Cat-Napping

 

I wrote this poem about 20 years ago, and it was published in an obscure little anthology:

It applies today more than it did when I wrote it—because I have a lot more cats now and they do like to nap with me:

~

Beowulf Rap

I was going through an old filing cabinet and found something that gave me flashbacks to my English-teaching days—a rap I wrote in 1988 so my 8th graders would understand Beowulf better. Granted some with more literary talent than I possess have done translations, but I figured mine might work for 8th graders. Plus the movie version of Beowulf wouldn't come out until 2007, and even the animated version wasn't available back then:

Anyhow, here's my rap version. If you're an English teacher desperate to get your students more involved, feel free to use it: 

The Beowulf Rap

By Becky Mushko © 1988

Old King Hrothgar built Heorot Hall,

And him and his homeboys had a ball

’Til Grendel came upon the scene.

Man! This dude was big and mean—

Big red eyes, twelve feet tall—

Listen to what I’m tellin’ y’all!

Grendel chowed down on twenty guys—

Only a snack for a dude his size!

Every night he came again

And chomped and crunched up more and more men.

Poor old Hrothgr was reallin illin’

’Cause Grendel really got into killin’.

This went on for twelve years long

Until Mr. Beowulf came along.

Now Beowulf was one cool cat,

And he wondered where old Grendel was at.

A dude named Unferth put him down,

But Beowulf would prove he ain’t no clown.

Hrothgar said, Get it on, Man,

But you got to kill him with your own bare hand!”

They feasted and drank and went to sleep drunk,

And along came Grendel, the ugly punk.

He chomped one dude and slurped his blood

And said to himself, “Mmm-mmm, that’s good!”

But as he reached for another to harm,

Beowulf grabbed him by his arm

And slung him back and forth like a rocket

’Til he ripped his arm right outta its socket.

Grendel ran back to his bloody lake

’Cause he’d had about all that he could take.

Beowulf nailed his arm to the wall,

And they partied and boogied in Heorot Hall.

Hrothgar gave him gold and stuff

’Cause that’s what you get when you’re good and tough.

I hope you understand the poem of Beowulf

’Cause I think I’ve done rapped enough.

I can't guarantee that it'll work, though.

~

According to Pope

Today is Alexander Pope's 324th birthday. Part of his poem, "An Essay on Man," was featured on the Writer's Almanac today. Here's the excerpt, with some of my photos interspersed.

ALL are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul;

That, changed through all, and yet in all the same,
Great in the earth, as in th' ethereal frame,
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent:
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part;

As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart;
As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns
As the rapt Seraphim, that sings and burns:
To him no high, no low, no great, no small—
He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all....

All nature is but art, unknown to thee:
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see:
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good.

~

Time to Stare

I subscribe to The Writer's Almanac, so everyday a poem appears in my e-mail. This was yesterday's poem:

Leisure

by William Henry Davies

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

What did I stand and stare at this morning? This lavender iris that fellow Valley Writer and former science teacher Bob Sandy gave me last fall. This picture doesn't do it justice. The color is really spectacular.


I also stared at the yellow iris that I brought from my mother's yard ten years ago.


This iris came from Mama's yard, too.


And so did these poppies. I remember them blooming in our yard when I was a child.


I bought this columbine a few years ago. I thought it had died. This morning I noticed it alive and blooming.


Spring gives us lots to look at. Take time to stand and stare. Your life will be richer for it.

~

VWC Inside-the-Back-Cover Writing Contests for 2009

The Virginia Writers Club is sponsoring three Inside-the-Back-Cover writing contests in 2009. The winner of each contest (fiction, poetry, and personal essay) receives $40 and has his or her entry either printed on the inside of the back cover of a future VWC newsletter or included in the email newsletter.

