With Me Abide Be thee comfy Like cashmere Tuck Kitten Soft and pretty. Come thee eager Into arms Purr Kitty Smooth and fluffy Rock thee gently To and fro Sleep Kittie Puss in cream boots.                    E. D. Ridgell 2018 ________________________________________  Brideshead, Not!   I’m dickering with Rome again- Googling and kneedling sins for the confessional. Maybe it’s fear of death, Except that I’m not frightened.   Larry boosted it up, when he went back to Mother Church. Lar’ never told you anything ‘cept what you needed to hear. Shortly after, he dropped dead, martini in hand, Talk about adding just a twist of lemon peel!   He’d been viable the other side of sod all, A mainstay in my arsenal of diddly squat excuses! In truth I’d done this before, felt the lingering tug, To go back, change it all around again, to as before.   In our case though, where pops up this popery? Where is the seed? Oh, Susanna? Possibly. My grandmother could not have been more Methodist Yet somehow ended up in the arms of Rome.   Dad chose to lie in deference to His grandfather, Captain Wes’ in graves in soil neither’ Sullied by Rome or Islands Out of Time. All this confuses my head and mildly irks me.   Incinerate me and lay me gently down to mingle With ashes awaiting my company among The cigar-like, seed pods under our beloved Catalpa trees! Come on Doc. Bring a Boy home!                                                             c. E.D. Ridgell, 2015                                                                  revised 2018 ____________________________________________________________ The Old Neighborhood To Nowhere I drove through the old neighborhood. Took photos and drove half forgotten roads. The one room, brown shingled, school house still stands, Though I didn't search to see if the path  Through the woods is still there- No reason it wouldn't be. I remember I saw a snake's shredded skin On that path some sixty years ago- I was mesmerized and terrorized all at once! The two room school house  Has graduated to a church hall, And the long awaited elementary school now looks lackluster- downtrodden at having lost its novelty and glamour. Joey died a couple of years ago having lived a lifetime in that shabby, little shack. The Walton's place looks a tad better for the siding. The whole neighborhood Is disappointingly Neat, tidy, and lacking in that something Every neighborhood outta have, some sign Of ever having been new once and full of dreams, For something better. This place never went anywhere,  The old, neighborhood to nowhere.                                                                        E. D. Ridgell _____________________________________________                                                                                                                         <iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zvySlSFk1Ow" frameborder="0"></iframe> After you watch the link hit the backwards arrow top left of your page to get back to the poetry site. Crabbin' Annie Crabbin' Anne 'gan each day In a blackened morn, Baitin’ and pullin’ pot-nets torn, Cordin’ to rituals of the Bay. T'was twenty nine, She broke the rules, Zippin’ fools; Blue jeans to shoreline. Cuttin’ cold Could not belay Her widein’ wakey-way, Man-like 'n too bold. On time's tide Crisfield 'cepted And respected Cross'd pride. Times were easy! Nary bust a stitch To be that rich, Big city-rants so busy! What's one more. A claw'in along To the low-tide song Their dirge to 'fore. © 2006 by E.D.Ridgell     * Crabbin’ Annie was born on Deal Island , Somerset County, Maryland early in the twentieth century. In 1929, she moved to nearby Crisfield in the Lower Chesapeake Bay bringing her children with her. Her marriage over, she had to make her way, just as the depression hit, closing many markets the fisherman; mostly oysterman and crabbers, relied upon for their livelihood, especially the restaurants further north in Baltimore. Despite the skepticism of the Cristfield community, especially the blue-jeaned watermen, she soon more that proved herself, earned their hard won respect, and was forever nicknamed, “Crabbin Annie”. She was the first woman dubbed a ‘water-woman'of the Chesapeake Bay. © 2006 E.D.Ridgell   __________________________________________________________    Easter 2000-2012 Cheshire Cat "Who are you?"- The only thing to muse over, While I wait for time, Too fast, too fast, to catch- Late, again? Always. Time smiles and dies away. The date is set in memory Of a bright, near moon Casting a shadow over the awe of it. Oh, but I ache in codeine cups, Spewing tears out ducts Down runways, well worn lines- Aging speedways to the high teas Of my long, long, journey. Today, bunnies graze in the lawn Beyond the windowpane, While the Mad Hatter in my brain, Runs in and out, up and down- A black hole, no rabbit hole, But another chit out my  Patch quilted heart, While musing the Cheshire cat's having Stopped purring Altogether.               © 2012 by E.D. Ridgell ____________________________________  The Turtle Dove The geese were overhead Migrating south and making those Sounds I love so much. I thought how lucky I was- You and I, together, Doing what we loved most, Following our Bliss. Geese, swans, ducks, All forms of fowl Came with you. You shared your darkest secret, Lamenting how you could do such a thing. You hosted your Dad's touch of sadism. I knew he burned the whiskers off the kitten- A strange old Polish man, no evil but hardly good! Sadly, you related how you took your peeps  To the zoo for them to care for, Only to learn later they had fed them to the snakes. Then, there was Poopsie, that silly Parakeet You almost threw out with the Christmas tree. The poor parakeet ended up dying in Sandy's lap.  All forms of fowl came with you, You were the kindest man I ever knew. If ever there was a turtle dove, It was you my love. It was you.                                           c. E.D. Ridgell, 2016 ___________________________________________________  David An epiphany It seemed to metamorphize Right before their eyes. Small specks On the horizon  First a few, then a thousand. Pessimism Is no way  To win a battle and  Even less a war. Dwight intended  Not to betray the one  To win the other.                            E. D. Ridgell 2019 ____________________________________________________  Daddy Do She shot herself  In the temple  One year In the early seventies. It was not the first  But it was the last. She’d lived only till her twenties. Codependency kills. Her father Episcopal clergy Felt that Randy too Should follow. That was the  Stupidest thing I’d heard In a long while. I suspected child abuse.                          E. D. Ridgell 2019 _______________________________________________________  Mars, The God Of War After they finished fighting The war to end all wars, And before they fought the next war All the king’s soldiers and  What was left of the king’s men Couldn’t put the world  Back together again. Russia turned red and  The new world sighed. Austria Hungary broke into So many pieces that  Even Rand McNally was confused and Influenza riddled the continents  Further thinning the globe. The British still had their empire Including the gem in the crown and One would think there was no Further appetite to mow men down. Alas, No. What was left was as cattywhompus  As the price of bread and the cauldron  Still bubbled for the want of Mars, the god of war.                                                    E. D. Ridgell 2019 ____________________________________________________________ The Tiny Stone Marker Somewhere on Silver Beach In Exmore Virginia under  A mountain of cutzu Is a small roughly hewn  Stone marker on which  Is carved the name of a single  Child aged less than one year Who died and was buried there In the middle of the nineteenth century. It’s a sad little forlorn marker With no other around it, But it is testament to a Parent’s love and grief. I came upon it  In the middle sixties When I was still in my youth. It’s lesson for me was the assured reminder That “in the midst of life we are in death”.                                                 E. D. Ridgell 2019 ________________________________________________   From Russia With Love When did an obvious  Become fakery? Why another war so cold The Eagle shivers so? Much is questioned,  Nothing resolved but  That the future a struggle- We are so close to war. Heavy is the betrayal, The weight of Judas Hung but never dead Strange fruit this silver. The muse is heavy  On my heart- so So many aching hearts. Where is God, Moscow?                         E. D. Ridgell 2019 ____________________________________________________________  Hawking   “When you look at the vast size of the universe,  And how accidental and insignificant human life is in it,  That seems most implausible.” This he said from his wheel chair, When quizzed on the likelihood of God- Preeminent living authority on such matters; Physicist, Cosmologist and Scientist, Lou Gehrig’s had corralled him years ago, His body but not his mind. A lesser man would have capitulated, but This was no lesser man.   He had hit the nail on the head For this was the only question still holding me back- How now Jesus?  No one ever seemed to talk about it,  Around it yes, but never to the point. It was inconvenient, an inconvenient truth. How then was Jesus or any God to service  A universe that so far we had not found the edge of? For my part whether or not there is a God is irrelevant.  Whether we need one is not. I need one!                                                                      