Irish accents quake my female southland.
Males 'neath Newsboy Caps stimulate dreamland.
Irish yearns may want touch,
Did not seek to feel such.
Ireland trips could stimulate mate's backhand.
Jesse rode with Quantrill as did his brother Frank
They were soldiers of the southland before they robbed a bank
Quantrill was a hero to the southern rebels when
He sort of lost control of his senses and his men
His troop was made of hotheads who completely ran amuck
And anyone who crossed them were simply out of luck
They terrorized the boundaries collecting their supplies
Unmindful of the damage, death and neighbor cries
Were they ever here in St. Joe, the rumors say they were
But that’s not been documented and old memories were a blur
There was a barn just south of Bartlett we heard about when young
That really peaked imaginations – kept old Quantrill on our tongue
Did Frank and Jesse go there, did they hide what they had taken
To supply our rebel bushwhackers or were we all mistaken
You know it really doesn’t matter if it was or if it wasn’t
It’s in the mind of dreamers and that my friend just does it
Metronome heart beats in 4/4 time while mandolin chimes in staccato voice. In the background, guitar hums and banjo sings. Bluegrass echoes across southern winds; blues and mountain music force a dance from tranquil feet; it’s a concert fit for country royalty, at the Opry. The East coast clogs and smiles.
On the rolling winds,
Echo strains of the southland;
Gaia’s toe tapping.
We would like to
eat steaks in Alaska
or fry battered mushrooms,
but the there is money
to be made
in the Southland.
The irises bloom here thickly,
and roses bleed,
while tinkering hands
use up the day.
fall’s foliage wingless
man too longs for a southland -
future mist defined
Brian Johnston
December 19, 2015
The fall birds sing a sweet refrain,
The melodies from my youth
Surge forth to bind me to the land.
The darkened trail by the pasture vale
Comes into view as the leaves pass through
On their mystery tour to incase the dew.
The small fish pond in the foggy air
Is silent and still, no waves to dispel
The smell embraced in honeysuckle lace
Rises entwined with memories fair.
The pine trees grow tall and slender
And let their needles caress
The ground dusty and dry.
The sun slowly rises with few surprises.
I'll plow my acres today
And thank The God Who gave them to me.
All my mortgage years
This featherless gosling flightless
Kept chickens for peers
Suffering gravity's wretched pain
While dreaming of the southland
Coded in my bones
Like a chicken I circled
The pond of tears, while the lake
Brimmed with spectacled
Difference of salt ambition
O how the memory hibiscus
Withering seared my heart!
I did not know I did not have to pay
For home if I let it go again
To the bankers that count day's
In piles of cents, I shed
The modern chain and fled the shed
Of tumbling debt to joy.
I shed her savage memory
That held like a cyclops
Gripped my fledgling history
And all the goats there
Were too starved to carry whom I am
Protege of the risen lamb
A melancholy fills my soul,
When Lady Northwind wails.
She lifts the waves and churns the foam,
As she fills the schooner's sails
While the clouds of winter gather
Across the lowering sky,
I feel a storm of loneliness,
As I watch the snow geese fly,
Their spring flight, now a memory
On this cold, October day,
On tireless, snowy wings they're bound
To my southland, far away.
I journeyed to this frozen land,
In my search for a richer life.
I left behind, my childhood home,
My friends, children, and my wife.
I wish I were on that schooner,
Sailing south across the sea,
But I'm stuck here on this island--
Prison bars won't set me free.