Big Sugar's Poem

I got a call from Big Sugar the other day, and she was wondering when my new book was coming out.
"It's out, baby," I told her, "and you better get a copy. It's the best batch of beatnik, post-punk poems ever published in Lonesome Pines!"
Big Sugar guffawed and said, "Make that the only batch of post-punk poems ever published in Lonesome Pines."
She had a point. Y'all probably remember Big Sugar from the story of the same name. She's Ricky Switzer's girlfriend and has a heart of gold. Ricky's my pal, and we get together to play guitar all the time, so you know I'd never try anything on with Big Sugar. I love her, though, like a little sister.
So when she asked me if there was a poem in the book about her, I said, "Oh, hell yeah."
Actually, there's not, but I picked one out and told her she inspired it. After all, you've got to keep the home folks happy. It's a short one called "Things I Like," and I surely like Big Sugar:

Things I Like

I like reading Levertov
In the laundromat
I like singing along with Joni Mitchell
Straining to hit the high notes
And I like seeing you
Coming down the sidewalk
Whistling after work

Freedom's Just Another Word

There's an old boy named Lamar who's lived here in Lonesome Pines all his life, and he comes in the Cue & Cushion once or twice a week. He's about 40, and I don't know him all that well, but he's fun to talk to at the bar every once in a while. He's one of those fellows (and there's a lot of them around here) who think that jack-booted federal thugs are going to kick their front doors in any second now. All the world's problems, according to Lamar, is a result of meddling by the "fed-rul gov'mint."
But Lamar's all right. I don't pick at him all that much, but there was this one time a couple weeks ago. Lamar's been working on the loading dock at one of the big-box hardware stores out by the Interstate for about nine years, and he's always complaining about his working conditions. It seems Lamar's boss comes out on the loading dock every morning to see how things are going, and without fail, he kicks Lamar in the nuts. Says something like, "Lamar, you need to work faster," and he kicks him in the nuts.
The thing is, Lamar likes his job. He works an eight-hour shift unloading trucks and unpacking boxes of tools, paint, light bulbs, and stuff like that. But he's not crazy about getting kicked in the nuts everyday.
So a couple weeks ago, Lamar comes in and takes a seat at the bar, and I could tell by the way he's squirming that his balls are as blue as a Dodgers baseball cap. I felt bad for the old boy, but I had what I thought was good news for him.
"How you doin', Lamar?" I asked as he sat down.
He just groaned and ordered a beer.
"Got kicked again this morning?" I asked.
Lamar just nodded.
"Well, I saw something cool this morning on C-Span. There's a bill before Congress to ban nut-kicking by corporate management."
"What?" Lamar said, a baffled look on his face.
"The government is coming to your rescue, Lamar. They're going to outlaw nut-kicking."
Lamar looked away and took a long pull off his beer.
"Those bastards," he muttered.
"What?" I said.
"Always taking away our freedoms," he said.
I was stunned.
"You mean you want to be free to get kicked in the nuts every morning?"
"You just don't know where it will stop," Lamar said. "You ban nut-kicking, next thing you know it'll be against the law to come in here and have a couple beers."
I just sat there, speechless. I guess for ol' Lamar, freedom's just another word for getting kicked in the nuts every day.

Poetic Epiphany

People around Lonesome Pines often ask me, "Mick, how in the world did you get interested in poetry?" I usually hem and haw and lie about reading Walt Whitman while sitting in the duck blind when I was a teenager. After all, in a small Southern town, a man has to be protective of his manhood. But the truth is, while I was going to college down in Charleston, I was majoring in English and one day a fellow named Robert Bly (pictured) came to campus to do a poetry reading. I sat there in class mesmerized as he bounded around the room, reciting verses that conjured up all sorts of vivid images. It was one of the first times I'd felt the creative power of stringing a lot of words together. So imagine my delight and surprise when I picked up The New Yorker magazine a few weeks ago and discovered a new poem by Bly. It's a short one, and I'm sure The New Yorker won't mind if I reprint it here. It was great to learn that after all these years (he's now 83), Robert Bly is still stringing words together in a beautiful way.

"Sunday Afternoon"
The snow is falling, and the world is calm.
The flakes are light, but they cool the world
As they fall, and add to the calm of the house.
It's Sunday afternoon. I am reading
Longinus while the Super Bowl is on.
The snow is falling, and the world is calm.
-- Robert Bly.

