Details |
Jimmy Coker Poem
He sat in an old wooden porch swing,
Elbows on knees; Salem Menthol burning down.
Thinking, smoking, Salems his favorite thing.
Fingers colored over time a deep tar brown.
Veteran of a war long ago won,
Toured Europe in a half track;
Battling descendants of the Hun.
Never hearing “Fallback men, fallback!”
He came back to the hills of north Mississippi,
Encumbered not by marriage or job,
Feeling triumphant as Antony at Philippi;
then Papa reminded him of the crop!
Seasonal was his trade, ranging near to far.
Picking cotton, pulling corn, hauling hay;
maybe in time, money for a beat up car.
In 1946 this was the life of Carl Ray.
Papa died that year, leaving behind daughters and sons.
Carl Ray was the youngest one.
The family grew those next few years;
many a young ‘un.
Carl Ray was alone, but a man, so no tears.
Then a young widow came into his life.
She as poor as he but the perfect fit.
Within a year Carl Ray had a wife.
Nannie loved his intelligence and dry wit.
Another year and after much luck,
A beautiful red headed son of buck.
For Carl Ray the middle years flew.
His work was hard, his pleasures few.
But on Saturday always the same,
Work, burgers and a baseball game.
Scant few hours for father and son,
But Carl loved Saturday’s, every one!
Years flew by and as is often the case
Tobacco to his body laid waste.
For Salem’s will never be a friend.
Death came painfully and slow,
The red haired man whispering:
“It’s okay Daddy, I’m here, so you can go.”
Copyright © Jimmy Coker | Year Posted 2018
|
Details |
Jimmy Coker Poem
Holbert
Brogans and overalls by Lee;
Making cotton baskets ‘neath a white oak tree.
A grandfather I never really knew
that smoked Prince Albert; it was tried and true.
Went by the name Holbert.
His wallet in his bib; no undershirt.
Sitting in a porch swing he made.
Across his yard the world he surveyed.
Once shotgunned an innocent crane.
Never had he seen such a thing;
Must be some kinda dinosaur.
One shot and it was no more.
Used a jar full of Morgan silver dollars
to buy tires for his ’49 Chevy.
Actions always prove who are the dullards.
No one ever accused him of being heady.
In the middle of the night once shot a stray.
Such dogs often killed our chickens.
Mortally wounded it died under our house
and started to decay.
My job to drag it out as my stomach
started to sicken.
Often to First Monday we would trek.
In his Sunday overalls he was bedecked.
Ripley a good place for selling baskets.
I would always watch to learn his tactics.
Soon old age came to stay.
Early in March he went away.
A lifetime ago it seems,
but often he returns to me
in my dreams.
Copyright © Jimmy Coker | Year Posted 2018
|
Details |
Jimmy Coker Poem
Pollie
Genealogy is sociology and science.
The long dead hide away in silence.
Searching long hours to find a person
who is found in a moment so certain.
Born on the Coosa in 1824,
Pollie found her love in a family so poor.
At eighteen she married young William,
in five years some malady had killed him.
With family across the river trekking west,
for miles and weeks traveling to land most blessed.
There in hills of red to find contentment
in a land full of enchantments.
To Ole Alberson in wagons they came
to start a new life their only aim.
Some succeeded over the years,
others like Pollie only found tears.
No man to love, now long buried,
No grave to visit, no cemetery.
Children to rear, their mouths to feed.
Fields to work, hands would bleed.
No man to love, not for Pollie,
need for companionship, such folly!
Growing old and aches intolerable,
Death appears, this enemy unconquerable.
Now a century or more has passed.
Long hours, red raw eyes; found her at last!
Only a name, records too fragmentary
No grave to visit, no cemetery.
Copyright © Jimmy Coker | Year Posted 2018
|
Details |
Jimmy Coker Poem
To cross him was ill advised;
No bigger a man on this earth ever lived.
Storyteller, hunter, fisherman and farmer,
known to all simply as Parmer.
His days were early, his nights late.
A poor farmer’s life his lonely fate.
Cows in green pastures, hogs in mud lots;
Chickens laying and cooking in pots.
He feared nothing, man nor animal.
But to his friends, he was most affable.
To me he was a mentor, most admired.
To stand in his shadow was to be inspired.
As a boy I followed him often,
To the fields to pick cotton,
To the woods to hunt with his dogs,
To the sloughs noodling logs.
His joy was late afternoons on a porch swing.
Afternoon breezes and watching sunsets was the thing.
Fireflies and crickets making presence known.
In the blink of an eye his life was gone.
Time and sickness took his health away.
Parmer became slow, old and gray.
One night in his armchair asleep all alone;
the reaper came and forever
my mentor, my dear uncle was gone.
Copyright © Jimmy Coker | Year Posted 2018
|