DFA Writes

Ashes to Ashes April 24, 2008

If I am going to be ashes,

Careful of my hair.

Do not run your fingers through my soot and tangle them in my locks.

If I am going to be burnt to a crisp, incinerated at hundreds of degrees,

Take care not to lose a piece of me.

Do not shake my body or lean too closely, your breath or the wind blowing the lobe of my ear into the atmosphere.

If I am going to be ashes,

Do not try to figure out who I am.

Do not allow your children to dissect my hip from my arm or make their fingers black from pieces of my skin.

If I am going to be made into dirt,

Remember when I was created in Genesis,

But do not put me back on the ground.

Do not count my ribs.

Read to me sometimes.

But do not confuse my ears with my nose or my heart with my brain.

And do not ask me to turn the page.

Pond Number Six, Hopulikit, Georgia January 28, 2008

Pond Number Six, Hopulikit, Georgia

There was always something about walking with absolutely nothing between the cold ground and myself. It wasn’t but a quick walk from Jean and paw’s house to the pond- 5, 6, 7 steps. Daddy, Uncle Terry, and Uncle Kevin built the foundation for a deck the same year Paw built the house, but they never got around to finishing it. Paw just laid boards from the ground across to the foundation. When I was younger, I would sit and fish for hours. More recently, I would just lie across the ‘deck’ and let the sun pour over my bare feet and neck and warm my back through my shirt. I’d lay my head and look down into the water at my reflection- sometimes even deeper. It was hours of nothing but thought about my life, things that didn’t matter, questions I would never know the answers to. Sometimes I just reveled in the fact that it was so perfect.

Cohen died on a Monday in November of 2006. On the Sunday before we had taken a walk. It was chilly out and there was a light wind. He stayed a little in front of me. We kicked a pine cone to one another along the way. He showed me the tree he knocked down with a baseball bat. We talked about God and history teachers.

Throughout the wake and the funeral we all stayed at Jean and Paw’s house. I tried to take it all in. I remember walking outside and looking across the pond, but I could not grasp that perfect feeling. I brushed my bare feet across damp grass but all I felt was dry. I tried to breathe in the sunset reflecting across the water, but it was just a sunset like any other. I wondered what it was about death that could turn something so spiritual and beautiful into emptiness. I hated Cohen for that, for stealing my breath of God, of perfection.

I lost myself for a long time after Cohen. I lost myself in the way that a child loses his feet in cold pond water on a hot summer day. My mind traveled at a slow and uncomprehending speed. Days slept through me. I wanted to dig his grave and touch his face for one more inch of death against my skin. I wanted to pull his body out of his coffin to be sure it was a real, lifeless body.

I wondered what it must have been like to die. What he was thinking, if he was thinking. People said it must have been his time and I hated them for reasoning his death into a faith, because young people are not supposed to have a time and because we had plans for the weekend and people who make plans for the weekend do not die the Monday before.

I visited pond number six in Hopulikit, Georgia one sunny day sometime in 2007. It wasn’t my first visit since his death but it was a different visit. I walked over to the green- mildewed and water-washed boards and sat with my feet dipped, like I had done all the years of my childhood. I stuck my hand in the water and leaned my head over to watch the ripples vibrate from my fingertips. My attention slowly drew from the radiating water to the face that it reflected. I looked at myself for a long time. I could see fish darting behind my mouth, my eyes, my nose. I realized how alive I was at that moment. I realized how alive my submerged finger was, how alive the water was- brushing against it, how alive the fish were – swimming below me, how alive the trees were- planted behind me, and how alive Cohen was with his memory inside of me.

The lessons I was forced to learn after Cohen’s death are ones I would have rather gone without learning. I learned lessons on a frightening level. I have learned what it is to pick up the phone to call someone who will never answer. What it is to grieve. That people are not invincible. That Cohen was not invincible. But I also learned that if I place my mouth close to the water’s edge and blow, the water will always wrinkle, that the catfish will still swim far below near the pond’s floor, and that the wind will always catch my hair and spray it in tangles across my face.

Blind Mama February 13, 2007

She was one of them women made me real. With those legs, the meaning of oppression couldn’t have become more apparent had it been branded on my forehead with a cattle’s hot iron…
She was a woman.
A woman who forced me to remember:
We are the kind of men who sleep in our own garbage; who refuse to sing anything other the mumbled hopes of our dreams.

And She Said, “ We got the moon hangin’ two feet above our heads and we know it already fell but we’re still waitin’. Waitin on somethin’ like a- Jesus tune- to put a little jump in our step, a little – snap in our heels.”
This was a woman made me watch my step else I cram my foot down her throat and God forbid, make a liar outta all of us.
She was a woman who showed me the way from her breasts to her eyes through our cause.
made me admit, ‘yes, I am a man.’
and she told me,
“ that moon ain’t floodin’ earth, baby. We’ll make it happen before they do”
A woman ain’t afraid to cut my words with her wisdom, my actions with her depth.

