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13:27, 26 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page A Mother's Vocation. (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====A Mother's Vocation ==== <poem> I don't know how God feels about the subject but little Andy's mother has already called him to a priestly vocation I remember when he was only four she made him a monk's habit from an old bathrobe and tied it around his waist with drapery cord She was so proud "Look at him A perfect little Thomas Merton Anyone can see it" </poem> ====Notes==== -------- {{Template:Borrowed Coats}} {{Template:Permission}}")
13:26, 26 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page A Grandfather's View (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====A Grandfather's View ==== <poem> A Mother's Vocation Mister Marshall takes A dim view Of modern music "Why the names alone are enough to corrupt youth "Sting Red Hot The Grateful Dead Their leader diedWhether he was grateful or not the old boy passed on "And this new one My grandkids are raving about Big House "Don't that remind you Of a penitentiary? Like 'going up the river' When we meant Sing Sing"</poem> ====Notes==== -------- {{Template:Bo...")
13:24, 26 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page The Last Go-Around (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====The Last Go-Around ==== <poem> Cletus looks good for sixty and the hard traveling he has done. A girl at the beauty shop confessed she keeps his bronze hair all one color. I saw him recently down at the Korner Kitchen. He had a three-stack before him and was slathering on soft margarine and maple syrup and talking to the regulars who eat breakfast there. "Yeah, you heard it right. I'm gonna tie the knot again. You don't know her, a little redhe...")
00:04, 26 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Tonight Is Carnival (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Tonight Is Carnival ==== <poem> Under the lamp with the shade that turns yellow when the light comes on I drink tea with a scholar who swept in smiling a Russian translation in her bag carrying every good thing for me: lace cookies and ice cream a loaf of dark bread and two stories from North Beach At that point I told the stories I'd overheard in Farmersville better than anything from San Francisco The scholar checked the calendar said Lent...")
00:03, 26 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Vigil with Aunt Maggie Bowman (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Vigil with Aunt Maggie Bowman ==== <poem> Darman phoned me from a garage a lump of dread choking his voice "You better go," he said "There isn't much time and you know her old ways better than I" which is true though Aunt Maggie probably doesn't know I am here Her body feels cool as the sheets but she must be burning inside her memory "The old well" she keeps saying "Draw a fresh bucket and give me a drink" She stirs on the pillow "and tie up...")
00:02, 26 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page I Never Felt Right (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====I Never Felt Right ==== <poem> Aunt Rose made coffee for the two of us while we waited for the coroner's release "You must never again" she told me severely "let death find you without a black dress "I never felt right going to Jack's funeral in a pink dress the only one I had "There I was among his womenfolks in their grieving black dresses" The sadness in her voice sounded as if Uncle Jack had died last year instead of 1940</poem> ====Note...")
00:01, 26 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Calling on a Bereaved Neighbor (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Calling on a Bereaved Neighbor ==== <poem> Esther is a hard woman to love and she never liked me I had to whip myself to her house when I heard the news She met me at the door her eyes cold dry and said "I'm glad you came" and took me to the kitchen where she was making a casserole "Why don't men take care of themselves" she complained matter-of-factly "It was like John wanted to die and get away from me-- lifting those wheelbarrows of ro...")
23:59, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Surprise (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Surprise ==== <poem> Nora is a pious girl She has every right to be fundamental as they come Mitch likes to tease her I heard him ask "Do you really believe in angels? Have you seen one today?" That was when he and I got a big surprise Nora hit him across the mouth so hard his lips began to swell bluish and she gathered up her Bible and walked off</poem> ====Notes==== -------- {{Template:Borrowed Coats}} {{Template:Permission}}")
23:25, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Sister Beuline's Advice (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Sister Beuline's Advice ==== After that last red-hot revival, when the evangelist claimed to have seen several of his flock in Hell's flames, his sermon got to Sister Beuline. She even tore up her recipé for devil's food cake and urged my mother to do the same. She said a cake named for the devil didn't have any place on a saved woman's table. Mama just gave her a kind look and ordered more chocolate from the Rawleigh man. ====Notes==== ------...")
23:24, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page My Landlady Brings Me an Easter Gift (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====My Landlady Brings Me an Easter Gift ==== <poem> She brought me a pot of African violets deepest purple fleshiest blossoms that ever grew in Kmart's garden and she laughed with a bell in her voice that rang all the way to Tipton on the south flung her hair about in that sunlit shade of a blonde woman turned fifty living like thirty and getting away with it having no doubt she will retain that laugh and shade of hair till ninety </poem> ====...")
23:22, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Some Day Soon (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Some Day Soon ==== <poem> Telephone poles are holy-- Look how they form a line of Latin crosses all the way from Tipton to Pixley the smell of dairy growing stronger by the mile How devout Portuguese milkers really are: They cross themselves dozens of times each day and never even know it as they pass beneath the poles Their indulgences are piling up and some day will reach to Heaven-- a special corner smelling of Grade A milk </poem> ====Not...")
