{"id":2764,"date":"2012-07-26T16:03:23","date_gmt":"2012-07-26T21:03:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?page_id=2764"},"modified":"2012-07-26T16:07:01","modified_gmt":"2012-07-26T21:07:01","slug":"poetry-by-j-e-jimmy-pitts","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/back-issues-pdf-downloads-2\/poetry-by-j-e-jimmy-pitts\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry by J.E. “Jimmy” Pitts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poetry by J.E. “Jimmy” Pitts<\/h1>\n

(December 28, 1967 – August 19, 2010)<\/em><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0Flood<\/h2>\n

The frogs are bellowing hurt,
\nLike a garbled alarm clock,
\nRepeat, repeat.
\nLike a half speed tape,
\nRepeat.
\nThey ride in on the water crest,
\nBatallions straight from the time of plagues
\nThat remember the drill:
\nGet in formation for strength in numbers,
\nFind a marsh and set up camp,
\nBegin the long sing-along,
\nWith confidence in their throats.
\nThey never rode the ark,
\nThey have no need for boats.
\nThey know if the water rises one day
\nAnd does not stop rising,
\nThe rest of us may stutter-step and falter,
\nPerhaps live on foundations that float,
\nAnd send echoes from underwater,
\nBut they will be just fine.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Hardest Part<\/h2>\n

Driving the interstate in the early morning, on cruise control,
\nlooking at clouds and how the sun lights the woods, and
\nthrowing up a hand at the other drivers,
\nI feel lost in the wash of the story
\nI wrote for myself and let play without pause.<\/p>\n

It floors me when I drive past the houses of
\nthe ghosts I once knew, those people,
\nthose moments, and I\u2019m taken back there again.
\nWhat does it mean, to live each new day
\nand yet try in vain to file all the old ones away?
\nDoes trying to forget dampen the sting?
\nTell me, does it mean anything?
\nThose memories just wait to come rushing back up
\nlike frozen rivers in the spring.<\/p>\n

None of us ever agreed to forget our lives
\nor the time in which we lived, but still we try, yes how we try.
\nThe words we never meant to say catch in the throat,
\nthe things we never meant to do still linger note for note,
\nthe happiness and sorrow we brought to the table
\ngets wrapped in brambles and thorns and tangled in the heart.
\nWe try to forget but we still remember it all,
\nand that\u2019s the hardest part.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Narcoleptic<\/h2>\n

He passed out while driving.
\nAt the grocery store. In church.
\nExperts were called in to help.
\nNothing helped.
\nNot even medication helped.
\nHe drowsed off even sooner.
\nHe adjusted his schedule.
\nHe got up and out even earlier.
\nPeople nodded as he passed.
\nBut he just nodded off.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Wheel In The Sky<\/h2>\n

The wheel in the sky keeps on turning,
\nthe radio sings,
\nbut it\u2019s not a wheel,
\nturning without a care,
\nmore of a bomb, a burst, a blast,
\njust always there,
\nmiles and miles of hydrogen
\nconstantly exploding to light our way.
\nIt gets into corners and nooks
\nand through windows and walls.
\nWhat else can we say?
\nLike a ghost returning,
\nit floats up and down the halls.
\nAnd the pale younger sister
\nwaits in the parlor, so patient,
\nknowing her time will come soon.
\nShe\u2019s not flashy like her brother.
\nShe\u2019s just the sultry moon,
\nthat chunk of dreamy cheese.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Snow Clouds<\/h2>\n

They\u2019re not, of course, just the middle puffings
\nof winter. But that\u2019s what all the old people I
\ngrew up around called them. On mid-fall
\nevenings we would finish our dinner and drive.
\nRoll past yards of burning leaves and red-faced
\nfat men leaning on their rakes. Pull up to a
\nhouse of wood with a wood kitchen of pol-
\nished pine. Little field off to the side of the
\nhouse. They raised corn and everything else.
\nArrive all shivered in our windbreakers. She
\nwas always shelling a bucket of snap beans or
\npeas. He sat at the long wood table and doled
\nout coffee and hot chocolate. Knew them from
\nchurch or somewhere. The adults would talk
\nabout the gas station lines, and who was in the
\nhospital, who was sick. They would talk about
\nthe weather and the snow clouds. The kids would go outside and stand around. Walk
\ndown the chilly street, look around. Make just
\nenough noise not to be heard. Walk back under
\nthe thick clouds. Looked like crumpled paper.
\nMade of colliding wind.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Persistence of Vision<\/h2>\n

The daily way that vision comes to be
\na fluttering lid flips up its flap
\nand the eye begins to see the room
\nwhere light slips through a crack
\nalong the blind
\nso blink and crank the motor of the mind
\nand turn and stop the clock
\nthat chimes without a care
\nthe ear will let you hear the sound
\nthe eye must bring you there
\nmust push you into the bite of winter\u2019s blast
\nthrough light-starved days that nip
\nbut cannot last
\nthe eye grows tired and flickers in its shell
\nyou guess the day has ended well
\nthe last thought you are thinking
\nas sleep rushes in to close the lid
\nand the eyelid stops its blinking<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Thrift Store Stolen Moment<\/h2>\n

The thrift store kings and queens are on the prowl,
\nsifting through racks of second-hands, and hand-me-downs,
\ndonations and throwaways
\nin this little store in the west end of Nashville.
\nIt\u2019s an early morning Monday, and
\nI\u2019m half-hearted, fresh from the doctor,
\nlooking for a starched white shirt with a pointed collar
\nthat I can take home for pennies on the dollar.
\nSome of these people don\u2019t have jobs,
\nBut still they\u2019re here to spend,
\nlooking at faux wood entertainment centers,
\nand dented copper cookware,
\nand shoes with worn out soles.
\nThat\u2019s how thrift store royalty rolls, you see-
\nyesterday\u2019s chicken lays tomorrow\u2019s egg,
\nand then you come by and pluck it up for a song.
\nI don\u2019t have time, I don\u2019t have the money
\nI wish I had to spend in this palace of bargains.
\nSo I just pay my pittance and shuffle to the door,
\ncareful to step over the children
\nwho wait on their parents to sniff out the hidden deals
\nand play with old toys that are scattered along the floor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poetry by J.E. “Jimmy” Pitts (December 28, 1967 – August 19, 2010)   \u00a0Flood The frogs are bellowing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":238,"featured_media":0,"parent":806,"menu_order":10,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2764","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/238"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2764\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}