She was a woman with every breath and shape of her body, force me to remember.

” It’s not about the fire. It’s the smoke, its the smoke makes em’ cry ashes.”

Brittle’s Short story. (First Draft) December 11, 2006

Mama was a lunatic. Leastways sometimes she’d act like it. She’d go into such a horrible dystress, banging her head this way n’ that , She’d grab whatever child was in her way- make us wish we ain’t ever crossed her path even once in a lifetime. It were the devil in her. I know it cause I saw it in her eyes. The devil sure did like to capture my mama’s heart. He did it many’a ways, i’m sure of it. It were a one evening Mama near turned my whole side black and blue with the tail end of daddy’s belt. Oh, she had me perty good, backed up inside the closet and all. It warn’t two hours later she didn’t remember a thing. And two days later she were the damndest mad, wanted to know who it was puttin’ them blisters on my side.
Mama said she needed a savior. I know’d she nearly got it three times past. Those men who sposed to save her must ain’t been too good, though, cause it always made daddy some kinda mad. I figure daddy might be happy mama got a savior every sometimes. I knowed I was.
By and by a savior might come to the door. Mama’d let em’ right on in. Right on into the bedroom. They sure did some savin’. I heard it, right loud.
Afterwards it waren’t mama ever seem to see the devil. She’us always dreamy eyed and I knowed it was her savior musta put some kinda happiness inside her. But daddy might find out by and by, he’ud get so angry, he might leave a few days. He might come back and make things so unconftable, mama might leave a few days too. They ain’t never stay mad long. Some times I think it was daddy wished he could be mama’s savior, leasywhy’s he’d get so torn up over it.
It were a good spell in between saviors and comins’ and goins’ between mama and daddy. I saw the devil comin’ back, and he was comin’ fast. I nearly got to feelin’ more black and blue than ever I did get to lookin’. It was tiresome havin’ the devil around in mama all the time. Aweful sinful, too. I prolly heard her cuss the Dear Lord 20 times in one day.
I was sure hopin’ for a savior along soon. Sure nuff’ mama found her one . This time I think it were the real kind. Mama, she uped and dis’peerd fer days. By and By mama’ud leave and leave, till’ it hain’t been a month since I last seen her. It were then daddy got to talking about a de-vorce. Said mama had too many skel’tons in her closet. This scared me pretty right. I wondered who it musta been mama murdered.Took me a whole week to work up nuff nerve to step one foot into her room and two more to plunder in her closet. Twarn’t a one skel’ton in there. Daddy musta’ mistaken.
Anyway, it were finally one day mama came on home.

a night or two later she hollared for me in her bedroom. I swear I hain’t stepped in that room since I plundered for skel’tons, and I was a mite scared mama had put one in since, but I went on in anyway. She was all sprawled out on the bed, tired-like. Mama was awful perty, but she always looked some kinda’ tired. She told me to come on and give her back a once-over so I crawled over on the bed and set right side her and give her a profes’nal back rubbin’. While’s I was at it, mama she tole me about how she was plannin’ on leavin’ agin. Said she wasn’t ‘preciated enough round here. Said not a body in the house pulled their own weight. This made me think of the skelton’ in her closet, but I ‘gnored it cause mama us’ still talkin’. she went on to say that I needed to learn a lession. Said I didn’t r’spect her, said I ain’t ne’er been a good child, not to her leastways. She got real torn up and us’ cryin an’ all, and I’s got to feelin’ real sorry for her. I just couldn’t think a lick of what it were I could do make her feel better. All I ever known to make mama right and good happy was her savior. So’s I got to askin’ her about him, and the minute I slipped it, I know’d it was a mistake cause I saw a look creeping threw her eyes right fast.

She got me good and quick on the cheek right so’s I nearly dropped a tear it stung so good. Told me she ain’t ne’er seen any man but daddy, and daddy was her husband and such and such and did I understand? This confused me right on cause’ I know’d daddy’s her husband and all that. I’s just askin about her savior. But seein’ the mess I already worked her up in, I just as soon say “yes” than ever ask about that savior agin. Maybe he wasn’t the right one.

I saw him a handful weeks later. It were after two minutes examinin him, I decided I could right easy be a savior. He were’nt nothin like I would spected. I seen pictures in the bible and such of jesus and his ciples. Mama’s savior ain’t look like any a one of em’. He drove a beat up truck and he liked to hide cross the street and watch the house; thats how I got a good look at him. I noticed it were somethin strange about the way mama’d be so close on the look out. I thought she us’ spectin someone but I noticed she might peek out the winder and wave every so often. So’s I imagined like I was goin out to play, got b’hind a tree and saw’s a man just a wavin at our house. I knew’d it just then that he was The Savior.I figured it might been he was a undercover savior, so’s not to get scorned or crucified, was why he was so common lookin’.

