Pete and Repete's

 Pete and Repete's

Back when I threw away the North, sick of being

Honeybunch Kaminski, 

and came South to be the sweeter, 

smilin'-for-a-dime grits-totin' Rita,

I wrote some verse,

perverse but not diverse

about your tiger eyes because

the ram was a disguise and

I knew you had the spotted skin

big cats can never change--

and so you showed me.

Down the highway from Nelda's

where I trickled out sweet tea and pepper sauce

(7 different varieties) stiffed

by shriveled 'pokes who found me too remiss

in my amateur bottomless
refills, I heard there was a joint

called Pete and Repete's and wondered if
there the hamburger dills were greener, but ended up
at Girlie's to learn the trick

I wouldn't turn, hustling joe and pancakes

in the dusty starlight night.

I  missed you on the day

you came up plumbing,

found instead my cat-eyed body-man  

deep in the buckwheat thicket

his pulse on mine in temporary candlelight 

he never understood, a repulse of who he was
that couldn't stay. Main squeeze: Tvarscki, cigarillo

and the thousand fifty lies that kept him

shiny as hammered chrome. Those Karo eyes

that still saw only Honey in the wild bunch

gone in the black blizzard,

tho the afterlight remains, pouring a bottomless cup of shadows

repeating down a dead-end red dirt road.

~February 2015

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Challenge: Get Listed

Grapeling (Michael of it could be that)  provides us with a list of words that reflect each other in spelling but have no meanings in common, and asks us to use at least two of them or invent a few--I have tried to do both, though I have strayed a bit from the pathway in this, my autobiographical indulgence and not very serious cautionary tale of the Lovely Rita, non-Meter Maid.

optional musical acompaniment

Process Notes(and/or Spoilers): I worked at several diners including the ones named(except for the famed "Pete and Repete's Restaurant" in Purcell) when I first came to Oklahoma in the seventies.  From what I can find out on google, they all seem to be defunct. I couldn't stand being constantly hit on under my own name, and stole and wore the name tag Rita, left behind by a less stoic ex-waitress, thus assuming my first pre-Hedgewitchian alias. (And yes, the slogan I wore in a strategic spot on my uniform apron said : 'They're stacked better.'  ) My current husband's company did all the plumbing work for the Girlie chain, but we never met until much later, under very different circumstances. But that's another tale.

'poke is short for 'cowpoke' and for those who haven't known the joys of waiting table, 'stiffed' refers to not receiving a tip.

"Black blizzard" is a 30's term for the worst dust storms of that era.

The character Honeybunch Kaminski, by counterculture cartoonist R. Crumb, was one with whom I strongly identified at the time.

Images: courtesy google image search Cup of Joe source
Girlie's source
No copyright infringement intended--will remove at request of copyright holder.

Cowboy Song

Cowboy Song

The fire's burned low and the coffee's all gone,

the biscuits are dry and the stars pushing dawn.

I lay on my back in this cold desert waste

wondering why every star has your face.

The cattle are restless when the wind's out of tune.

Clouds tug up their bandana and cover the moon.

It's a bandit's mask, and the eyeholes are black

with emptiness cold as a shot in the back.

The fire's burned out, and the cook's waking up

to make coffee so bitter it might break the cup.

I'm still laying here and I still feel the same,

wondering why every cloud has your name.

~June 2013

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Challenge: Cowboy Poetry with Margaret

The multi-talented Margaret Bednar has brought together two perfect ingredients, cowboy poetry, and the photography of Merri Melde (@ The Equestrian Vagabond.) Thanks, Merri, for letting us work from your striking photography.

Though  I grew up in Chicago, forty years here in the Dustbowl have left me pretty Okyfied. And like the song says, my heroes have always been cowboys. I've borrowed the cadence and a phrase or two for this very derivative poem of mine from an old Utah Phillips song,  about an old chuckwagon cook('the old woman,' a term of affectionate derision for a cowboy who can't cowboy any more, but can't leave the trail, either, so stays on to cook for the hands) on the Goodnight-Loving cattle trail, named after Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving, which I first heard in the No Exit Cafe in Chicago, sung by folksinger Art Thieme.

Here it is, sung by one of the great American cowboys, Chris LeDoux:

Since we're doing cowboy songs, here's another one Artie used to sing, by Cisco Houston, who often sang  beside Woody Guthrie, back before they put the country in western, then took it out again. It sounds rather dated now, but that's part of its charm (for me, anyway.) I think both these songs are better cowboy poetry than my effort, which is definitely 'Lite!'--but I did want to play with this challenge of Margaret's and the  photos by Merri.

"As he fell his hand was grabbin for the gun he'd get too late/with the notches on it showin' like the vagaries of fate..."

Images  © Merri Melde

Used with permission

Urban Refusal

Urban Refusal

I remember, mostly,

the sunlight, the dirt that danced,

the gleam off glass, for sunlight does fall

on the damned

and even the concrete bleeds green

when the cavalry of weeds

sabers it apart.

Every day

when I ran away,

I saddled my pink Schwinn

palamino for the broken brick trails, cap gun on hip,

free running in sun that stroked silver

 a handlebar mane, free not to feel,  just to

 ride for the Duke and his five-pointed star.

