The Chickasaw
Home Short Stories Poetry Articles Humor Links
RAFAEL CAMPO teaches and practices internal
medicine at
ON THE RIGHT TO MARRY
Will you remember me the way I am
today? This long engagement---twenty years---
has taken something of a toll. I came
to bed last night, and thought that we were far
from being done with dreams. You turned
to me,
and I was young, and still afraid; June's moon
peered in, parental with concern. My knee
ached, punishment for worshipping the loam
in our small garden. Irises in bloom,
their wizened, bearded faces beautiful
old men's, dispensed their blessings and their blame.
You painted furniture, and said “I will,
of course I will.” I planted savory,
not hardy through the winter months, beside
the mint you hate for its invasiveness.
A breeze intruded, always the bright bride
the whole world wants to marry. A
life's work,
as yet only half done, ubiquitous---
I felt tired, and it would soon be dark,
but none may refuse love, not even us.
Living with
Illness
One knits, another reads a magazine,
and if they’re anything, they’re patient as
they wait. What narratives they’ll share I can’t
imagine; all I know is that they’ll need
advice, a new prescription, someone to
sit quietly for just a moment while
they cry. It’s not their symptoms, not the noise
of jackhammers enlarging asphalt wounds
outside, it’s not their alcoholic wives,
it’s not the presidential primary
that’s won or lost today—not any of
this hurts, not even when I give a shot
in someone’s flabby, freckled arm. What does
it mean, this endless suffering?
(The US News and World Report, months old;
the knitting, maybe a misshapen sweater?)
They always come, as if they wanted to
be understood yet not explained, laid bare
as by the temporary freedom of
the flimsy paper gowns I’ve given them
to lie completely naked underneath—
examining their eyes, I wonder if
they’ve told me everything, then listen to
their hearts as if I’d never known the truth.
The
Blackouts
In
They point the headlights of their rumbling cars—
Old Cadillacs and Chevys,
relics of
A brighter time—to flood their crumbling rooms
With light. They’re going nowhere, yet they face
The engines of an industry that if
It wanted to, might crush them. On their backs,
They take a swig of rum; they’re comforted,
Perhaps, by someone else’s touch, the taste
Of salt that’s in the breeze with the exhaust.
Imagine how gigantic are their shadows,
Projected on the dingy walls—how far
The world must seem, that spites the open windows—
Imagine that they’re climbing in, at last,
Their roaring ride to freedom past the stars,
Across the seas, interminable like ours
§
LAURIE BARTON is earning her MFA degree at
She is also an ESL professor at
ENGLISH AS A SEVENTH
LANGUAGE
Accuse me, teacher. I have a story
like the one in our Reader's Digestion.
A stranger attracted my sister,
a man with a real evil purple.
He attracted her right in the chicken
as she cooked us some fine rice and
kitchen.
I tell you this story, I don't want
you boring--
I want to spice everything out.
But now let's go back to your teaching.
That's right, Louis Armstrong,
that man take a walk on the moon.
MOVING DAY
On moving day I slipped across the street
to check the local bakery, where I
found
a pastry topped with caramel, crispy
brown.
I pulled off chunks and hid inside that treat
while you worked hard to organize our
home.
You analyzed where everything should be-
creaky treadmill, futon and TV
placed logically, beside our cordless
phone.
When you moved out, you left behind some shirts
and belts I didn't want to see. I
closed
your closet door. I learned to live
alone.
Cool mornings, asleep in that chair we'd bought
in
of patio. I held your soccer ball.
§
SIR GAWAINE ROSS, a
Disassociation
Some people dash through fire,
Others plunge through ice.
Is Reality the only thing
If Chaos is the king?
Ring all your golden Christmas bells,
The sewer rats still dance.
Then the ice they buy and sell
Will wind up in your drinking glass,
All muddied and black,
That iridescent toxicity
In which the ship is lost.
The mutineers choose weapons
And toss the captain overboard
To feed her to the barracuda
By the reefs of broken glass –
Each mirrored fragment seizes nightlight
And cast werelit visions
Of her home bleeding, collapsing
As the boulders fall dead center.
She goes into her heart and mind
Which remind her of departing kin
Who told her of the doom that wheezes
Down the orchard’s razor walks.
-Too cold?—We’ll leave this
Television frame behind
To go and seek the whip instead.
The radio commander never stops,
Hilarity dances with dank despair,
Barefoot through the
Mudslides block the view.
She seeks a serpent that doesn’t bite
And settles for a badger’s den
With herself as Joan of Arc,
Cinderella, and the Virgin Mary
Or a raven squawking over food.
She has to shout in a crowded train
“Rubber plantation workers
Beat seedless grapes!
Venus is being invaded by dogs!”
§
SHERWOOD ROSS writes for newspapers and
magazines. Contact him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com.
The Chickasaw Plum appreciates his permission to include the
below ballad.
Ballad, Deep in The
By Sherwood Ross
This ballad was written to be played on the guitar; it is a
love story set in
A French chevalier lost his battalion deep in the white
birch forest
A Russian marksman shot his stallion as he searched for
forage
Darkness fell as he fled on foot,
the snow blew white and wild
The birch trees stood as soldiers frozen, with god he
reconciled.
Just then he spied a cottage, a child opened the door
And a maiden spooned him porridge and tea from the samovar
"My father, sire, is killed in your war," the
sad-eyed maiden said
"Your Napoleon's men killed him, what is more in grief
my mother lies dead"
The maiden began to weep, "O what will you have of
me?"
Said the chevalier, "You saved
my life, no harm will come to thee."
And the snow moon bathed her light on the house with the
fireside bright
And the chevalier slept that night deep in the white birch
forest
The morning sun poured gold on the roof and the chevalier
did awak
The maiden said, "Will you hunt game for my little
sister's sake?"
Blinded by snow and sun, the chevalier trekked with his gun
Dropped the white stag on the run,
deep in the white birch forest.
And he heard the distant guns, calling him back to the war
But he thought of the murdered father, and that no one knew
what for.
Next day he took the father's axe, for the child he made a
new bed
With wooden crosses he marked the graves where the husband
and wife lay dead
The warring armies passed to the east 'til he could hear no
shelling
The child fell asleep to a lullaby and peace came unto the
dwelling.
Hushabye sang the owl,
the black bear sleeps in his den
The gray wolf will not prowl, deep in the white birch
forest.
The maiden she grew lovelier, her eyes spoke to him each day
Homespun she made for the chevalier as the winter dreamed
away
But one day the French returned, their soldiers forced the
door
A rabble cold and spurned,
retreating from the war.
And the birch trees trembled in the ground, the black bear
paced in his den
The three of this small family faced Napoleon's men.
"Shoot the deserter now!" they cried, as Napoleon
came through the door
"It's here we shot the old man," he replied,
"and here we'll kill no more."
Napoleon looked at the three, he
took in all with a glance
"I wish I had spent the winter here, not in
Left in peace they lived many a day, not the richest or the
poorest
And the child and the chevalier play, deep in the white
birch forest.
* * * *
Am E Am
A French chevalier lost his battalion deep in the white
birch forest
E Am
A Russian marksman shot his stallion as he searched for
forage
Dm Am E Am
Darkness fell as he fled on foot,
the snow blew white and wild
Dm Am E Am
The birch trees stood as soldiers frozen, with god he reconciled.
C G Am E
Just then he spied a cottage, a child opened the door
C G Am E Am
And a maiden spooned him porridge and tea from the samovar
The
Chickasaw
Home Short Stories Poetry Articles Humor Links