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What Grandma Says

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(I left out some pictures to tickle your imagination)

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Grandma says she visits Mollybird land.

But Grandma is silly.

She plays in the sand.

She hops in a chair,

I see her eyes glisten

She tells me to sit down

and carefully listen.

“There’s a place,” she says, “where

popsicles grow sideways,

where Lollipop trees

sprout only on Sundays.

Where cows milk the garden

The doggy yells, ‘Moo,’

And the carrot pops up

and says, ‘Howdy Do!’

 

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The dragon blows fire

to light up the coals

so miniture rhinos

can climb from their holes.

At lunchtime,

oh, we’re too busy to eat.

We paint with the squirrels

and then take our seats.

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We sit by the ocean

and blow seahorse bubbles

Our thoughts disappear

but our vision, it doubles!

If Tina the Tiger finds you,

don’t worry.

She’ll tickle you fast

then run off in a hurry!

Old Peter Parrot

doesn’t like peace and quiet

He prefers to squawk loudly

and dress like a pirate.

Then, when it’s time,

the Queen steps on her chair,

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and the bicycling frog

is the first to be there.

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Everyone cheers

and why would they not?

She makes them remember

the fun they forgot.

Now, if you don’t believe me,

of course it’s just fine.

But my unicorn’s here

and I must leave on time.

How I get home?

It’s the best thing, no doubt!

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Oh, don’t forget.

If you whistle real loud.

My silly hippo

will float down from the clouds.”

I take hold of the whistle.

I blow super hard.

A hippo? Really?

Will land in her yard?

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© Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, CDW Creations

Lollipop- daily word prompt

Fearful trickles of a memory

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Thank God for women like them. Unlike her own mother, the Disastrous woman she had lived with for seventeen years, Miss Fannie and Miss Reba were the mothers she always longed for, And then there was her father, the man who walked out and never returned when she was only a few years old.

The feather comforter provided her warmth. Sofie was safe. But then, why was she so cold? Too cold?

Her heart pounded, gaining in intensity. Moist palms. A forehead collecting beads of sweat.  How can I be cold and hot at the same time? Sofie wanted to yell for Miss Fannie or Miss Reba but her lips wouldn’t move. The only movement came from the image that darted through her mind almost too fast to catch. But she grabbed part of it.

A knock on her front door in Seguin. A girl of fourteen standing behind her mother at the front door. Another scruffy stranger from her past. “Go back to your school work, Sofie. Keep practicing, Sofie.” It was her mother’s voice.

Sofie pulled the covers over her head. Erase the thoughts, Sofie. Erase them! But they entered without permission, without regard. Just like the stranger had.

Excerpt from Naked, She Lies by CD-W

 

Disastrous – daily word prompt

Ashes to Ashes

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It was Mother who told me about Gene dying. Dad had found out when he was in town but gave Mother the job of breaking the news to me.

“Cono,” she said, “I got some bad news fer ye.”

I thought that maybe we’d have to move away again, away from Ike. Or that Delma was sick again.

“Yer little friend Gene has died, gone to heaven.”

I remember staring at her for the longest time. I remember going to Uncle Joe’s funeral and hearing about Wort Reynolds going to heaven without a head. But this was different. This was MY friend. This was Gene Davis who was only a year older than me.

“He went to Roby to the hospital ‘cause he had a pain in his side.”

I saw Gene and me playing checkers, riding on his mare, making up stories.

“It was a bad appendix, burst before the doctors could git to it.”

I thought Dad was right about one thing. Doctors were good for nothing’s. Couldn’t fix Dad, couldn’t fix Gene.

“Mother?”

“Yeah?”

“When Uncle Joe died, why’d they say ‘ashes to ashes’?”

“I ain’t real sure, Cono. I think it has te do with the fact that we were born nothin’ and go right on back te bein’ nothin’.”

“So now Gene’s jes’t nothin?” I asked, getting upset that the world was going to pretend he never existed.