E. D. Ridgell 2019 _______________________________________________ The Hope Chest   I am a Zanzibar Antique, brass studded, Rosewood, chest- So beautiful you  Would open me  To peek at the many  Splendid things  That await The turn of her key.   I'm packed with all of her Hopes and dreams,  Not already gone astray At the slow robbery of life. She would wed him here In this Opulent chapel  In hopes that he might Be true to his word, The sweet, duped fool of a girl.                                      E.D. Ridgell __________________________________________________  White Daffodils In The Spring   I am wretched tired- Could sleep and sleep and sleep some more. There’s much to be said for sleep. It chases the cobwebs away. It marshals conviviality. It challenges the nightmares.   I cannot dream of you While I still mourn you- Why is that? Is the reality too stern? There’s much to be said for sleep. I could sleep this whole administration away.   Is the Electoral College wanting? I confess I do not know. Only a constitutionalist would know, If there is such a thing. I do not like a strict adherence to anything. Give me a loose interpretation.   I’m to a nap, I am. I tire of the whole soap opera. It’s not worth a civil war. There’s much to be said for sleep- And should I not awake, I’ll push white daffodils in the spring.                                                    E. D. Ridgell 2020   _______________________________________________________________________  Like A Pendulum It Swings Back 11       Homing into the eye    Plucking it words and deeds   Of a clockwork orange   Marking time to self-fulfilled prophecies.       The hands of the clock tick polarities,   The politics of Zionists    Free and unadorned of patches,   Bejeweled within the grip of the crescent moon,   That harries the starry pentagon and   Allies themselves to an amnesic.   Downing down their words    Echo like a pendulum swinging back.       The death of this enemy brings no solace,   Penetrating as it does chamber walls    To proselytize and portend further strife-   An eye for an eye…       Internecine tongues,    The loose keys of muezzins,   High up in minarets, break the spring   Wound of a facile but possible opportunity-   The knell to pause the heavy weight of war   Ringing in a ticking that stops the watch of peace                                                                              E. D. Ridgell 2020   _________________________________________________________________________________________  Sands In The Hourglass “Got to scrape the shit right off your shoes”- That’s Virginia, wild fields of forgotten hemp That served to make the rope that you could use to Hang yourself if you’ve half a mind and the pluck. With luck you’d score weed in days when  Bags cost five and the seeds came with it. A trip was as easy as roasted morning glory seeds- The high more colorful than mescaline and not as earthy. Sex was easy and greasy and rubbers were dispensed  At a quarter a pack. Poppers were real amyl nitrate And hearts beat to The Rolling Stones in Jagger-tight jeans- Life was music sung to the mantras of incense sticks. The lady and I didn’t enter a room. We occupied it! When the kid came she was to Bradley coaching and  I was one of the first allowed in the operating room- All this was a half a century ago, sands in the hourglass.	Clifton Park    That it was here  A hub, one of several  Around which events of my life turned-  Clifton Park.    I remember being struck  Side my head by an errant softball.   None of the grownups cared.  I was an unattended child.    On Saturdays,  We young gun slingers  Might catch a Western  At the Hartford Movie Theatre,  Opposite the park.  Cowboys and Indians, fifties fare for   Young, eager, TV anchors.    Hartford Road, striding the athletic fields  Was to become a fixture in the landscape  Of my early years.  I recall the Sears   On Hartford and North.  Mom and Dad  Had an apartment on North Avenue  When I was but two or three.  Dad said he would walk me  To a zoo and a park, top Druid Hill.  I vaguely recall the  Amusement park, hanging chads,  Faint memories, all near Clifton Park.    Early in my teaching career,  I taught art in a stately building  That was then a junior high school-  Clifton Park Junior High School.  I lived near North and Twenty Fourth,  A short drive further into the city.  I knew the very streets those  Nigga's walked and played on.  It was a bond to my love  Of the Black community-    Every early summer  A dignified graduation  Would echo forth   “Lift Every Voice and Sing”  Out onto a manicured Clifton Park.    That we should meet, casually, here,  Twenty five years later or more-  Making our trade amiably. You let me   Think you were dry walling a house,  Perhaps taking care not to  Disillusion an old man-  This, of all spots, the very place  Where I brought that   Summer camp I taught to swim,   Of an afternoon, walking  Them over from the school,  Clifton Park Junior High School.  