23:20, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Dignity (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Dignity ==== <poem> I smooth my sheets plump the pillows spread a patchwork quilt and hide my nightgown in the closet God grant one favor: that no paramedic will ever find me in it dead and gone where I am going May the gown hang in dignity unseen May I depart in sweats and heavy shoes ''Selected Poems'' of Thomas McGrath under my left arm a magnifying glass in my purse </poem> ====Notes==== -------- {{Template:Borrowed Coats}} {{Template:Pe...")
23:18, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page The Extremist (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====The Extremist ==== <poem> I may be something of a nitpicker but I hope not a nitwit I do rail whenever I see a TV preacher driving a Dusenberg I grab a mop and beat the life out of helpless spiders I may be a bit extreme but let the high roller preachers stay away from Cannes and drive economy cars use their gas in the pulpit high octane for the Lord I could go for that write a small check even sign it</poem> ====Notes==== -------- {{T...")
23:17, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Opal. (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Opal ==== ''September 30, 1995'' <poem> Sister finally got a storm named after her How fitting I bet the winds are angry auburn color and they have their say however long it takes to blow anger out to sea </poem> ====Notes==== -------- {{Template:Borrowed Coats}} {{Template:Permission}}")
23:16, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Late Spring for a Catholic (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Late Spring for a Catholic ==== <poem> It is a cold day for spring bluish and keep-your-distance an impossible time for a fling with the Sierra Nevada I have no snowshoes and would die at high altitude so I am saved from excess and turn up the heat Shall I brew my best tea or save it for the visitors: a girl with gray eyes a man with bad scars or shall I open the old book where a purple ribbon marks Lent </poem> ====Notes==== -------- {{Temp...")
23:15, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page In the Paradise Restaurant (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====In the Paradise Restaurant==== <poem> My first visit here Across the room I see a woman in rose I hear her laughter at a remark not meant for me a stranger in Paradise She repeats the remark "A Catholic in Oklahoma is that such a big deal?" I stir rice on my plate and mouth words silently to the woman in rose so little she knows ''A Catholic in Oklahoma a snowball in hell How long did they last? Which ones melted and ran when the fire b...")
23:13, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page In Their Company (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====In Their Company ==== <poem> I really am patient most of the time but there is a limit to this waiting around for a glimpse of my gang who lit out for greener pastures Not that I begrudge them a better deal I just long to be in their scruffy company again even if they have tidied up their acts become boring little saints</poem> ====Notes==== -------- {{Template:Borrowed Coats}} {{Template:Permission}}")
23:12, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page My Question (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====My Question==== <poem> Why don't bells toll My brother's heart broke in four pieces and he is dead in El Paso The rest of the town mourns: the Rio Grande's gone dry gamecocks won't fight red chilis don't burn rattlesnakes defanged scorpions retired police are in a coma Larry McMurtry's left Texas So why don't bells toll from the poor stucco church where Brother prayed by the hour and his tears flooded the pews</poem> ====Notes==== -------...")
23:11, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page To Boating Friends (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====To Boating Friends ==== <poem> Even if I threw my life overboard with the likes of you and came up choking in the midst of seaweed and starfish my eyes would be in the back of my head looking for dry land dusty cracked earth bird tracks snake prints crossing my homeward path- I would be calling for them even if I were going down for the third time. </poem> ====Notes==== -------- {{Template:Borrowed Coats}} {{Template:Permission}}")
23:10, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Admission (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Admission ==== <poem> I worry too much about heavy stuff: That I realize So foolish of me for this and that things above my simple mind when I don't even know how I got here All directions are blanks to me road maps a migraine headache Why can't I reason with myself? Why should I worry just because I don't know the way out of this place either?</poem> ====Notes==== -------- {{Template:Borrowed Coats}} {{Template:Permission}}")
17:57, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page We Never Called It Theatre (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====We Never Called It Theatre ==== <poem> Live theater actual faces with people's eyes looking at us from the stage various voices old Ephraim in ''Desire Under the Elms'' Sister and I had our favorites in plays and playwrights That funny wicked Noel Coward with ''Hay Fever'' the woman who played Sorel Bliss was bliss itself ‘We wished our brothers H and K could have been with us at ''Shenandoah'' but they were farther away than just across the...")
17:56, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page January Reality, 1998 (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====January Reality ==== <poem> The cost of living goes up the perm in my hair grows out shall I try for waist-length or make it to Paolo's? He is Brasileiro his hole-in-the-wall shop s0 tiny we must back in only two chairs (hard old-style) and get a haircut and perm for only ten dollars Can you believe that? It won't last long He is too good his eyes pure liquid He will soon become the trendy Paolo and drop us ten-spot ladies for upscale women wh...")