Anyway, after that I know’d this savior was serious about what he was about cause he kept an awful good watch. I figure it might oughta made me feel right good he was watchin’ over mama, and directly musta’ been watchin’ after me too but my stomach was always gettin some kina uneasy. I know it was the devil though, tryin’ to get me in the way of mama and her savin’.

Daddy tried not to stay around too often. He us’ always workin’. Mama got to yellin’ at him one day, She told daddy she knew’d he was havin’ a fair. I only ever been to one fair, and I wasn’t sure what it was mama’d be so angry he was havin’ one for. But she us’ so mad she was screamin and hittin him and throwin near anything she could pick up. She swung her head at his and hit it so hard, he was bleedin’ right everywhere. It was real gory and us children were real upset. Daddy yelled at us to git outside and stay quiet. Right five minutes later, daddy came a’ runnin out the back door, jumped in his car and hightailed it out the yard and musta done a hundred down the road. I saw mama just then out the front door, headin’ for the Savior. she got in his truck and they sit right there for a good 10 minutes afore they pulled off too.

It were real late afore daddy came home. He came on into my bedroom and woke me up. There was still some blood on his head from mama’s whippin. I told him so, but he just hushed me. He told me he loved mama and all of us very much, but he didn’t want to live with us anymore. I tried to tell him not to worry because the Savior was fixin’ her up, probably as we were speakin’. Well just after I said that, I saw a tear or two on his face and I ain’t ne’er seen daddy cry, so I just made like I didn’t even see. I couldn’t make him understand about mama’s savior. I got real ir’tated and yelled it him, I told him the right truth that he couldn’t be so jealous all the time because he wasn’t sent from God to help mama. He just looked at me real sad and kissed my forehead ( I wiped it off quick) and told me to go on to sleep. He warn’t home in the morning.He came once agin to get his b’longings, and say a goodbye.It were the way he said it, I knew I warn’t to see him again for some time. It made me right sad.

So’s mama showed up finally sometime in the afternoon. She’us real quiet all the rest of the evenin’ and locked herself in the bedroom, told us real stern not to d’sturb her at’all. She hain’t come out her bedroom for days cept to walk over and wave at the Savior about every hour er’ so. Event’lly she got to leavin’ with Him by nights and comin’ home by days. I got to lookin’ it’ her one day and I saw that there weren’t no devil no more, but she warn’t never seem to look happy like with the other Saviors. I figure this musta’ been the Savior was doin his job, this us’ just temprary till’ she got used to havin’ no devil.

It were one day the tel’phone rang and I picked it up quick cause I was so near. Mama picked it up right quick too. It were daddy callin’ and mama yelled it’ me to git off the phone. Well I did just that, but I mighta’ gone and done some listenin’ an’ I mighta heard mama tell daddy she us’ done with the fair ( I us’ still mighty confused about the fair) an’ that she us gone end it real soon like. I ‘usn’t sure what that meaned but it sounded perty good cause I heard mama laugh once afore’ she hung up.

Well the next day, I was lowed to the ground when I saw’d who it was knockin on the door, and even more lowed when the Savior come on into the house. He walked right back to the bedroom like he lived there himself. musta been a few minutes I heard the savin’ goin on, like old times, only this time it were real loud, and there were the voices sounded more angry than happy, and I felt real shivery. Finally everything got real quiet after what musta been a whole hour, and I saw the door open and the Savior walked on out.

He brushed me on his way out through the hallway. Right fore’ he passed, I managed to look on into his eyes, and I’s bout dropped to my knees. I’d know’d that Devil’s eye anywhere, I seen it through mama so often. I kept a keen watch at the back of his head and follered it down to his neck, and own down his back, his legs, right to his shoes. It were right then I saw a drop he left on the floor that made my heart beat fast and my breath right shallow. Finally after what musta’ been a whole 3 hours, I walked over on to mama’s bedroom and knocked’it the door. I probably waited three hours more for her answer. When I gathered the guts, I went on and stuck my head in. I didn’t even bother lookin up, I couldn’t take my sore eyes off the drops the Savior left on the floor. I gulped a gulp that musta shook the whole house alongside my beating heart, and followered His drops on into the room, right side the closet. I remembered mama’s skel’tons and almost chickened back out the house, but then I got hold a’ myself and felt right ashamed openin’ the door cause my hand was shakin’ so. It warn’t no skel’tons in there, not a one. I sat own down in mama’s lap, and looked right on into her eyes. There twarn’t no devil there at’all. Twarn’t nothing in her eyes.

eh, attempt at personal essay. November 16, 2006

this isn’t at all what you were asking for, Sladky.

