs away. Snow White, who possesses the power of speech, groans and asks if anyone has seen the Wicked Witch.
And then we deliver her. We started bringing out lots of villains: Captain Hook, Millicifent, Ursula, the Headless Horseman. Wherever the vultures went, that’s where we sent the villains.
Until people stopped paying attention to them and started taking pictures with the birds instead.
And vultures will do something else amazing besides eat their own. They will stay surprisingly still for a picture.
Alms
An old man clings to his cup, his fingers stretching from his thin glove. People walk by as the cup begs, ‘Alms! Alms!’
Goodnight
Closing class but no bell to tell of knowledge ending.
Too late to absorb even the most free of substances.
Justin playing his part directed by the one who believes
That the best possible way to get a-
Head down striving not to be a part
Of this reality not called life.
Waiting is a funny game where everyone else laughs
The fun is being had by everyone but you.
To be or not to be is not our question.
We sit still in silence, but making a great wave.
What tsunami are we learning about?
Does it matter? Both are killing heavenly created beings.
At this point what does it matter? Who matters to you?
Do I matter?
Let the sun brighten my past so I might slip unseen into a darker tomorrow.
Stop worrying about what is and what will be, because I am and always will be.
Picture it, surfing down the very division of day and night,
And we say,
“Let there be light”
“Let there be light”
“Let there be light”
The blood stains being erased by the murderer himself.
Who will tell me I am or am not? Who will I listen to?
Were you the conductor of that midnight train?
And if not, will life itself play its own refrain?
Put a basket on my head and what do I see
But the woven ancestry of fallen angels.
The god of sun and moon could not save them.
What will you perceive as truth when this all is done?
Life ends when I put down this pen and this all is done.
Goodnight moon
Goodnight earth
Goodnight sun…
Our Generation
Our generation will never amount to more than the sins of our fathers.
And every so often a ray of light shall be bred from the evil that is this world,
Only to be crushed under the heel of darkness, that plagues this earth.
And yet no one will remember the great man that once was,
But only the dramatic fall of the hero who was consumed by fire.
Still we’ve seen empires fall and still we join in their failures,
Rather than learn from them.
But why do we do the things we do?
To cope with such a foul hand that God has dealt us,
While a newly conceived baby will never see the light of day?
Because everyone else is doing it,
And we have this dire need to fit in that has been instilled in us since birth?
Or is it because that we are weak and succumb to the vices
That have constricted this world like a venomous serpent
since the beginning of time, when all we must do is
Rise above it and take charge by the horns of hell
And drive it back to the depths of which it once came.
For all people who still hold a torch of hope for this world,
Nothing has changed,
Nothing will change,
As long as sons and daughters disappoint their parents,
Then there is no chance of returning from the abyss.
And as bleak as that is, it’s true
For the History of man has repeated itself
Time and time again.
Memories
The longer one holds on to a memory of something lost,
The longer we attempt to fulfill the past.
The longer we cherish it,
The more glorious the past becomes.
However holding it too long can lead to hate.
Make us stray from the path ahead.
We forget how to walk.
The past can too easily consume us
And turn our beauty into sorrow.
Loss
It seems whenever we gain something
Something else is lost
Sometimes our loss is far greater
That what we gain
If something seems so good that we give ourselves to it
Embrace it
Why throw it away.
Only time can tell us if our sacrifice is worth it
If our gain is greater then our loss
Demons
As I lay in a filthy bed,
Weary head nodding…
I drift to and fro a bad dream.
Evils at work are steadily plotting,
And no help is at hand it would seem.
Tossing and turning I struggle against sleep,
Salty sweat forms of beat at every pore.
Often the distance a being tall and stout-
Moves ever slowly toward my door.
Through a wall with a stain – I can now hear it breathing…
And the knob on the door starts to turn…
I can feel the evil inside the beast seething,
Its intent was my soul to burn.
And as the door opened, time made its escape –
With every fiber of my being I lunge…
The first attack so sudden, on my side a deep scrape,
And the demon damns me with its evil twisted tongue.
Brought to my knees, I began to weep,
As I scoured hallowed halls for the strength that I keep.
And when it first came, I did not know…
It was the beast’s eyes that gave it away.
Then to my feet I suddenly rose,
Arms to the heavens in praise.
And without hesitation I destroyed the beast,
And control of my soul I regained…
Only to relinquish it kneeling at the feet,
Of my Savior in Heaven who reigns.
neutrally, our fresh hot teas both flushed light gold
neutrally, our fresh hot teas both flushed light gold
hours previously. More recently we
clawed earnestly as lamsters from the heat, then
built up, or razed a few statues of trust
the components of which include vague sorts of zen.
It is an ignoble honor to know your nadir
and sap up your dulcetest moans as I can,
denying no natures which plague us. I penned
you a poem about Lovers, it was panned
by intoxication and indifference.
But you please me, I think, and when offered more drink
you accepted with slippery, rose gaucherie
Not bound by heuristic, nor wounded by pride
In this way, the mawkishly wideeyed entreat