17:54, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Breadstuff (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Breadstuff ==== <poem> I have never liked bagels even from Foxxy's in Las Vegas where people thought they were the best 1 still don't like bagels It is something in my Okie culture maybe in my genes Breadstuff I do love Pass the cornbread toss me a biscuit make me a flour tortilla But please don't lay any bagels on me the way Good Life forced them on derelicts and women folding clothes in the White Foam Laundromat </poem> ====Notes==== ----...")
17:52, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Agreement (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Agreement ==== ''September 26, 1996'' <poem> 1 look in my full-length mirror from Ace Hardware—(six ninety-five once in a lifetime price) and agree with the mirror that I am a beautiful woman for the type I am My hair is a haystack my head classic pumpkin smooth in the jaws Halloween I don't fake— these are my teeth So many prizes go out to cookie-cutter beauties parading through life what does that matter to me I look in my mirror thump o...")
17:51, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Going to Autographing in Foreign Car (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Going to Autographing in Foreign Car ==== <poem> I am uneasy in this car: so small—where does the gas go? So low I fear the underside is dragging on concrete and worse than that my new all-weather coat must be swiping asphalt from that stretch of Highway 43 and where Sir will you park in Pygmyland and who will stand by the door to help you extract me from this expensive low-down toy Well, keep driving to the signing my boy—If I wanted to ri...")
17:50, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Finding Old Perfume Bottle (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Finding Old Perfume Bottle ==== <poem> This has gone far enough— stop the unpacking I beg you Put back the blue bottle from down in the trunk Can't you see yet that “Evening in Paris” was much better in Kansas: Great Bend had dust storms and great lovers with grit in their teeth Its women were awesome— they picked flowers from high off the sun to braid in their hair I ask you again— halt the unpacking let love stay where it is keep...")
17:49, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Waiting for a Train (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Waiting for a Train ==== <poem> Two silly people asked me point-blank as if I were on trial “How about romance?” They didn't specify whose romance— mine or the railroad'’s and since I wasn‘t under oath 1 didn't have to tell them that this affair of the heart has gone on for years with midnight trains writing me songs of love which I always answer from my darkened room </poem> ====Notes==== -------- {{Template:Borrowed Coats}} {{...")
17:48, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Murder Past Midnight (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Murder Past Midnight ==== <poem> That cricket was unreasonable I gave him every way out I said “Look here— you have messed up my sleep for the past month chirping under my bed the second the light goes out calling for your lady friend Just vacate my apartment go out the way you came in (which is a mystery to me) and I will forget your offense” But he ignored me and last night my heart was dark even without a belligerent cricket under my...")
17:46, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Can Crows Smell Jasmine (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Can Crows Smell Jasmine ==== <poem> Brother Crow since you spend all your daylight hours parading through my yard May I politely ask where do you live when the sun goes down What tree is your cottage Who serves you supper Is it the complaining one who follows you all day Does she change under a high moon on swaying branches Can crows smell jasmine Do you kiss goodnight </poem> ====Notes==== -------- {{Template:Borrowed Coats}} {{Template:...")
17:45, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Where on Earth (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Where on Earth ==== ''August 24, 1980'' Not everyone in his family had died, but there were only four siblings left the morning Sheldon Rising came, with tomatoes from his garden that were even more beautiful than the ones he'd brought us the summer before. We invited him in for coffee but he told us he couldn't stay, stood there at the door for just a minute. Such a frail, gentle man, with amazing blue eyes. Then he drove off in his old pickup....")
17:42, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page At Spring Yard Sale (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====At Spring Yard Sale ==== <poem> Without my consent the cycle turns sets the seasons: peach-hot August trails blackberry July but already this blowy April day I am planning for winter which doesn't seem right with iris nodding around me thin-veined and delicate: There should be autumn asters and thick-lashed daisies strong and independent not begging for anything but with only a dime's worth of time what can I do about the restless seasons ex...")
17:41, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Live and Let Live (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Live and Let Live ==== <poem> There was a stray dog on my lawn tonight apparently not a vicious animal sneaking along behind me in the sultry night Sprinklers went on violently and the dog lay down flat on the wet grass paws stretched out in utter relief 1 didn't have the heart to call Animal Control and leave a message It is such a hard night— why not live and let live as far as we poor ones can Mother Teresa is dead and Princess Diana know...")
17:39, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Suddenly I Remember (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Suddenly I Remember ==== <poem> Five years ago American antiques were all the rage I hid Mama's oak rocker from nosy dealers also her pewter mugs Now I can bring them out— Asian art is definitely in and Far East culture has hit our town A local car dealer placed a stone Buddha in his backyard a fry cook we know has gone into debt for ''Koi'' let his mortgage lapse and two WASP neighbors are studying Japanese at the community college Sudd...")