“Nah, he’s somethin’ alright. He’s jes’t back to being part of the Texas Soil ’sall.”

“That ain’t so bad, is it?”

“Nothin’ wrong with that.”

“But I don’t get te see him again?”

“Afraid not, Cono. I’m sorry,” she said.

And I still am.

I go into my room and pull out my box of specials. There’s the old lace from a boxing glove, the time when Gene put together that fight for me; my first fight with real gloves.

At school and in front of everybody Mr. Green says, “Cono found out that he’s lost a good friend. His name was Gene Davis and he lived in Rotan. Cono, I just want to tell you how sorry we are.”

I nod my head and look down at my desk.

I don’t quite understand it, doesn’t make no sense whatsoever that Gene is dead. I want to see him again. I want to laugh with him. I want him to pull me behind his mare in the red wagon. I want to beat him at checkers.

Mr. Green has told me I can do anything I want. He says I can. He says he knows I can. So I decide to write Gene a letter, send it up to God Jesus to give to him.

 

daily prompt: Soil

Unhinged

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Sofie was naked, of course, having stripped off her clothing as soon as she returned from the fabric store. She didn’t bother transferring the eggs to a plate. She stood over them, eating from the skillet. Besides there was no one to talk to but herself and, right now, the way she was feeling, it was good enough.

Perhaps it was the opium coursing through her that made them so beautiful. Little fried eggs showing up like new suns, waiting to be devoured. Her fork pierced the middle, the yellow sunrays spreading throughout the pan like a new day. The sight was so fascinating; she hesitated before taking a bite. But yes, eat the new day, Savor and enjoy. The egg slid down her eager throat. Taking the remaining butter from beside the stove, she smeared it on her arms, then her breasts. She was a new egg on a new day.

CD-W

 

Daily post word of the day: Savor

If it crawls up your drawers

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“So’s what she found a scarf? Who wouldn’t pick it up if it weren’t attached to a person?” Reba’s hands might have been in the kitchen when Meta came home, but her ears were everywhere in the house. She knew what had happened.

“It belongs to that missing Temperance girl, Rebie.”

“And ‘member that red hat I’s left at Market Square? Belongs to somebody else now. That Sadie might have a stubborn streak miles long, but she wouldn’t hurt a Bumble bee ‘less it crawled up her drawers.”

Had it? Had the Temperance women hovered over her, gotten too close? Invaded her safety? Sadie had become a barbed-wire fence that kept others out or, perhaps herself in.

What was Sadie keeping from me?

Excerpt from The Last Bordello

daily word prompt: Bumble

Missing Moms

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Maybe Frank doesn’t like the quiet since I’ve stopped talking because he says, “Emma June, I’m sorry about your mom being gone.”

My eyes water. I grab a stick, snap it in two.

“I’m sorry you don’t get on with your real mom,” I mutter.

“Maybe I’d like her if she’d raised me. She didn’t. She gave that job to her sister. I only live with her now because Aunt Sissy died. I don’t have any other kinfolk.”

Like me. I only have Daddy now. “What does your mom do in Holly Gap?”

“Nothing really. Takes in ironing. Doesn’t leave the house unless she makes enough to buy groceries. Sulks mostly.”

Like Daddy. But when I’m around, he tries to Bury his sadness.

“She never drives anywhere, takes you places?” I ask.

Frank shakes his head and gives me a devilish eye. “Sometimes I get to drive her old jalopy, though. When Aunt Sissy died, Ma got the junk heap and me.”

Now I feel bad about giving him that dog food sandwich.

Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket, 1928

daily post prompt: Bury

Shootin’ Sunshine

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Cono Dennis, my father

Here I go again, on the way back to Sweetwater. Not to get a donkey but to shoot Sunshine, My Only Sunshine.

Driving down the highway, Aunt Nolie doesn’t talk much, at least not with her mouth. She clutches that steering wheel like she’s about to squeeze all the Texas sand and Grit out of it and that’s a whole conversation in itself.

