Panhandle Wind

June 14, 2012 at 3:07 pm · Filed under Family, Good stuff, Mostly true, Poems, the good old days ·Tagged baseball, Bunk Stringer, Charles L. Mashburn, http://dversepoets.com/2012/06/14/formforall-triversen-an-attempt-to-define-the-modern/, poetry, texas panhandle, wind, windy, writer

Funny how things work out; I wrote a rough draft of this poem a couple days ago, while commenting on a fellow Texas poet’s poem. Then, here she is, Ms. Gay Reiser Cannon, hosting dVerse Poets Pub’s FormForAll, and daring us to do some “Triversen”, or some such. Mine probably fits the some such category, but I think y’all will enjoy it.

Panhandle Wind

 

My grandpa was a storyteller

Everyone called him, Bunk

He had a quip for every occasion

 

My favorite was about the Texas panhandle

That place where the wind blows

All day, every day, or so it seems

 

Bunk would say it was the only place

A man could stand knee-deep in mud

And have sand blow in his face

 

When I was ten or so

I’d spend a summer week or two

With my cousin, up near Amarillo

 

The wind bout drove me crazy

Howlin’ when we’d go to sleep

And still howlin’ when we woke up

 

We’d play baseball most days

In the vacant lot behind the house

Me and Ed; one batter, one fielder

 

If you hit a short high pop up

To straight-away center field

It would come back to you

 

A little dance and shuffle step

You could take another swing at it

Hit the same pitch twice

 

Ed runnin’ full tilt, hollerin’, I got it, I got it

See me lookin up with the bat cocked

Hit the dirt, yellin’ bad things ‘bout my mama

 

Copyright © 2012 C. Mashburn

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