17:37, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page New California Industry (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====New California Industry ==== <poem> I used to know exactly where I was Now I must stand in the center of the San Joaquin Valley heart of my heart to even locate where I belong I look to the north—I see prisons I scan the south—I see only prisons where half a century ago wild flowers spread a Persian carpet for guests Now I pick my way through shattered lives broken bottles and half-buried guns and knives I cannot forget and do not allow my...")
17:35, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Entrapment (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Entrapment ==== <poem> A patch on my heart my face full of frowns still you coaxed “Do come with me a couple hours it will be fun get you away from your pain and your prayers” 1 only nodded ‘We went too jauntily for me to an oasis of plastic palms and makeshift waterfalls ‘We entered through a door stolen from a convent Down the hall I could hear steady buzzing a hive of poets Why didn’t you warn me that bees who tipple white wine...")
17:33, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page My New Business (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====My New Business ==== <poem> You thought I had retired from sweets but no here I go to my candy shop for now I own this world a business I've craved all my life I wear a white cap to cover my hair never pulled taffy tighter I have mastered peanut brittle my lemon drops ‘won't sour your mouth my candy kisses Hershey rich are never too sweet for one more kiss my peppermint canes will walk you home </poem> ====Notes==== -------- {{Template:B...")
17:31, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Thoughts After Telephone Call (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Thoughts After Telephone Call==== ''December 28, 1996'' <poem> You telephoned me from Buffalo three days after Christmas asked about my holidays and the weather in California I looked out the window at a small lake and started to complain of excessive rain and cold but you cut me off with “California winters are nothing You valley-ites never have to shovel snow” Of course you are correct in that one sense but you don't realize how har...")
17:28, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Frying Potatoes (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Frying Potatoes==== <poem> At one time I would have tossed this day off as being dull and not worth fooling with but that was before Mrs Malvita Poston moved here to Rosewood with her style of cooking and contempt of diets Today she is frying potatoes— already they are burning which is part of the ritual She will rush to the stove and make a fuss over stirring them then put the lid back on and walk away until the potatoes reach charred per...")
17:26, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Could I Stop There (Created page with "{{Template:Youtube}} ====Could I Stop There ==== <poem> Today I changed from plain graham crackers to the new chocolate flavor It made all the difference and started me wondering if 1 could wear eye shadow Would it be like a blast of chocolate And could I stop there Would I be a fool with black smudges under my astigmatic eyes even go further astray sampling Tahiti-red lipstick at the cosmetic counter and longing for all the colors of Gauguin </poem> ====Notes====...")
17:22, 25 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Burned in the Test (Created page with "<youtube></youtube> ====Burned in the Test ==== <poem> i have wasted so much sunrise scraping burned oatmeal from a charred pot I have often profaned bright noon into three pm waiting by the telephone for a call that never came Why can't I be satisfied to soak a pot overnight and be content with new shoestrings when the old ones snap I have spent a cat's lifetime tying short pieces together I have glued broken handles on many cups waited days to find out they never...")
09:09, 6 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page File:Wilma Cover Protrait.jpg
09:09, 6 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs uploaded File:Wilma Cover Protrait.jpg
09:08, 6 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page File:Landmark2.jpg
09:08, 6 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs uploaded File:Landmark2.jpg
18:12, 3 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Template:Borrowed Coats (Created page with "McDaniel, Wilma. (2001) Borrowed Coats. Hanging Loose Press, Brooklyn, New York.")
18:10, 3 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Template:Permission (Created page with "<br>Courtesy University of California, Merced Library. Copyright owned by the Regents of the University of California.")
18:08, 3 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page A Zealot in Big Muddy (Created page with "<youtube>eb7G-OClF40</youtube> ====A Zealot in Big Muddy==== <poem> What did three quatrains and a couplet— (Shakespearean or Petrarchan sonnets?)— really mean to the seventh grade? Miss Worley ranked them in importance just below the Ten Commandments She didn't use those exact words but we saw that Sunday school gleam in her Methodist eye and when she stood before the class with all the power of her ninety pounds we could count the waves in her marcel </poem>...")
17:45, 3 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page Borrowed Coats (Created page with "File:BC Cover2.jpg <br>McDaniel, Wilma. (2001). Borrowed Coats. Hanging Loose Press, Brooklyn, New York. ===Table of Contents === ====Burned in the Test==== <poem> Burned in the Test 11 A Zealot in Big Muddy 12 Could I Stop There 13 Can Crows Smell Jasmine 14 Frying Potatoes 15 Murder Past Midnight 16 Thoughts After Telephone Call 17 Waiting for a Train 18 My New Business 19 Finding Old Perfume Bottle 20 Entrapment 21 ...")
17:35, 3 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs created page File:BC Cover2.jpg
17:35, 3 June 2025 WikiSysop talk contribs uploaded File:BC Cover2.jpg