I said we were
going to climb
that mountain
all the way
to the top
some day
Show
him what it
feels like to
touch the sky
Heart
In the courtyard
I read aloud
the inscriptions
on the tombstones:
"Tobias Hart
Born 1801 Died 1874
Never too old
to die of a broken
heart"
"Dad, isn't
that kind of funny,
died of a broken heart?"
Yeah
kind of
Waterville N.Y. 1968
Late April, the earth
reveals furrowed rows,
seedling corn stalks,
barren trees sprouting
leaves, flocking black
birds that eat the coming
water colored Spring.
Covered Bridge
Hiking Adirondack trails
we paused, resting between
pine trees, down below,
a ruined covered bridge
overgrown with vines and
brush, loose hanging rotten
boards, sunlight spearing
worn, sagging wood, a pulsing
rain swollen river pressing
through jutting, fallen
cliff rock, washing out links,
networks of roads that lead nowhere
Deserted Homestead Still Life, Remsen, N.Y. 1970
Rising smoke layers endless
fields of long thin weeds,
blown close to the earth,
once rich furrowed fields,
rows of cultivated crops
a farmer watched turning grey
at dusk: "Down there," he would
say to his family, "Is something
solid. Life." Overturned,
dispatched by world wars,
bad years without rain, years
beating back governments,
bank foreclosure notices
with shots of whiskey
and beer. All land becomes
a yard that leads nowhere
between weathered split rails.
From the collapsed, unpainted
porch, looking down through
the broken windows, fallow
fields are full of fire,
a dead man's hands turns
the earth with a horse drawn
plow, one lost soul among many,
at home, at last, feeling
the land fill his fallow
bones with heat.
Deserted Barn at Night
Dried, split bales of hay
spill out from the barn
wrecked by years of bad
weather and neglect,
sinking into the earth,
awaiting more wet rotting
rain or drought, awaiting
the black bats that color
the sky, that fill sagging
rafters, hanging down,
a dark eye, skin
of the night.
Alan Catlin is primarily known for poetry but that doesn’t prevent him for mixing and matching prose and poetry as the subject allows. He has published dozens of full-length book and chapbooks, mostly poetry, over the years. Although he is not a genre writer, he has somehow managed three Rhysling Prize nominations and a Bram Stoker Award nomination He didn’t win either award.
My sister thinks mama tried to leave us once. I don’t think she was serious. I mean, we knew she was tired and that her joints ached and expanded with the changing atmospheric pressures. Anyway, I don’t know how many NSAID capsules it takes to kill yourself, but evidently it’s more than eleven. Mama wouldn’t talk about it, and we eventually wrote off the overdose as a simple reaction to pain, not a true suicide attempt. Nevertheless, she swole up like a waterbed for a few days, her eyes almost disappearing in folds of expanded flesh. But on the third day, we found her puttering around the garden deadheading her geraniums, still swollen, but very much alive and mobile.
For the next two months, she seemed to have re-set. She was back to her old self, and by old self, I mean she was back to being a relentless bitch like she has been since the Bush Administration. Sometimes they say that being a bitch is all a woman has left. Since daddy died, she has had only geraniums and bitchiness, not necessarily in that order. Despite her attitude, she has had a pretty good summer. She has attended church every Sunday and Wednesday night, often publicly disparaging and dismantling the preacher’s sermons in the parking lot as soon as the service ended. She even made her legendary mustard-and-pickle-rich potato salad for our Independence day dinner. But, as expected, she complained that it had too many pickles and not enough mustard. All the grandkids loved it anyway.
The last week in August we always have a family gathering to celebrate the inordinate gaggle of birthdays that happen to fall during that month. I once subtracted nine months, and realized that, evidently, our family prefers to screw immediately after the Thanksgiving meal. Mama contributed not only her aforementioned tater-salad but also an exemplary macaroni and cheese casserole. She seemed happy, well, happy by her standards. In fact, I don’t recall her complaining about a single thing. She even kicked a wayward soccer ball back into play. She is normally the first to depart from any gathering. I suppose her geraniums do get lonely. This time she stayed till the last rug-rat-filled SUV left the pavilion parking lot. She even helped me clean the tables and empty the trash before she proffered an unsolicited hug, climbed into her ancient Electra 225, and headed home to her beloved botanical family.
Yesterday, I decided to drop by, unannounced of course, since mama will often leave if she knows you’re coming. Her Buick wasn’t in the yard or in the garage, so I assumed she had headed to the Food Depot. She hates the big box stores and believes Publix and Kroger charge too much. She says she likes shopping with the Mexicans because they are more polite. I told her that sounded kinda racist but I wasn’t sure why. I needed to pick up a few things, and the Food Depot does have better meats, and the folk there are truly very polite. I thought I might run into her there.
