Poetry by J.E. “Jimmy” Pitts

(December 28, 1967 – August 19, 2010)

 

 Flood

The frogs are bellowing hurt,
Like a garbled alarm clock,
Repeat, repeat.
Like a half speed tape,
Repeat.
They ride in on the water crest,
Batallions straight from the time of plagues
That remember the drill:
Get in formation for strength in numbers,
Find a marsh and set up camp,
Begin the long sing-along,
With confidence in their throats.
They never rode the ark,
They have no need for boats.
They know if the water rises one day
And does not stop rising,
The rest of us may stutter-step and falter,
Perhaps live on foundations that float,
And send echoes from underwater,
But they will be just fine.

The Hardest Part

Driving the interstate in the early morning, on cruise control,
looking at clouds and how the sun lights the woods, and
throwing up a hand at the other drivers,
I feel lost in the wash of the story
I wrote for myself and let play without pause.

It floors me when I drive past the houses of
the ghosts I once knew, those people,
those moments, and I’m taken back there again.
What does it mean, to live each new day
and yet try in vain to file all the old ones away?
Does trying to forget dampen the sting?
Tell me, does it mean anything?
Those memories just wait to come rushing back up
like frozen rivers in the spring.

None of us ever agreed to forget our lives
or the time in which we lived, but still we try, yes how we try.
The words we never meant to say catch in the throat,
the things we never meant to do still linger note for note,
the happiness and sorrow we brought to the table
gets wrapped in brambles and thorns and tangled in the heart.
We try to forget but we still remember it all,
and that’s the hardest part.

Narcoleptic

He passed out while driving.
At the grocery store. In church.
Experts were called in to help.
Nothing helped.
Not even medication helped.
He drowsed off even sooner.
He adjusted his schedule.
He got up and out even earlier.
People nodded as he passed.
But he just nodded off.

Wheel In The Sky

The wheel in the sky keeps on turning,
the radio sings,
but it’s not a wheel,
turning without a care,
more of a bomb, a burst, a blast,
just always there,
miles and miles of hydrogen
constantly exploding to light our way.
It gets into corners and nooks
and through windows and walls.
What else can we say?
Like a ghost returning,
it floats up and down the halls.
And the pale younger sister
waits in the parlor, so patient,
knowing her time will come soon.
She’s not flashy like her brother.
She’s just the sultry moon,
that chunk of dreamy cheese.

Snow Clouds

They’re not, of course, just the middle puffings
of winter. But that’s what all the old people I
grew up around called them. On mid-fall
evenings we would finish our dinner and drive.
Roll past yards of burning leaves and red-faced
fat men leaning on their rakes. Pull up to a
house of wood with a wood kitchen of pol-
ished pine. Little field off to the side of the
house. They raised corn and everything else.
Arrive all shivered in our windbreakers. She
was always shelling a bucket of snap beans or
peas. He sat at the long wood table and doled
out coffee and hot chocolate. Knew them from
church or somewhere. The adults would talk
about the gas station lines, and who was in the
hospital, who was sick. They would talk about
the weather and the snow clouds. The kids would go outside and stand around. Walk
down the chilly street, look around. Make just
enough noise not to be heard. Walk back under
the thick clouds. Looked like crumpled paper.
Made of colliding wind.

Persistence of Vision

The daily way that vision comes to be
a fluttering lid flips up its flap
and the eye begins to see the room
where light slips through a crack
along the blind
so blink and crank the motor of the mind
and turn and stop the clock
that chimes without a care
the ear will let you hear the sound
the eye must bring you there
must push you into the bite of winter’s blast
through light-starved days that nip
but cannot last
the eye grows tired and flickers in its shell
you guess the day has ended well
the last thought you are thinking
as sleep rushes in to close the lid
and the eyelid stops its blinking

Thrift Store Stolen Moment

The thrift store kings and queens are on the prowl,
sifting through racks of second-hands, and hand-me-downs,
donations and throwaways
in this little store in the west end of Nashville.
It’s an early morning Monday, and
I’m half-hearted, fresh from the doctor,
looking for a starched white shirt with a pointed collar
that I can take home for pennies on the dollar.
Some of these people don’t have jobs,
But still they’re here to spend,
looking at faux wood entertainment centers,
and dented copper cookware,
and shoes with worn out soles.
That’s how thrift store royalty rolls, you see-
yesterday’s chicken lays tomorrow’s egg,
and then you come by and pluck it up for a song.
I don’t have time, I don’t have the money
I wish I had to spend in this palace of bargains.
So I just pay my pittance and shuffle to the door,
careful to step over the children
who wait on their parents to sniff out the hidden deals
and play with old toys that are scattered along the floor.