All of this stirs memories.    I cannot think that   I will leave this life, as old as I be,  Without somehow,  Someway, gazing out just once more  Upon that lovely, green vista that is  Clifton Park.                                               E. D. Ridgell __________________________________________              Still Standing   Sitting with my small bowl of strawberries, My mind channels back to a time when I had a first fight- Not fisticuffs, but worse, words- A laddie-boys fight over whether or not I could fly Off the end of the picnic bench like Peter Pan… “Yes I can.” “No you can’t.” “Yes, I can, yes, I can, yes I can.” “No you didn’t. You’re lying.” “Who you call’n a liar? You can get out of here. I hate you.” “Well, I hate you more, and I will”.   So all of a sudden Joey was gone and I was left with that huge colander of red berries, Bawling away, tears running down, and me Eating every last one of those strawberries, Stuffing my sorrow, stuffing my feelings Not for the last time.   That was in nineteen sixty and Joey died a few years ago, Sixty some years later, and so here I am, again- The last one standing. The last one standing, again.                                                                  E D Ridgell 2020 _________________________________________________________________________  It Ain’t Easy! It’s  Never Been Easy!   I must have been  A bit of an empath To deduce that. She went out that evening And it began…   Months, no years of emotional neglect and abuse.   No one would have guessed she wasn’t Mommy dearest   Standing in the window Tears running down. Where are you?   Walking to the car and Confronting him. How old were you?   A strange white crouch In the bed beside her. Her total disregard of friends.   The melodramatic  Clock ticking on the phone.  The news Papi was coming home.   You spilled it. Why? The inevitable drunk only worse. Him sending you out into the bleak black night to find her- Falling asleep in the alley.   Oh they patched it up Everything but you. You were invisible.   Years later the cancer diagnosis- not once,  But twice. Stupid Woman!   I stood outside of my  Junior high graduation Because no one had come.   The cancer ward, hell on earth. Men in white coats Behind curtains.   Junior, Junior, Junior She uncovered herself in her waist.   Three months of being  Her anger dump.  She finally died.   I started to paint then.  Did three closeups. I destroyed them. I Think they were good.   A funeral, a courtship, a marriage, a baby-  Only to realize then life was Not fair and it wasn’t  Going to be easy!   It ain’t easy! It’s never been easy!                                                     E. D. Ridgell  _____________________________________________________________  The Hard Way! I’d been liv’n out the car, It seemed like forever, When it up and broke down- Not even occasional heat. House sited, pet sited, Old people sited, whatever  Would earn something, Anything for a day. My folks wanna help But they’re want’n too. Sometimes I question the Almighty Which does mighty little. I found the puppy and  Him and I, we have something to love- Ya need something to love, Otherwise ya start to feel hollow. Whatever’s for ya Won’t miss ya but  I surely wish I hadn’t had To find that out tha hard way!                                      E. D. Ridgell _________________________________________________  Cape Fear! Cancer! Now that I have  Your attention. It’s visited mine Throughout a lifetime. I cannot help but fear Next visit is mine!                                    E. D. Ridgell _______________________________  Taxing Matters!   “Are the taxes done?” These were the last words Of my grandfather.   He and my grandmother died Just ten days apart o’er fifty years ago, now. Five decades later, I muse as I render unto Caesar.   Grammy suffered horribly. He kept up the family tradition And died of a stroke.   The mammies were suddenly busy Stuffing smoked ham with kale, A Maryland tradition.   We were filling up holes back of St. Mathew’s Fast as they could dig them close by unmarked graves, Lost babies to Grammy’s salad years.   I muse to just how many more tax forms I’ll file- Tedious American rituals, these Taxing matters! ________________________________________________  Like Sebastian   It is a pain Second only to one far worse. I hold on,  And so, I  Serve people for whom I am   Of secondary purpose.   I keep going On and on and on While others drop away. I am afraid I will be the Last one standing. I would have you lay me gently down, please.   I am not blind to your sufferance,. Humbly and gratefully, I plea As I skate boldly On thin ice.   I am always The risk taker Trusting  that You, The Director, Will keep the measure Of me.   Holy Mary, Mother of God, Intercede for me, A sinner. Blessed Maria. Look down upon me.   