I always take the back way to town, that way I can cross the Tallapoosa river we often visited when we were kids. I learned to swim there and to fish there. Daddy even even joked that he and mama had created us down in the opening near the big bend. We didn’t know what he meant at the time. By the time I understood what he meant, I didn’t want to think about it.
As I approached the bridge, I could see Mama’s Buick parked on the overlook. I pulled next to it and saw that Mama was sitting inside. The motor was off, and the sound of Country Gold 93.7 wafted from the open windows. She seemed transfixed. I called to her and she turned to see that it was me. She seemed at first distant, and then embarrassed. She told me she was headed to the Food Depot and stopped to listen to the radio for a minute. I nodded and decided to move on and continue to patronize Publix since I inferred that she wouldn’t want me tagging along.
This morning I decided to drop by again. I waited till after eleven, since Mama is sometimes annoyed by early visitors. The garage was closed, so I assumed she was inside the house. I walked around back to the screened porch where one could usually find her on late summer mornings. The door was latched, so I knocked, and then called out, and then went to the front door, and knocked, and yelled, and rang the doorbell. I finally decided that maybe she and one of the church ladies had embarked on a thrift store adventure. I walked around the Garden for a while. Mama’s geraniums had never looked better, not one darkened petal remained and each head was perfectly round and crimson.
I walked among them for ten or fifteen minutes before deciding to leave. As I passed the garage door, I could hear the Buick idling inside and I knew that Mama was gone.
Alan Caldwell is a veteran teacher and a new author. He has recently been published in Southern Gothic Creations, Deepsouth Magazine, The Backwoodsman Magazine, and oc87 Recovery Diaries.
Yesterday Barry put the stool out in the field and under the tree, so that in the evening, all he had to bring was the rope. He went to work like it was any other day, came home and cooked a steak. It was the best and most expensive piece of meat in the grocery store, but Barry scarfed it down without joy. Nothing tasted like anything, and every day was the same, when it felt overdue for something to change. It had changed in the past whenever this feeling came around, but this time it felt like this was life now and forever. There was nothing left to change, except he had the rope, and the stool was already under the tree, the tree that stood in the field and had a nice view of the sunset, the one he had sat under at other times in his life but never committed to, but today was the day for committing. Today was the day to tie the knot. And the rope was new and sturdy, and he had picked it out the week before at the hardware store in an unfeeling kind of way, like it wasn’t important at all, like something needed fixing. And Barry supposed that something did need fixing, and fixing things might have been what he was best at, but he never learned how to fix this thing, and usually when he couldn’t fix something, he could find someone who knew how and ask them, but this thing felt like he couldn’t ask about, or that there wasn’t any fix for it, or that it had to fix itself, but it wasn’t fixing itself this time, and he was tired of waiting. This was his fix: a rope, a stool, and a tree, some field a little ways from the house for something nice to look at. It was a romantic thought to look at something nice, because it wouldn’t matter what he looked at, not to him. A sun sinking below an open field, summertime daisies swaying in the wind, or the peeling wallpaper of his home. It would be just the same. But he thought it wouldn’t be so bad finding him in the field rather than in a home that was falling apart. It wouldn’t be such a depressing sight, and more than likely, it would be some stranger that would find him in the field, rather than a friend or a family member, and a stranger wouldn’t be so hurt by it. It would probably be his son to find him in the house, and that would be the worst thing that Barry could leave him with. Instead, he left him with all his money and possessions, along with a short note. He wanted to leave a long one, but Barry wasn’t good with words or expressing himself, so he left a note saying that he loved him and not to feel too down about it. This was his decision and there wasn’t anything that anybody did for him to make it, nor anybody that could have done anything to change his mind. He already woke up in paradise by now, because God knows everything and would understand, and He would have a pack of smokes waiting for him when he got there. Maybe a drink too, if He didn’t mind too much.
Barry set out from the house with the rope. Rooster, seeing Barry leaving without him, barked in the yard from his chain. He watched Barry walk across the yard and hop the Yount’s fence and begin across the pasture. Barry listened to Rooster’s bark as he walked away. He knew that old Rooster was saying that he wanted to come too. He listened as the bark turned into a low howl, heard the howl grow further and lower and fade, listened hard for it when it wasn’t there at all. He thought how old Rooster would miss him, and he’d miss Rooster too, if missing was something that he could do in the afterlife.
The cows were in the pasture mooing and eating grass, and they watched Barry pass with not a thought in their minds. Big dumb animals got the better deal after all, Barry thought. They couldn’t see death coming whenever that thing got put between their eyes, and until then, they could live their lives outside, doing the same thing every day and never getting tired of it, never asking for anything more. And I don’t feel a thing when I eat you, Barry said. Could’ve eaten a bowl of oatmeal and it been the same. So, I’m sorry for that.
