“In A Field Of Gray” Featuring Valentine Smith @ Pick-Apart Poetry with Barbara K. and Cherie!
Welcome once again to Pick-Apart Poetry! We’ve got a special guest feature for
Our poetry challenge this month! Let’s send a warm welcome to…
Valentine Smith
Please take a few moments to visit
His profile and send him a friend request
If you have not done so already
http://www.friendburst.com/Valentime_Smith/
Here is just a bit about Valentine:
“My interests are the Arts, Music Appreciation and Writing.”
“Who would I like to meet the most?…well I’ve already met her!”
But still on my historic short list:
Mark Twain
Dr. Albert Hoffman
Owsley Stanley aka “Bear”
Warren Zevon
Leonard Alfred Schneider aka “Lenny Bruce”
Jerry Garcia
Ernest Hemingway
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Jack Kerouac (Beat Generation Author)
William Seward Burroughs II (Beat Generation Author)
Neal Cassady
Francois-Marie Arouet aka Voltaire
Abraham Stoker aka “Bram”
John Lennon
~Valentine Smith
Please send Valentine Smith a greeting letting him know how much
We appreciate him sharing his poetry writing with us today!
The following is our featured Prose:
In A Field Of Gray
By Valentine Smith
In a field of gray, cold stone just beyond the banks of a childhood lost, far removed from the here and now, my first memories hide among the autumn leaves and shadows. Coarse shocks of withered slashed pine, rusting up through dirty blankets of October snow – still life with depression, outside my morning window. The rising calm, festooned with giddy anticipations of Halloween, perks slowly to life through filters of kerosene heat, wood smoke and farm fresh eggs – crackling in bacon grease, in a cast iron skillet, on a pot bellied stove. No indoor plumbing to speak of, aside from COLD and COLDER running water to the kitchen sink. The distance of the outhouse from the back porch, suggests that it was conceived and rendered functional during the dog days of summers past. Electricity, while still holding some novelty for southern working poor – black and white, had reached every rural backwash by the time I drew my first breath.
Electric, oil or candle; I always remember ample light to read by after supper, though I will confess here that I could not yet decipher the tangle of consonants and vowels strewn across our family bookshelf. Rather, I was read to by Margarete – paternal grandmother, seven times removed (by divorce and remarriage) from Buck, my father’s father. Time heals all wounds and vice versa; Buck never took another wife, unless you consider the ever present pint of sour mash whiskey tucked away next to a bottle of Old Spice aftershave, in his travel worn ditty bag. In later years he would visit once or twice a year; always arriving by Greyhound, twine tied around an antique leather suitcase, then leaving several months later by the same method.
Poor Margarete – bless her feckless lush heart – continued to practice serial monogamy, until self medicating with Seconal and Southern Comfort took her from us at 73. Ten years her senior, Buck crawled to 87 just under the wire, surviving her by four years, surrendering in the end to gangrene and diabetes in an old folk’s home just east of Chattanooga, Tennessee. But enough raking the bones of the dead who’ve gone on to eternity; suffice it to say I lost my own way long before I was old enough to barter for anything of true or lasting value.; though, at some point you have to scrape the shit right off your shoes and keep on struggling forward.
Unlike my gifted brother, Johane, school was for me was one long, miserable hash mark of failing grades, severe disciplinary measures and increasingly lowered self esteem. By 8th grade, classes ran a distant second to truant, drug heavy, skull and knuckle sessions; convened in abandoned tract houses or the seedy corpses of hobo shanties strewn along rotting railroad tracks in the middle of B.F.E. … Orange barrel, Blue smear, strawberry mescaline, Shrooms, Mexican brown, China white, Ludes, Crystal meth, White crosses, Panama Red, Vietnam Black, Thai Stick, MDA, Coke, Speedballs – pick a color, any color you like; if it was possible to snort, smoke, eat, drink or even shoot yourself into oblivion on it, I was in for a full share. Were it mine to do over, with the knowledge that by age of fifty-five I would be headed for a wheel chair due to advancing arthritis, I can honestly say I would have sampled substantially larger quantities of some items and less or none of others?
I would have limited myself to a single six once serving of Dewar’s White label Scotch – on the rocks with a twist – at sundown every Saturday afternoon, while listening to Moonlight Mile by the Stones. I’d have cultivated a manageable heroin habit by 15 as opposed to a lifetime battle with recitivism. Over the course of six weeks I would have flown to a three week high then tapered back to nothing by week six; allowing a four week cooling off period between junk junkets to end a ten week cycle. I’d probably feel better and be less dependent on heroin than I am on morphine. LSD – a tough call there. I was just a teen the first time I dropped acid and though I would suffer my share of bad trips in due time, the very first time I stepped off the edge of the understood universe was nothing less than an All Access- E Ticket- Backstage Pass to the far side of the looking glass. I was simply too young to panic, as each star in a black velvet sky suddenly ventured off on individual, uncharted paths across the darkened whole of outer space – via the inner space of my fresh faced, inquisitive mind. Never mind that doom faced – gnarled oaks shook themselves free of the ground, snake roots and all or even that the graves of Sunset Memorial opened at midnight to vomit the remains of the dead and damned back to voodoo life … I was Ef-You-See-Kay-ing ENCHANTED and drawn by the unknown, in search of the limits of my own fractured mind …
~
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Welcome to Pick-Apart Poetry tonight as we welcome Valentine and thank him for sharing his powerful piece with us. We’re looking forward to spending this time with you and to the pieces shared.
Wow a lot of words to choose from!!! I hope it will not be too tough LMAO
I hope Valentine Smith comes tonight! He has been MIA for the last couple of weeks, but had agreed to do Pick-Apart with us……
Valentine….In a Field of Gray…..such beautiful, heartfelt words you share with us this evening at the CPC. Thank you so very much. 😀 :love:
Can’t wait to read all of the beautiful poetry written from Valentine’s wonderful piece……. :love:
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TOWARD THE BEYOND
Outside the windows
of my morning,
shadows of distant
summers past
surrender
to the leaves
of autumn,
my mind traveling
forward through
uncharted space
and time
toward sundown,
through eternity,
and beyond
the limits
of the unknown.
(c) barbara kausteklis 9-27-11
OK This was tougher than I thought and yes I was stumped in the romance department *sigh*
Remember October’s sunset?
Time suddenly withered…
With ample
Southern Comfort
On the rocks
Later I would
Surrender to the universe
And consider
Life beyond the possible…
CAH C2011
Love you too ~ I hope more poets come *smiling* Time for me to hit the hay!!!!
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Mix….Mix…..just to add a little music…mix….. 🙂
Barbara…hate to leave you…holding one end up….but I have 19 third graders greeting me in the morning…..I need to get some rest……I will see you tomorrow Barbara!!!!!!! :love: :love: :love: :love:
The Fallen
Rotting bones and graves of Southern dead
strewn across the cold ground
All that remains from a battle…
White crosses
in a field of corpses
Rebel
09/27/2011
Pic-Apart Poetry
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
It’s about 11 o’clock here in Southern California and time for me to say good night. Thanks for participating tonight and I look forward to being joining you again in the morning over coffee. I’m sure you will get here before I will as we are three hours behind the east coast. See you then. Big Hugs and rest well. ~barb~
Greetings and Good Morning and looking forward to spending this day with you here. Wednesday Morning Coffeetime Cheers from L.A.!
Have to Say Welcome Valentine.. and so do love your writing and have enjoyed you..
Your write of soul is so real.. so full of truth… so much a story of a making
of the beautiful you.. thank you for sharing this! Morning Barbara.. Cherie
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Abandoned Autumn”
beyond the
cold stone banks
abandoned autumn
leaves struggling forward
fresh faced
Scotch skull sessions
fractured backstage
inner gnarled graves
star worn
twine tied novelty
V.S.
Over the 25 word limit, but just a first attempt 🙂
All wonderful pic aparts! Kudos and hearts! :love:
Since this got a positive review from everyone, I decided to post the original before I stripped it down
Actual Original lol
Trying a second one . . . .
BEYOND THE SHADOWS
Fractured,
uncharted,
beyond the shadows
of morning,
time leaves me
spent,
worn,
surrendering
my distant past
to eternity’s light,
each breath
fresh and new
as we travel
through time.
(c) barbara kausteklis 9-28-11
hope you all like it
HALLOWEEN
In a field of gray
Far removed from the here
Still life with depression
Halloween perks slowly to life
I always remember ample light
To Moonlight Mile
Written By: Bettie Davis —- © September 28 ,2o11
Childhood lost
Memories hide among the
Rusting up through dirty blankets
Kerosene heat
Wood smoke and farm fresh eggs
Visit once or twice a year
Written By: Bettie Davis —— © September 28 , 2o11
Thanks so much to Val for sharing his eloquent and powerful work with us and to Cherie and to Cheryl and Jon and for everyone who came by and shared words and smiles and poetry and videos and music with us today and helped to make this a spectacular “Pick-Apart” Day. It’s always a joy to spend this time with you in this way. I’ll be checking back this evening so you are certainly more than welcome to continue sharing. Looking forward to Colleen’s “Triple-Crown Challenge” and to the weekend Collabs and each of the other wonderful CPC blogs coming up. I always look forward to participating. Big Hugs to All. ~barb~ :love: :love: :love:
Alas Watta Sight ~
Woood III Maaay ??? or Woood III Might !!!
Electric, oil candle; moonlight ~
Wood Smoke Fresh Eggs –
cracklin Bacon Grease
Feckless Lush Ditty Bag
III Was Ef-You-See-Kay-ing
On Rocks Of Dog Daaays Summers Past…
Written Byyy Da Bump ~
® TM © WITHIN…
:groovy: Like AAA Fun Reckless Keckless Lush Ditty Bag Riiight !!! 😉