I would that I could Find a monastery Where, like Flyte, I could Retire from This field of battle. Lay me gently down, Lord. Dimwitted  Dozing through the debacle, Some seeming decline  Drains my energy. I am  At the door of depression. Duplicity drags decisions Downing down government. There are drafts developing, Underscoring a nation’s descent. The demise of debate Dopes discourse, Dodges answers, Dumbs a demanding press. Dangers are everywhere, Divisions grow wider, as The duped drag democracy Ever-closer to disaster. E. D. Ridgell 2018 _______________________  The Deep Wound It was such a deep wound A great resentment tagged it. Nothing has shaken it  In half a century. There were so many wounds Bursting out all over, I suppose, no I know, Each took a talisman. Yet, more suffered more Than some and that was, Somehow, a wound of its own. Great restraint was needed. I cannot explain my confusion. I fed anger with self sacrifice. It was a sort of masochism, That failed to temper anything. Now decades later one lies cold And the others got religion. All in all, I find it distasteful but Reprisal is wicked. I’ve never been that. When I think, but then I think too much. What wisdom I’ve garnered these years, You’d think it would suffice, yet no. I would companion this mascot to hell!                                        E. D. Ridgell, 2018 ____________________________________________________________  Aye! I’ll tell you something  While I am waiting on God: There’s no better gift to give to family  Than what history you recall. Don’t think too  That nothing is lost. It is lost no sooner than your gone. It’s an old story that no live wires can fill. The truth is in the putting  So pray Jesu you writ it down. You writ it down ‘fore your drown downing ‘fore you know. Death waits for no one, aye. ‘fore you know the sickle is swung, The bell tolls and it tolls for ye. Go in peace aft ye leave said token, A token of love if ever there be one, aye!                                                E. D. Ridgell, 2019 ______________________________________________________________________  God Knows A thousand years prior And we were in the bleak mid-winter, A time when writing had been lost and That elixir cement seemingly lost. Science was witchcraft and Mathematics dark reckoning Not to be scribbled about Less you forfeit your soul. The individual dare not and The group not yet there. All about was darkness and  The light shown not. In the underbelly That was the boot There was a glimmer That only needed the spark of hope. I know nothing of the Big Bang But I know much of fire. It was fire that begot Self fulfilling curiosity. Ever forward into history Not yet made  We venture up and out Into a light that only God knows…                                    E. D. Ridgell 2019 __________________________________________________________  I Vow I age Despite my efforts. The aged are not welcome. I say Do not kill the caribou Or shoot the dove. I act. Reason is not wanted. Drama is in vogue. I lay Me down. Pull the soil o’er me. I bey At the setting sun And the rising moonlight. I die In the belief Of the resurrection.                          E. D. Ridgell 2019. ___________________________________________________  Ballykissangel   Ole lady Where did you go neath maroon marble supporting tiny pebbles, You witness the Christmases go by   It seems unfair  At least from the far side. Everyday I make ready to go Where I do not know   This late I care though Not from caution or fear Nothing bad awaits there No circular rungs   Popes have nothing to fear cept the lingering weight of humanity. Its a heavy cross to bear Forgive others as they would forgive you   As I would forgive her I do I do I do so many women Too many women  Too many too many too many heartbreaks                                                     E D Ridgell 2020 _________________________________________________________________
Omar   I call it my puppy dog syndrome. I go running up with my tail wagging  Two Hershey Bars with M&M’s,  It’s been ciggies, coloring pens, I came bearing tomatoes once years ago. Wagging up to a kick in the face.   It’s a pattern.  Over countess people in a life full of need. See my wing quiver so. I only ever wanted a drop of water. Dad did it, tried to buy my love, spoiled me, Only I never wanted things. I wanted normal. Thing is, Dad never once kicked me in my face. He was a great father you couldn’t stand to be with.   She wanted an ally, not a kid. It’s called silent seduction. It’s wasn’t deliberate and it’s spread wide. The adult child with no childhood of his own. Poor, poor, woman! Death hit her like a train,  And I got dragged down the tracks.   Omar, though? I mean this puppy’s hurt! You’d think I would feel anger. I suppose I do but  most of all  I feel so very very, sorry for him. