- The Annual Farmer Poetry Festival happened over the weekend. The theme this year was Childhood Memories. (fill in filler before getting to poem).
Here is one of the entries:
“3rd grade – hanging tobacco…
Missing school – coulda died…
Mama don’t care
Mama gotta be mama to four others.
Hangin’ tobacco – shit’s gotta dry – one missed step…
Spike in foot – or worse…
Food for pigs.
Daddy said when you died you were food for pigs…
Hangin’ tobacco,
I hope those people that get lung cancer
appreciate my sacrifice.
That one is by Debbie Rigsby. Good job, Debbie. That was all our memories back then… good one.
Here’s another poem by our local creepy Voltaire – Ernest Perry. It’s called – “Jeff Brown Gets Hit By A Car”
I got a new bike for Christmas,
I was seven.
In Eagleville ain’t not many boys get new bikes at seven.
In Eagleville, boys of seven gets bikes their
Ten-year-old brothers don’t want no more.
But on April 11, I got a new bike.
Sweet new bike.
I knew I would be the envy of friends.
King of the neighborhood, if you were seven.
So… the weather was good.
In Eagleville, April 1975 I got my new bike
and wanted to show everyone.
My best friend Randy Jacobs and another, Jeff Brown,
Was just sittin’ in Randy’s yard when I rolled up.
I was the proudest kid ever.
Couldn’t wait to show my friends that I got a
fucking new bike that wasn’t first
owned by a fucking fifteen-year-old.
Randy and Jeff were properly impressed.
Envious… but happy for me.
Randy was a shy guy (still is) and didn’t express emotion much.
He said:
“Ernie, your bike is cool.”
Jeff Brown was more aggressive and said these fateful words:
“Ernie, that is an incredible bike.
Can I ride it once?”
With no hesitation, proud to share with my friends.
“Of course,” I said, “But not too long.
I haven’t had much chance myself to ride it.”
Jeff took off like a dream.
Ten minutes later…
Hit by car… I still wake up to the screeching of the tires of his father leaving the Dairy Bar, racing to see what had happened to his boy.
Five days later…
Jeff was dead.
Whoah, that was sad.
Some powerful stuff from Farmer poet Ernest Perry, who has lived in Eagleville his whole life in that house on the hill out on Old Highway 99. Some say, even though Ernie still lives there, that house is haunted. And I believe it, Eagleville. Some things just can’t be explained.
And, remember, if you can’t be a poet, then be the poem.
I’ll talk at ya tomorrow…
Sam