YOKEL ( 23 ) ~

P A S T U R E S   O F

Y O K E L

Because I believed in what I saw

 JACK KEROUAC

Field Guide

Blue jay never leaves —

Just changes

Its call

Pastures of Plenty

The truck we are loading is an eighteen 

Foot flatbed with two foot high side 

Panels welded on as thick plate iron. 

         

Native picked it up from another 

Backwoods boy who bought it for $200 

And sold it to Native for $1,000, though he

Doesn’t seem too troubled by the math since 

He had it paid off in a week hauling salvage.

Today we are hauling salvage, but instead of 

Cleaning it out of the lower pasture and

Getting  it off to a recycling plant in a

Far off town, nothing is working right. 

The loader is broken down mid-pasture, its

Bucket jawed-open in the air.  The dumpsters

Have never been delivered and there’s people

In town who want this place condemned now.

Native’s got cars and trucks and more junk

Already filling an upper pasture, and since 

No jurisdiction has been indicated by the

Town by-laws against that pasture, we heap

Four circus loads of junk this afternoon and

Watch its delivery go to the upper pasture 

Hearing its grumble roll off up there. 

So much for progress — which means

Someday it will all have to be picked

Up again — maybe not by Native and

His bunch, but a cleanup crew that will

Be hired by the town, with taxpayers’

Money (some of it mine), to load it all

Up once more and make these 

Pastures, pastures again.

Not on your life.

If it’s not a junkyard — then it will be real estate.

If it’s real estate — it will be a few new 

Houses built lopsided on turgid ground

Once made of potatoes and cattle and a few

Grazing horses, but the last twenty years ruined 

By oil spills, junk metal and pallets of old

Batteries clumped into a landfill.

For the past four hours we have been 

Tossing gas stoves, bottled tanks, busted

Computer monitors, truck hoods and

Bumpers, a Canon copier and Coke

Machine rolled up onto the flatbed.

It has nothing to do with mechanics and 

Everything to do with making a living the 

Old-fashioned way: moving other people’s junk. 

In another era the king-size flatbed would 

Be carting a towering hold of new baled 

Hay fresh cut off the neighborly fields and 

From these pastures — cowbirds following — 

The sting of sunburn and sharp prick nettles

A pecker wet sweat work as the load swayed 

Across the road and down dipped into

The dooryard toward the barn and 

Its upper swung-open hayloft hatch.

But since then it’s been a new dawn —

The barn has burned down and what

Was once grassland has been spoiled.

Three bruiser sons move around shirtless 

Like bears growling out at the road. 

While the old farmer that sold the place 

Refuses to return for a visit.

