Sister Baby Gets a Saver or Two

Being a Verse of a Larger Story

some gum
shoe soul
‘ll attach hisself
to her bare
foot
but will have
to get through
the preach
first
his brim
stone will
bent on serve
and pro-tect
like trigger
bent on the
right finger
and sister baby
don’t know
which is whom
or why
her pappy’ll let
them happen
to her
when he comes
home comes
home from where
he’s been
everywhere but here
near her
serving and pro
tectin her
from junior seed
and his
simulacrum
of family love
gumshoe souls
‘ll say
we will hunt
down the cunt
whom’s done this
grand harm
whilst preach
has dribbled
holy silver drops
of anti-demon
tonic
all round sister
baby’s ears
she swings
in the tire
tree swings and
sings
I’ve got a bonnet
pretty and green
pretties’ bonnet
you’ll never
see

© 2007-09 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved

Junior Seed on the Rail in 3/4 Time

Being a Verse of a Larger Story

junior seed spits
his chew
at the door
the door
where the floor
goes wood to stone
and lays his dime
on the rail
like a moon
in the mahogany
night one more
passport to glass
and sippin away
the run
c’mon sister baby
he say
c’mon it’s jest
like momma
same demon
like momma in the
twinight kudzu
and grits
the burnt barrel
like landing lights
and the broke
magnolia cross
at the corner
of the hill
the hill
the one left
empty
ready
for next
cries the nailer
c’mon sister
baby c’mon
down from that
tire swing
I’ve been here
before
and I’ll be here
again
I’ve got some
exorcisms
for all those
flatiron voices
in your
hear
more dime
mahogany more
gulping
concatenates
out to less shouldn’t’ves
but more hours
more run
run
run
run away
junior seed
the gulping say
run away
you done wrong
with your
priestly
powers

© 2007-09 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved

Gumshoe Gets Vision

Being a Verse of a Larger Story

gumshoe’ll get a case
of ivy in his eyes
thinks he sees sister
baby everywhere
he stops
at the diner
in the woolworth’s
down at ben franklin’s
at the dairy queen
in the piggly wiggly
down to first corner
bank on a bench
in front of the
cannon in front of the
court house
circling around the
square
he’ll get a case
of shakes
when she’s seen
too much when
she’s all he’ll see
for days on end
even mabelline down
at lucky’s
don’t rearrange his
eyes anymore like
she used to
but she used to
gumshoe knows junior
seed’s been around
cooling his heels
in the funeral home
parking lot some
nights some nights
kicking stones at the lake
gumshoe figures he
‘d kick stone too if his
daddy called him junior
seed like some unhappy
pod that’ll never
stalk or leave
gumshoe nods at preach
when he’ll meet him
eye to eye
accidentally crossing
paths on some nascent
errand for the wife
or his lord
or his lord’s work
which gumshoe knows
has been truly
done since the eve
got so confused
about rights and wrongs
gumshoe figures
everything after that
just text
just an index
to those first
terrible six
days of manual
labor
get that poison ivy
in the eye again
if that’s not
sister baby high
and proud
in the testifyin’
aisle at
tg&y
gumshoe’ll have to blink
twice to make
sure he didn’t see
what he saw

© 2007-09 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved

Sister Baby's First Patron Saint Prayer

Being a Verse of a Larger Story

nigh’ long sister
baby prays to her
patron saint of snake
and magenta
boas
to take her
takes her a
way
all night long
pray
that tire tree don
‘t fall
don’t fall
on his leg
don’t fall
on his arm
Matildé she call
her saint of snakes
and flashy
bright pink
boas
Matildé she pray
let that tire tree
don’t fall on
his back
don’t fall
on his foot
or hand
but on his
tire head let
that tire tree
fall on his tire
head
and kill him
kill him
and hit
hit
hit
hiss
all around his
dead tire
tree head
and takes
me away
Matildé
takes me
far
far away
but not be
for he’s
dead
but when
then
takes me away
in my poor
poor pink
boa

© 2007-09 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved

Sister Baby's Own Personal Dream Song

Being the Preambling to a Larger Story

sister baby get a case so bad
sometime she don’t know
what’s pillow, what’s
stone
cold blues
gets a bridge
gets a jump
gets divine
intervention on addition
of what the one
mean
with the other
and feel upon the powers
of loft
and swoop
and swift
and splash
and soak
and difference
now in stone
and mud
story what brings her here
theme what brings
her here
taken at final
plunge
where no other
final plunge
‘ll do
just like Henry
when mister
bones finally
say it okay mister
Henry to swim
it okay
baby to say
the end,
kerplunk
maybe thinks
she she’ll bounce
thinks she
thinks what
‘ll stone do
but be rubber
thinks what
‘s stone want
with sister
anyway the
end
kerplunk

© 2007-09 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved

Meredith’s Love: L

Love closed what he begat.
The singing May sky wandered
once, then twice, this pair diverse
snared as rapid falcons

Beneath lovers, clear on flowers.
Advancing hours fed their hearts,
buried the day as fatal knife, deep
questioning with sigh. The dole,

Endless, probes each other
to answer the dusty soul. Hot life,
tragically certain in the dark,
forces the ocean’s midnight move.

Ramping cravings of warrior horses,
this faint line of shift and floe
upon the shore, throws yonder
the love of evermore.

© 2008-09 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved

Meredith’s Love: Sweet XX-IV

What has dicked the woman
thus? Heaven forfend her head
doth swim with jealousy above
her rusty bosom. Maybe it is

Decked. A bargained cure kills
the nobler agony of contempt
unless it flames it, bearing on ills
bitter with new strings. Her mouth’s

Crooked red bow forfeits the wit
for possession. Despite the eye
ball pure with a new veering fit,
the woman may yet love and

Deceive. Like she knows the word
which carries no prize. This, no
game to be played light, this, to break
the despite of the heart.

© 2008-09 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved

Meredith’s Love: For 9

Her verge neither moaned
nor changed when she was found
by the discerning ocean’s pound,
loudly dreaming no longer.

Pity pleads the sin that is silent,
wandering to the bed out of
context. No strength for the weak
will take her hand, shadow-like and

Dry. A bargained kill cures
the contempt of nobler agony
unless it strings it through flames
of bitter ill. Her moan

Verged on the battle bare, her
lips covered with the haunt of not
to know, the when forgot the part
of the heart to hold.

© 2008-09 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved

Meredith’s Love: 9

The masterfully wild beast
was felt between them; grieve
he would to receive the delicate
thing helpless. It defiles

Certain dark guardians
without teeth to rend,
so hungry. But spared. Fear
she felt he did not know

Until he drank from her
poison-cup, malignant soft
and starry. Gentle glory circle
of heaven, between the held

Body with filtering eyelids,
oh, he said she laughed, leaned,
the rude beast rough at dusk
between them in his dark.

© 2008-09 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved

Meredith’s Love: V3

I was winning the race

until I lost. I do not know

myself without the battle bare

and unholy between us,

Poor twisting worm. Your

queenly cleft beautiful between

us, you struggled with salt,

with righteousness, pitiful

Feeling. Not just my chest

will open as a balm on my wound,

my god-played pipe also, mellow and

course. The clown loves discord,

Puffs his base battle unholy

between us, his gross spirit

contemning us from the new:

used, what this had between us.

© 2008-09 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved

Meredith’s Love: 2

Oh, the bitter beauty

her love had, taste too

zealous for their sins.

The morrow ended the task

Brought with guilty gates,

sickened the encountered smiles.

Before him the world forgot,

the murderous wicked spot

Looked, the stars’ beams, lurid, 

fainted over the languid infamy,

strove to crown and smote

this heap of pain,

Aping the sucked secret,

the mask worn, the poison

flowers; vengefulness fainted,

the morrow’s task ended.

© 2008-09 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved

Meredith's Love:  1

Stone-still she lay by, he

knew she wept, eyes waking;

light quiver by her head,

his hand's light

Strange, low sobs shake the common

bed, so-called with sharp surprise,

mute snakes strangled gaping.

Midnight makes muffled

Pulse.  Moveless from head

to feet of heavy measure, vain

regret for years black, dead,

the blank wall

Scrawled.  Seen effigies might be

sculptured upon the tomb, the

sword between marriage,

severs the wish for all.

(c) 2008-09 Mark A. Douglas - All Rights Reserved