She let him hurt me but

he never scared me. 

I smelled his weakness, a clowning

in smoke and beer, his wet whiskey blankets

that cold-covered nothing. I knew I was already

gone where he would never be

even if at night there was

no sun and the Duke

was somewhere else.

~May 2013

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Challenge: Fireblossom Friday

Location, Location, Location!

The ever versatile Fireblossom asks us to write a poem where location is important, or as she puts it, "...just make sure that the "where" of the poem is a vital part of it." 

Optional Musical Accompaniment

Image: 1950's Pink Schwinn, ©GlamourGirlChic2012 via etsy.com

Broken Fix

Broken Fix

A diddler and a dabbler

a putzer and a fiddler

finder and discarder

a fixer of sorts

but he's learned never

to love anything so much

he’d have to care

if it stays broken.

He can spend his money

for seeds the weeds overtake.

He can hitch up the come-along and crank

till the sagging fence sits up straight for awhile.

He can read the fine print

as long as he has his glasses,

but  can’t see today, see her sweating

on the tractor under the griddle sun

hawkcircling where love cuts like a razor

blade from stem, crop from soil

days from years

one from the other.

He doesn’t remember much

from when they met years ago,

when she smiled and said, one woman’s trial

is another woman’s treasure,

how she told him 

if he took all the hippie out

there’d be nothing left.

Now she stands with arms folded

propped on the fence post, watching

the old blow in to stay, knowing

hers is the first name

he’ll forget.

 March 2012

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Sunday Photo Challenge: Shanyn Silinski

Both photos  © Shanyn Silinski via Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

Shanyn blogs at Sunflower Poetry

Used with permission

Optional Musical Accompaniment

Speaking of the old blowing in, Shotgun Willie sings some Dave Mathews and shows he still can make the hairs on your arms stand up with that voice

A Love Song for Troubled Girls

Got Them Cosmic Silver Blues Again, Mama

Coal Black and Silver Blue
went walking after midnight
Coal say,' Blue, baby,
Things they just ain't right.
We should be Queens
We should have limosines
We should own the machines
Why for all these clownshoes
be fuckin with dynamite?
We could blow this town open
our powder's so dry
but we can't get a light
never mind a piece of the pie.'
Blue say, 'Girl I so hear what you say.'
an she picked up her dobro and began to play:

Silver Blue's Love Song for Troubled Girls

Baby don' go
Don' go again please.
It makes me cry, and it makes me wheeze,
Makes me sing the blues when
I'm really mad as hell.
Baby please don' go, and I'll never tell.

Baby come back
Baby come back please.
I'll buy you a new hat and a dipped Tastee Freeze.
I'll dress you in red and
undress you in black.
I'll sing you that tune if you'll only come back

Baby go 'way,
Go away from me please.
Don't want your true lies, don't want your disease.
Your engine blew out,
you took my last dime
Baby go way and stay gone this time.

November 2011

With apologies to the immortal Coal Black 

Header image: courtesy of The Steel Guitar Forum

Footer image: courtesy google image search

Musical Interlude ~Emmy Lou

Some musical comfort food for my dear friend Fireblossom--she gets to hear all my most favoritest Emmy Lou Harris songs! 

The first Emmy Lou I ever heard, on a friend's record player, a million years ago:

This one's seen me through many a dark night:

And last, one that gets inside your head and won't let go, like a train whistle on a lonely night:

What? Not very cheery, you say?? Well crap. My next sage recommendation is to wrap your own favorites around your head, and go spit in the eye of whatever you feel most richly deserves it.

Best thoughts your way, FB

Transition~dVerse Poet's Pub

The crew at the new poetry watering hole, dVerse~Poet's Pub couldn't wait for opening day (July 19th) to start the party, so they're laying down the paintbrushes and inviting everyone to their Under Construction link-in. The following poem is my BYOP* contribution to the festivities. (I have a lava lamp, too.)

Click here to get your hand stamped and enter the Pub.

*Bring Your Own Poem

A Bad Hoss, Charles Marion Russell, 1904

Transition

You graciously fed me

redneck breakfast, 2:00 am

at Jody’s Night Owl Café;

a short stack of trouble,

scrambled brains

on toast and hash

browned  heartache

on a  plastic plate.

You  spent your days with

a hammer in your hand, but

you thought you were

quite the cowboy.

When you noticed I was a

trick rider and a straight shot,

you said I could be 

Sweetheart of The Rodeo.

But I took one look at

what you had racked up

in the chute,

that kicking, twisting

neutron bomb of a bull

you wanted me to ride,

and I decided

to get gentrified.

You got the cold ones, 
the juke joint and 
the sad country song. 
I got a crisp Merlot

on a round table 
with a crimson

cloth, lavender 
candlelight,

Miles Davis on the box, 
and a wild-eyed 
leftist poet

in a bohemian pub,

who says that 
kissing a woman
is better 
than drinking flowers.

July 2011

 Some optional musical accompaniment, in the spirit of dVersity:

Here's the Miles:

And here's the saddest country song I could find

Apparently there was a hippy in the group as well:

Image: A Bad Hoss, by Charles Marion Russell, 1904

Charles Marion Russell [Public domain], via wikimedia commons