Long Sarsaparilla Poems

As morning glowed pale light over the town of Soup Creek,
Jenna woke with a start when she heard a floorboard squeak.
She raised her gun and took aim at a shadow near the door,
"Hold it right...

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Out of the west, amide a beautiful sunrise… came a pie eyed son of a gun.
Looking for Armadilly Billy the Sling Shot Kidster… water gun… in hand.
He rode a very slow plug, an inchworm called...

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Dear Miss Monkey Manners, I am writing to you out of desperation,
It seems that I may have a problem with excessive perspiration.
As a lowland gorilla I live in regions of extreme heat and humidity,
And my...

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Billy the kid kept roving around,
A campfire here, a cowhand there,
He traveled alone through country & town,
Always headed somewhere,

One certain day he rode into town,
His forty-five strapped on his side,
Just to stop and drink one...

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I read a poem about
      a mother, a saintly mother,
      who, with knotted and veined
      hands, crocheted blankets 
and booties...

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In the unforgiving August heat
of a hot Alabama noonday
They sit in secluded shade,
resting in high-back, woven bamboo chairs
on a mahogany carved veranda
Their bodies face outward to the vast white fields,
watching the black raisins move under...

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Two glasses of water
wait to be touched by hand and lip.

The water itself remembers the taste
of whiskey, sarsaparilla, Fixodent;
the salty funk
of being swallowed down the throat
of one experience after another.

Memories are in the water
swimming hither...

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Hallway

Things the upstairs hallway desperately needs to 
make her feel like a 
hallway include:
jugs of 
water with a 
hint of 
lemon and 
sarsaparilla (yuk!), heads of 
asparagus, afros, viruses (non-
life-threatening 
only), accounting ledgers, human 
toenails,...

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A friend instinctively knows how to bend,
and not break, when anger is in control.
A Champagne and sarsaparilla blend;
that can quench the thirst of both heart and soul.

A friend is tethered to reality,
yet undertakes near-impossible tasks.
A...

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Mr. William Finch had a lot to remember.
What was he doing in the attic in late November?
Wondering about his antics was his wife Cora.
William was covered with the scent of sarsaparilla.
He journeyed to a world...

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