The VWC has already held the flash fiction contest. The next one is poetry. I'm chairman of that one. The deadline has been extended to May 10 (which is a Sunday, so it's really May 9). Here are the general rules:

• Members of the Virginia Writers Club may enter the contest free, as a privilege of membership. Other writers residing in Virginia may enter for a fee of $8, with a check payable to the Virginia Writers Club submitted with the entry. A writer wishing to join the Virginia Writers Club and applying to become a member of the VWC by submitting an application along with a check for regular annual dues of $30, will not have to pay the $8 fee.
• Only one entry per writer per contest.
• Excluding titles, the maximum length for poetry is 30 lines.
• Entries must be the original work of the writer, not yet published or submitted for other contests or publishing.
• Entries must be typed or word processed (not handwritten) using 12 pt Times New Roman font. Poetry should be single-spaced on white 8 x 11-inch paper.
• A detachable cover sheet must include the title of the piece, the author’s name, address, phone number, and e-mail address. A short biographic sketch of no more than 75 words should be included on the cover sheet; the biographic sketch of the winner will be included with the winning entry on the inside back cover of the VWC newsletter.
• With the exception of the detachable cover sheet, the writer’s name must not appear on any other page of the submission, so that the judge will not know who the writer is.
• All rights will revert to the writer after the contest.
• Two hard copies of each entry, with one detachable cover sheet, must be mailed (postmarked) via USPS or other special surface delivery or hand delivered by the respective deadline to the respective coordinator listed below. No submissions will be accepted by e-mail.

Entries for the poetry contest should be snail-mailed (or hand-delivered) to me. If you go to the VWC website "Member News" page and click on the "document" link, you'll find the above rules as well as my mailing address.

Manuscripts will not be returned. Only the winner will be directly notified of the results of the contest, with notification in advance of publication of the winning entry on the inside back cover of the newsletter. The winner of each contest will be asked to send a copy of the winning entry and short bio via e-mail or CD to the newsletter editor so it can be placed in the newsletter without retyping.

If you have questions, e-mail Jim Morrison (ezwriter@att.net), president of the Valley Writers Chapter of the VWC.

~

Old Christmas 2009

Merry Christmas!

Tomorrow is “Old Christmas”—Twelfth Night, Epiphany, or the “real” Christmas in parts of the Appalachian Mountains. I’ve blogged about Old Christmas before. You can also read about it at this website, this one, and this one.

On Old Christmas eve, they say, ghosts walk the earth, flowers bloom, and critters kneel down and pray.

One of my favorite poems is “Old Christmas Morning,” by Roy Helton (1886-1960). I’ve posted it before, but it’s worth posting again.

"Where you coming from, Lomey Carter,
So airly over the snow?
And what's them pretties you got in your hand,
And where you aiming to go?

"Step in, Honey: Old Christmas morning
I ain't got nothing much;
Maybe a bite of sweetness and corn bread,
A little ham meat and such,

"But come in, Honey! Sally Anne Barton's
Hungering after your face.
Wait till I light my candle up:
Set down! There's your old place.

"Now where you been so airly this morning?”
"Graveyard, Sally Anne.
Up by the trace in the salt lick meadows
Where Taulbe kilt my man."

"Taulbe ain't to home this morning . . .
I can't scratch up a light:
Dampness gets on the heads of the matches;
But I'll blow up the embers bright."

"Needn't trouble. I won't be stopping:
Going a long ways still."
"You didn't see nothing, Lomey Carter,
Up on the graveyard hill?"

"What should I see there, Sally Anne Barton?"
“Well, spirits do walk last night."
"There were an elder bush a-blooming
While the moon still give some light."

"Yes, elder bushes, they bloom, Old Christmas,
And critters kneel down in their straw.
Anything else up in the graveyard?"
"One thing more I saw:

I saw my man with his bead all bleeding
Where Taulbe's shot went through."
" What did he say?” "He stooped and kissed me."
“What did he say to you?”

"Said, Lord Jesus forguv your Taulbe;
But he told me another word;
He said it soft when he stooped and kissed me.
That were the last I heard."

"Taulbe ain't to home this morning."
"I know that, Sally Anne,
For I kilt him, coming down through the meadow
Where Taulbe kilt my man.

"I met him upon the meadow trace
When the moon were fainting fast,
And I had my dead man's rifle gun
And kilt him as he come past."

"But I heard two shots." "'Twas his was second:
He shot me 'fore be died:
You'll find us at daybreak, Sally Anne Barton:
I'm laying there dead at his side."

If you’re out and about late tonight after midnight, remember: “Spirits do walk” tonight.


Let me know if you see any.

~

Two Appalachian Poems

I don’t write much poetry anymore. When I do, the poem is generally an Appalachian poem about folks who own land—or who are owned by it.


“The Interview,” a poem I wrote not long ago, won third place in the 2008 Virginia Writers Club contest. The $25 I won covered the cost of my lunch. I've reformatted the poem a bit to fit the blog, but the words are the same.