Lifetime

Clayton, who I haven’t

Spoken to for almost a

Lifetime, I read he shot

A deer first weekend of

Hunting season and the

Poor thing wasn’t more

Than 87 pounds, and I

Can’t help but think of

The youngster next town

Over who was pictured in

The newspaper with his

First buck and all 110

Pounds this boy seemed

To have his arms around

Clayton used to hate me

For my long beard and years

Later when I went to the river

And cut it off, threw it in,

I noticed right after Clayton

Had started one of his own

But we wouldn’t see one

Another until a long time

After that and to this day

I don’t think he even

Knew who I was — talking

Like I knew him — and where’d

I come from suddenly showing

Up in the road where he is

Running his tractor for the

Town chopping down brush but

He stopped a moment when I

Asked if he’d be interested

In signing a petition to help

Save the village covered bridge —

The bridge he drove over since

A boy on sled, manure spreader,

Pulled baler and old trucks

Hell no! how’d I get logs

Over if we don’t finally get

Rid of that bridge and put in

Something that makes sense

Is how he waved-off looking 

At me,  knowing he’d seen me

Somewhere but chewing the

Short hairs around his lips

He can’t remember where or

How so many years ago we killed

Snakes together, fixing fence posts

Shingling roofs and high-stepped

In cement to spread, tap pails

Soldered and slabwood bucked

Those cold blue mornings in the

Dooryard our two figures fiddling

Over a dropsy tractor and day begins

When at first cough of a greasy

Exhaust is all that spoils the air

______________

Bob Arnold

Yokel

Longhouse

2011

TIM HARDIN ~

WAVE THE OCEAN ~

IS IT, YA? ~

T H E      S O U R C E

Duke University

2018

EUNICE NORTON, VERMONT ~

DICK GAUGHAN ~

A FATHER ~

R E A D     M E

JOHN BRADLEY ~

Placing A Mask Of My Face Over My Face



I aspire only to silence. I could not let you know

this I was told, and yet here I am releasing sounds

once stored miles below your shoe. Rules make me



want to run to a glass room, vomit a broom, and blind

each wall with dank river mud. I could say you will

stab my every exhalation and it will not harm me.



You will charm me and make me kinder and smarter,

lilting the tilt of the planet. I can't quite see the trace

of your face, yet I'm told it resembles a baggie of frozen



starlight, a shot glass of lung water, a vial of sea salt

vapor. I aspire only to invisibility, the skin around the rain

droplet on the back of your hand. I don't know you,



or I know you but don't yet belong to you, the slight

scar on your throat. I feel stronger, the rules flimsier,

after I've found in the corner, under the carpet, a slim



black turd. Perhaps you wish to smack me, so I'll glow

about the head. I'm never certain when you're in

the garage, engine running, what you grasp of desire.



That crescent moon only seen through the bottom

of a rusted bucket. Thus I leave you, listing with silence,

aspiring only to what shall be spilled.










______________

John Bradley
Spontaneous Mummification
winner of the James Tate Poetry Prize 2019
SurVision Books
2020

YOKEL ( 22 ) ~

Stonemason Credo

Between talking to myself

While walking around

Choosing the right stone

And talking to myself while

Laying the stone as to what

Works right and doesn’t

I have enough company by

Myself not to have you who

Asks kindly if you may help

Back Road Archaeology

Every morning Native ate pancakes —

I would walk the mile north to his farm

To catch a ride with him to work,

Sat while he ate, looked out the

Thick plastic of his kitchen windows,

At the third chair — a plate of pancakes

For his son still in bed, 5:30 a.m.

On the way out the door, pulling

His heavy coat off a nail, Native

Tossed the paper plate onto a year’s

Worth of paper plates on the back porch,

Each licked clean by his dogs

Next month, in April, after half the

Junk has blown away from the farm

He will load what is left into a manure spreader,

Haul it down pasture to the old

Stone foundation where his parents

Once lived, throw it all in

An Old Timer

selling his tools on the lawn —

what pains him the most is

seeing them laid out that way

doing nothing

Chimney Fire

Climbing the roof

With a bucket of sand

Stars above bigger than ever

Gone

Some say they’ve moved out.

Gone. None of their kids are

Seen up at the school bus stop,

& I haven’t seen the VW without

Plates on the road, nor Native’s truck.

Gone. Born here, still young, married

& with the two kids, but now gone.

He was working in a garage outside

Of town until he got fired. They

Said he was doing well for himself,

Then he started to drink with the

Boys after work, got home past

Midnight — his wife stopped waiting up —

For months she would borrow a neighbor’s

Phone to call him, whisper pleas.

But now they’re gone. No kids at

The bus stop. Their dogs still prowl

& beg in the village, pick fights, bite.

One of them ate a turkey right off the

Back porch of a bountiful Thanksgiving

Day feast, months ago, before Native’s job

At the garage, before he came home

Drunk or stoned, before they were gone.

It’s still talked about.

I drove by their trailer today.

Place looked dead.

The door stoop was gone.

_____________

Bob Arnold

Yokel

Longhouse

2011

BARN THE SPOON ~

DK Publishing

2019

MOURNING DIARY ~

R E A D      M E

Notting Hill Editions

2011

McCOY TYNER ~

M C C O Y      T Y N E R

EDITOR'S NOTES ~

R E A D      M E

Knopf 2016

BLACK MOUNTAIN POEMS ~

R E A D       M E