Halftime at the Cue & Cushion

I got lucky Sunday evening down at Larry’s Cue & Cushion. Well, I got lucky in the fact that I found a seat in the middle of the bar in front of a great big flat-screen TV. That’s about the extent of my getting lucky these days. But it was a good thing, so I hung my jacket on the back of the barstool and settled in to watch me some Super Bowl. Larry sat a Bud Light and a shot of Bushmills in front of me, and I said hello to Lou Ann Nichols who was sitting next to me. Lou Ann’s a pretty young thing, a waitress at Larry’s who’d finished her shift and decided to hang around and watch the game. We laughed and talked and pulled for the Saints, although Lou Ann said she didn’t care who won. Then the halftime show started and The Who started doing their thing. Lou Ann said it was a shame they had those old coots up there who nobody cares about anymore. She said they ought to have somebody young, and contemporary to reflect the times. Some old boy on the other side of Lou Ann was agreeing and said, “Yeah, and they ain’t even Amurrican.” I was about to take offense, but then I realized I was never a big fan of The Who anyway. Not that I didn’t respect their work back in the day, but I was just heavily into the Allman Brothers Band at the time. Lou Ann said they should have had Lady Gaga at halftime, and the look I gave her made her apologize. She said maybe Taylor Swift would be better, and I said that, yeah, I could see her point. Frankly, I don’t know much about Taylor Swift, but if she’s hugely popular right now, she should get to strut a little at the Super Bowl. To me, it doesn’t matter who plays at the Super Bowl because it’s all about spectacle and almost nothing about music. Besides, halftime is when you go take a leak, settle back in, and order another round. Of course, I might stay in my seat if the Allman Brothers were playing.

Weaving a Spell

I stopped by Mickey Watson's trailer out at the Cozy Corner yesterday evening. He was sitting on the couch, listening to Bob Dylan's new bootleg record and watching the nightly news with the sound turned down, a perfect backdrop for Dylan. Everything is broken, and all that. The songs rolled by, and we sat there in wonder as ol' Bob conjured images and moods that took us to places we sort of recognized but weren't sure quite where they were. "Ol' Bob sure has a knack for stringing words together," Mickey said. "He surely does," I replied. Mickey is the singer and rhythm guitarist for The Cedar Creek Boys, a local band who can't decide whether they want to play bluegrass, country, or the blues. So they just mashed it all up together. Mickey and I both write songs, and we often talk about the mystery of it all. Like how a song can sometimes pour out in fifteen minutes, while others might stumble around for weeks and never take flight. We didn't say much as we listened to Dylan sing tunes such as "Tell Ol' Bill," "Born in Time," and "Marchin' to the City," just sat there engulfed in the spells Bob was weaving. And for me, that's the ultimate goal for a songwriter. Take me out of my boring, familiar world for three or four minutes. Take me somewhere strange and menacing. Or some place beautiful and exciting. As Bob sang, "Once I had pretty girl, she did me wrong. Now I'm marchin' to the city, and the road ain't long," I could feel the beat-up suitcase in my hand and see the dust coming up from my boots as I plodded down a dirt road. There's a gleaming city in the distance. Is it heaven or Memphis? It doesn't matter, because it sure ain't Lonesome Pines.

Hey, y'all. Mick Flanagan here. I'm sitting here with my first cup of coffee, trying to clear the cobwebs out of my head from last night. The Cedar Creek Boys played a couple of dynamite sets at the Starlight, and I even climbed onstage for the encore. We played Dylan's "Political World." Bobby Lee and Big Sugar were in the crowd, and they howled when I sang, "Life is in mirrors, death disappears up the steps into the nearest bank." Kind of appropriate for the times, huh? We had a good time last night, but I'm getting ahead of myself. This is my first blog from Lonesome Pines. My friend, Bobby Lee Vanderhall, encouraged me to do this. "You like to write songs and poems and stuff," he said. "It'll be fun." I told him I'd give it a try, so here we go. I'll keep y'all up-to-date on the goings on in Lonesome Pines. It's a quiet little town, but for some reason, crazy things happen around here. Check in often, and you'll see what I mean.