Tommy the Clown
After attending a grown-up birthday party with Tommy the Clown (known for his “Krumping,” and inspiring youth) I wrote this (hope you can read it!):
RAW Journal Kernels – KRUMPING
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Monthly Archives: December 2016
Staring at Fear
Madam Fannie Porter stares at fear. (From The Last Bordello)
I reminded my fingers to turn the knob slowly, quietly. I crept through the kitchen’s side door and held my breath.
A voice in the parlor. Not one of my girls. I tiptoed into my bedroom and made my way to the far wall. Wiped my sweaty, shaky hands on my dress. Removed the painting.
Only Reba and I knew about the coin-sized peephole Constructed long ago for keeping an eye on questionable customers. Exactly my eye level, as intended.
The voices would be clearer now. I inched the cork from the hole. Fighting for breath, I peered through the hole and into the parlor.
When Words Kill
Cono Dennis, after realizing his father read his private letters.
Cono Dennis, my father, age 18
I might not have sparred with him but I stopped him cold and I don’t just mean by showing off my defense skills and putting him in a head lock. As sure as a sharp axe can cut through and splinter a log and slice a thin piece of paper, a sharpened pencil can do the same thing. Words are powerful; they can be weapons as sharp as an axe. “Gene, I want to kill my Dad,” words that must have reverberated and Echoed in Dad’s ears just as loud as a sawed off shotgun, or blue lightening bouncing off a cow’s head. And just as loud as his slap across my face. I don’t think I meant for him to find all those letters, but he did.
From No Hill for a Stepper, the novel based upon my father’s life from age two till age eighteen.
RAW Journal Kernels – Bemoan
I wrote this after I suffered a disappointment. (I wondered where this poem had gone. Found it taped in one of my journals.)
Are you complete?
We are all made up of jigsaw pieces – varied shapes of experiences that combine to make us a complete puzzle.
You don’t think you are complete? You think you are missing pieces?
Do you toss a few of your least wonky samples on the viewing table, the ones you’ve buffed and coated in high gloss? The pieces you think are less vulnerable to share?
Perhaps today you are a one-hundred piece puzzle. Or a five-hundred. With additional experiences comes greater awareness. Tomorrow, you might be made of a thousand pieces that all interlock perfectly. Tomorrow, maybe ten-thousand.
At this very second, this moment in time, you are perfect.
Celebrate who you are.
Carolyn Dennis-Willingham 