Ms. Sladky wants me to write about pond number 6. Not like a poem, the way I did before, but just describe it or something like that. I’m supposed to use the color yellow. I probably won’t.

1. When I wrote about pond number 6, I really believed that there was someone there. Someone- something that was beyond my understanding- that was perfect. I guess I should avoid describing pond number six as I see it now.
I remember:
Visits to Hopulikit always meant days without shoes. There was always something about walking with absolutely nothing between the cold ground and myself… It wasn’t but a quick walk from Jean and paw’s house to the pond; 5,6,7 steps- there. Daddy, Uncle Terry, and Uncle Kevin built the foundation for a deck the year papa finished the house, but they never got around to finishing it. Paw just laid boards from the ground across to the foundation. When I was younger, I would sit and fish for hours. Most recently, I would just lie across the ‘deck’ and let the sun pour over my bare feet and neck and warm my back through my shirt. I’d lay my head and look down into the water at my reflection- sometimes even deeper. It was hours of nothing but thought; about my life, things that didn’t matter, questions I would never know the answers to. Sometimes I just reveled in the fact that it was so perfect.

2. I think it is Ironic that my last visit- not literally my last visit, but the last visit that would be real- I just, I just couldn’t feel it anymore. In my writing I reasoned that it was because there were so many people there. I looked across that pond and I could not grasp its old feeling. I tried to breathe in the sunset reflecting across the water- but it was just a sunset like any other. That night, we were all sitting around a fire: Cohen, Michelle, Spencer, Aunt Crystal, and some cousins whose names I can’t remember. I decided I should write something for class. I looked deep into the fire, and it occurred to me that God was there- or you know, whatever it was-God, Something, Someone. I felt…painful. He was desperate. I could just see it in the way the fire was burning; I could feel it in the heat.

number 4. November 5, 2006

I pretty much haven’t been able to write much this six weeks so as it turned out I only had 3 complete pieces.

This is a sort of commentary/train of thought/ journal on one of the poems I’ve already posted. hope this counts as piece number 4:

I thought about looking for God in my pond today but I swear he wasn’t there.

Must have been the idea of sharing him with so many other people.

It has occured to me that God is presently burning in Papa’s camp fire. I must be crazy- fire is a reference to Satan.

My God will be anywhere I feel like placing Him.

He is clinging to firewoord, And I know He is desperate.

I refuse to believe that I am not allowed to give God human emotions. He can love and hate- thats as human as it gets.

Certainly he can feel desperate.

Tristan and Isolde November 4, 2006

This poem has recently taken on a whole new meaning for me. I didn’t write it for Cohen but when he died, it was all i could think about. I whispered it when they buried him.

For Cohen:

I-

Have made a mistake.

Arch my back and color it punishingly.

Love me,Please? Cradle me with your obsessions, Drape your suffocated heat over my head and- Love me. Break my limbs, Shallow my breath…

You are the kind of lovely that I will burn for… and,

Remember everday that I almost lived an angel?

I will love you until-

Dry earth crumbles into my split lungs and purges yellowed weeds from my stitched wrinkles.

Iwill;However,Deny That It Was All Too Difficult:Mostly They were Patronizing and Stoned November 4, 2006

My God- I am sure-lives in the shallowed end of pond number 6, Hopulikit, Georgia.

The focus of my smile never saw more peace than when it was sprawled across His makeshift, 4 paneled fishing Deck.

Pond number six,

my back never burnt more happily, my dipped feet never felt half as welomed soiing Green Grass.

Finally, I can admit:

I just want to crawl on top of my battered body and-

Claim my victory.

poem reflecting Zelda Fitzgerald September 13, 2006

Note: this “poem” is meant to be read aloud- I had some difficulty putting it to paper in way that emphasized the “spoken word form”
p.s. work in progress

Zelda: missing:puppenfee

 ( untitled )

 Naked women dancing –

 With a crucifix above their heads,

Women hiding their black/ blue legs behind green /yellow sunsets,

Women who saw nine crescent moons instead of one and almost knew it wasn’t right,

Who jumped at the thought of Jesus hanging from their tree, couldn’t get the smell of almost in hell out of their sin stricken lives,

Who carried their burnt clothes right out into the sea but still smelled sin in their NewYorkCity –breeze

Women who walked right into _____ when they walked right out of me

Who breathe my one breath when I know there are at least three

Women who walk in different directions but always into mine,

Who say kings and queens are riding past in their pumpkin chariots pointing their satin gloves at me, but I think they must be lying…

Women who round and round carousels singing my child nursery rhymes,

Whose lead filled heads tilt towards the sun and scream at me for suggesting we should ever become one…

Women who insist they should always stay apart,

Women who insist I should die in pieces- far apart.