We finally get to Sweetwater and park in front of the Lucky Star Bar.

“Cono, ye wait right here.”

“OK,” I say, since I’ve already met the woman, who’s about to be shot anyway.

I sit in the car, again. I watch the people come and go, again, except this time, the ones that had been going were coming and the ones that had been coming were now going. I wait for the sound of a gunshot, the sound I’ve become familiar with when I hunt with my dad. I wait alright ‘cause there’s nothing else for me to do.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper

 

daily word prompt: Grit

The Brute at the Butcher Shop

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Savage. An appropriate name for a butcher.

The door ajar, the stench of raw meat penetrated my nose, but the familiar voice inside stopped me from running past. “Hold on, Sadie.”

“What?” Sadie bent down, retying her bootlaces.

I peeked inside the butcher shop. Miss Reba stared up at the burly man towering over her. “No sir, you must’a misunderstood I’s just—”

“Don’t tell me I misunderstood.” He drew his arm across his chest then slapped Miss Reba across the face with the back of his hand. She tumbled sideways, her head smacking the edge of a table before she hit the floor.

“Colored’s always have to wait,” he added.

My blood curdled as I rushed to her side. “Miss Reba!”

“What have you done?” Sadie yelled behind me.

I knelt beside Miss Reba. “Ach Gott. Are you all right?”

She moaned and lifted a limp hand to the side of her head where blood dripped onto the floor.

“She needs to wait her turn, ain’t that right butcher?” the brute said.

Mr. Savage stood there, his mouth open. The patrons gasped and whispered. No one came forth. What was wrong with these people?

Sadie glared at the man and reached inside her small black purse. She unfolded a man’s shaving knife, stood and approached him. “If I pricked you with this, you’d squeal like a stuck pig.”

My mind blurred. What does it take to kill someone? To sacrifice one’s self for a cause?

The bearded man pointed a finger at Sadie. “Whoa, now girlie …”

“And then, our butcher will take you for a hog,” she said. “After hanging you on a meat hook, he’ll slit you from neck to belly until you bleed out. Isn’t that right, Mr. Savage?”

Mr. Savage blinked a few times and cleared his throat. “Sadie, you best look after Miss Reba there.”

The abuser’s nostrils flared. He pointed a finger inches from Sadie’s face. “You need to shut that vulgar trap ‘a yours, Missy. Surely you got a sheriff in town who can lock you up for pulling a weapon on me.”

“ Unmensch! Her weapon?” My words hurled forth, surprising me. “Your hand was a weapon! You hurt Miss Reba.”

Sadie glanced side to side. “We have the best county sheriff in the state. Looks like he’s not here right now. So, the next time any of us return to purchase pork, including this fine lady on the floor bleeding the same color red as everyone else, you might be the pig we get to eat.”

The man clenched both hands into fists. “Why you …”

Excerpt from The Last Bordello

Savage

Missing the country-side

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Electric streetcar rails made circular patterns on the paved intersections of busy streets while the trolley’s bells deafened my rural ears. Businesses of every kind lined up one after another, many sharing common walls. Women wore feathers and stuffed birds attached to their hats and paraded them down the street like migrating nests. Barouche carriages transported men and women in their finery. At least the clamor and Jangle of wagons pulled by tried horses reminded me of home.

I set my luggage down and rubbed my tired arms.

Excerpt from The Last Bordello, 1901

daily word prompt: Jangle

Placing thoughts

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10639761 – many-coloured feather

Finally in the safety of my own room, where the roving tourists of mourners are not allowed to venture, I can place the nib of my Quill into the waiting black ink upon my desk, the desk Papa made for me then carved his initials on the bottom left corner as an artist signs a canvas. If I do not write down these things I will surely go mad.  There is much to say.

Although Papa rarely wrote words upon a page, he has always encouraged me to do so.  He says I have a talent for such things, for placing thoughts into words and packaging them safely on the empty page as if the page were a box for keepsakes.

Excerpt from a long ago draft.

Quill