The Interview
© 2008 by Becky Mushko

Sure, I’ll talk to a fine looking young feller like you.
Don’t get much company nowadays.
Got plenty of time, nothing to do but set here.

Teacher sent you, did she?
“Get out and talk to some old codger,” I reckon she said.
Well, you found one. Pull yourself up a chair.
Little closer—I ain’t gonna bite.
Ain’t got enough teeth left for serious biting nohow.

Now whatcha wanna know?

What did I do? Farmed two hundred acres
like my daddy and his before him.
Tobacco, corn, and wheat—them was the money crops.

How? Me and a mule struggling against a hard ground.
Many a time, I’uz tempted to fling down the reins,
leave the mule standing in the middle of a furrow,
and just up and leave.

Where would I go?
Town, I reckon. Work in a factory or a mill.
Make reg’lar money. Be somebody.

But I never did go.

What stopped me?
That farm held me tighter’n a spider holds a fly.
Sucked the juices right outta me.
Left me the old dry husk you’re looking at,
tangled so tight in its web I’d never get loose.

Then, too, I couldn’t work walled in.
I’d got used to the sky, y’see,
everything growing green around me.
Besides, who’d look after the place?
I can’t stand to see a good farm
overrun with pokeweed and cat-briers.

Folks held me, too. Family ties grip tight, that’s sure.
By the time I buried Mama and Daddy,
I had me a wife and a crop a’ kids.
Time was, I couldn’t go nowhere
without one a’ them chaps hanging
onto my pants’ leg tighter’n a tick on a dog.

Then they growed up,
scattered like seeds in the wind.
Not a one took root.
They come back, visit,
brag how good they got it in town.

Did I ever go modern?
Well, yeah—got a tractor, y’know.
Then more and more machines. Debts piled up high
as Mama’s pancakes on Sunday breakfast.

Did I make a good living?
Heck, no! But I reckon I made me a right good life.

Anythin’ else you wanna know?



One of my favorites is “Aunt Maudie,” which was published in Stitches: The Journal of Appalachian Literature more than a decade ago. It also appeared in Blue Ridge Traditions and was a part of Homespun, a 1999 presentation about Blue Ridge culture.

Aunt Maudie
© 1997 by Becky Mushko

Settling herself in a split-bottom chair
on the remnants of her front porch,
her hands weather-beaten as the porch rail
she grips to steady herself,
she leans forward. With age weighing
heavy on her like a winter shawl,
she says, “When you got land, you got something.
Clothes, fancy things—they don’t last.
Husbands run off; children grow
up and away from you.
Land, it’s always there.”

Her land lies too close to town
To be much account for serious farming;
Not close in enough to fetch top dollar, even
if she’d consider selling.

A run-down trailer park leans so close
against her, she shuts her front door
in summer to keep out
the brassy voices of women
shrilling at drunken husbands
who drink to escape
the brassy voices.

Over the past seventy years,
what was her grandpa’s five hundred acres
was chopped of, whittled down, doled out
to one heir or another: razor thin slices
like her grandma’s smokehouse ham
served to hungry-eyed young’uns
til the plate was only a slice
away from being licked clean.

The one slice left is hers;
Unlike the others, she’d not been tempted
(”Not by love nor money!” she brags)
to sell herself out.

“Well, I don’t need much,” she allows.
“I’ll make do with enough for a garden plot
long as I can find somebody to come plow.”

From under her sun-bonnet, she squints
Past other people’s laundry flapping
On rusty clotheslines, and sees the farm
the way it was when she was a girl:
Traffic noise transforms into lowing cows
or clanking trace chains; her spindly tomato plants
fighting each other for sun
against the fence become a crop
spreading green over too many acres
to look at all at once.

Every so often,
after a rain, she smells
the sweetness of wet earth,
new-plowed and waiting.

“You ain’t got land,”she says,
her voice rich with conviction,
“you ain’t got nothin’.”

~

Sun and Moon Together

Last night, the moon rose while it was still daylight.


Meanwhile, the sun glowed behind the pines.


Dylan and I watched the night sky. Glowing, glowing. . . .

. . . almost gone.

And only the moon is left to light the night (and Dylan) in a silver glow. Like this poem:

Silver

Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.

—Walter de la Mare (1873-1958)

~