He hopped the fence on the other side, crossed Carson Road and went into the woods. He saw lots of squirrels on the way through and thought how it looked like it would be a good season come October. He saw the stream running clear and peaceful, noticed the weather was already cooling off and how there were no mosquitoes buzzing in his ear. He came out of the woods and into the field, saw the tree standing at the top of the hill looking down at him, his stool underneath, thought how the walk felt shorter than usual.
The field was vivid green and spotted with yellow and white. He climbed the hill, and at the top, he was met by a breeze carrying the scent of the daisies with it. He stood under the tree looking up at it for a moment, catching his breath before he looped the knot, then he climbed the tree like he was a kid again, tied the other end of the rope tight around a strong branch and dropped it down. It was about the right height. He climbed down and sat on the stool, pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket, a cigarette that he had bummed from Alex. Who, as the last thing, would reproach Barry for smoking again, telling him at least don’t smoke it in front of him. He rolled it around in his fingers, enjoying the feel of it. Then he held it to his nose and smelt it. He put the filter into his mouth and took out the lighter but just held it. He looked down at the field and the sun on the other side, glowing orange and tired, taking its time like it was getting a last look at things before it would come back around tomorrow, looking nice after all. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and rolled it around some more. Then he thought of something else he could have put in his letter. Then he said, no, I think I’ll wait. And he broke the cigarette and threw it into the grass, where it laid there amongst the daisies.
Aston Lester is a writer from Greenwood, Louisiana, whose work has appeared in Five on the Fifth, Rejection Letters, and Academy of the Heart and Mind.
I found her, an older beagle mix, but more white than brown or black, lying in the ditch next to the dirt road. I was about ten at the time, so almost half a century ago. I don’t know the road’s name, but I do know it turned North off Stripling Chapel Road and ran for about a quarter of a mile before ending in a thick copse of red oaks. My Aunt Eunice and Uncle Benjamin lived down a rough dirt and rock driveway in a rough and sagging house in those oaks.
I knew the beagle was a female because her teats were long and dark from being suckled by many litters. I had seen her before in the road and in the red and washed-out yards of the poor black families that lived on that nameless path. All their dogs and the children were gaunt, almost equally so. The children stared at me when I walked by, but they never said anything. Well, one little boy, maybe four or five, did call me a “cracka,” and throw a handful of pea gravel at me one time. His throw came up a bit short, and he turned and ran away and joined the other older kids who laughed at his effort.
I was clear on what had happened. The beagle had gone to the blacktop, maybe looking for something to eat, and had been struck by a passing car. The exposed roots and washed-out ruts made the nameless road a slow medium for travel and thus safe for both animals and children. In contrast, the cars on Stripling Chapel were a menace.
A small stream of blood ran from her nostril, and though the November climate was crisp and breezy, she panted as if burning up in the August sun. I reached to stroke the small heart-shaped patch of dark fur on her head, and she snapped at me, not particularly viciously but sufficiently to make me withdraw my hand and take a step back. I reached towards her again. She growled. I could hear a wet gurgle in the raspy snarl. I recalled my grandfather making a similarly wet gurgle not long before the adults made the children leave the room.
I decided to leave her in the ditch.
I walked back to my uncle’s house. I told him about the beagle. He informed me that even sweet dogs will bite you if they are hurt badly enough. Uncle Benjamin was old, very old. He leaned far forward when he walked, his legs as stiff and straight as planed lumber. Rheums and agues plagued his dotage. His hands shook so badly that very little of Eunice’s tomato soup made the journey from his bowl to his mouth.
He agreed to walk with me to see the dog. Before we left, he reached under his sagging living room chair and produced a small black Iver Johnson revolver with ivory grips. Eunice brought a ragged string quilt and handed it to me. I don’t think either item made sense to me at the time. I understood that Uncle Benjamin usually concealed the revolver somewhere in his faded Duck-Head overalls. The purpose of the quilt was less clear.
Uncle Benjamin walked so slowly that it must have taken us twenty minutes to make it up the driveway and the road to the broken beagle. I’m not sure what I expected my uncle to do. I knew that a dog that seemed unable to move most of its body was pretty badly hurt.
Uncle Benjamin reached down and stroked her head. She didn’t offer to bite him. She didn’t even growl. I guess she had lost the strength or the will. As a general rule, I hate personification, but the dog’s eyes seemed to be pleading for help. Benjamin told her, “girl, yo back’s broke, ain’t nothing I can do for ya.”
He then pulled the Iver Johnson from his pocket and aimed carefully. His hands, for once, were completely steady. I turned my head when the shot rang out. I waited for a few seconds before I looked back. When I did, she was still, no more ragged breaths.
I took the string quilt and wrapped her in it. I picked her up and we took her to one of the houses where the black kids played in the yard. They watched in silence. I laid her on the sagging wood porch. The oldest of the boys, maybe thirteen or fourteen, walked up, opened the quilt, and looked at her. I said, “we didn’t have no choice; her back’s broke.”
By now the other kids had circled us. The bigger boy’s eyes welled up with tears. Some of the others cried openly. He said, “thank y’all for taking care of her.”
My uncle and I walked back to the road. I stopped and looked back. The bigger boy was carrying the dog away, toward the woods. The smaller children followed behind. One was dragging a shovel.
Alan Caldwell has been teaching since 1994 but only began submitting writing in May. He has since been published in Southern Gothic Creations, Level: Deepsouth, oc87 Recovery Diaries, Black Poppy Review, The Backwoodsman, You Might Need To Hear This, The Chamber, Biostories, Heartwood Literary Journal, and American Diversity Report.
I found her, an older beagle mix, but more white than brown or black, lying in the ditch next to the dirt road. I was about ten at the time, so almost half a century ago. I don’t know the road’s name, but I do know it turned North off Stripling Chapel Road and ran for about a quarter of a mile before ending in a thick copse of red oaks. My Aunt Eunice and Uncle Benjamin lived down a rough dirt and rock driveway in a rough and sagging house in those oaks.
I knew the beagle was a female because her teats were long and dark from being suckled by many litters. I had seen her before in the road and in the red and washed-out yards of the poor black families that lived on that nameless path. All their dogs and the children were gaunt, almost equally so. The children stared at me when I walked by, but they never said anything. Well, one little boy, maybe four or five, did call me a “cracka,” and throw a handful of pea gravel at me one time. His throw came up a bit short, and he turned and ran away and joined the other older kids who laughed at his effort.
I was clear on what had happened. The beagle had gone to the blacktop, maybe looking for something to eat, and had been struck by a passing car. The exposed roots and washed-out ruts made the nameless road a slow medium for travel and thus safe for both animals and children. In contrast, the cars on Stripling Chapel were a menace.
A small stream of blood ran from her nostril, and though the November climate was crisp and breezy, she panted as if burning up in the August sun. I reached to stroke the small heart-shaped patch of dark fur on her head, and she snapped at me, not particularly viciously but sufficiently to make me withdraw my hand and take a step back. I reached towards her again. She growled. I could hear a wet gurgle in the raspy snarl. I recalled my grandfather making a similarly wet gurgle not long before the adults made the children leave the room.
I decided to leave her in the ditch.
I walked back to my uncle’s house. I told him about the beagle. He informed me that even sweet dogs will bite you if they are hurt badly enough. Uncle Benjamin was old, very old. He leaned far forward when he walked, his legs as stiff and straight as planed lumber. Rheums and agues plagued his dotage. His hands shook so badly that very little of Eunice’s tomato soup made the journey from his bowl to his mouth.
He agreed to walk with me to see the dog. Before we left, he reached under his sagging living room chair and produced a small black Iver Johnson revolver with ivory grips. Eunice brought a ragged string quilt and handed it to me. I don’t think either item made sense to me at the time. I understood that Uncle Benjamin usually concealed the revolver somewhere in his faded Duck-Head overalls. The purpose of the quilt was less clear.
Uncle Benjamin walked so slowly that it must have taken us twenty minutes to make it up the driveway and the road to the broken beagle. I’m not sure what I expected my uncle to do. I knew that a dog that seemed unable to move most of its body was pretty badly hurt.
Uncle Benjamin reached down and stroked her head. She didn’t offer to bite him. She didn’t even growl. I guess she had lost the strength or the will. As a general rule, I hate personification, but the dog’s eyes seemed to be pleading for help. Benjamin told her, “girl, yo back’s broke, ain’t nothing I can do for ya.”
He then pulled the Iver Johnson from his pocket and aimed carefully. His hands, for once, were completely steady. I turned my head when the shot rang out. I waited for a few seconds before I looked back. When I did, she was still, no more ragged breaths.
I took the string quilt and wrapped her in it. I picked her up and we took her to one of the houses where the black kids played in the yard. They watched in silence. I laid her on the sagging wood porch. The oldest of the boys, maybe thirteen or fourteen, walked up, opened the quilt, and looked at her. I said, “we didn’t have no choice; her back’s broke.”
By now the other kids had circled us. The bigger boy’s eyes welled up with tears. Some of the others cried openly. He said, “thank y’all for taking care of her.”
My uncle and I walked back to the road. I stopped and looked back. The bigger boy was carrying the dog away, toward the woods. The smaller children followed behind. One was dragging a shovel.
Alan Caldwell has been teaching since 1994 but only began submitting writing in May. He has since been published in Southern Gothic Creations, Level: Deepsouth, oc87 Recovery Diaries, Black Poppy Review, The Backwoodsman, You Might Need To Hear This, The Chamber, Biostories, Heartwood Literary Journal, and American Diversity Report.
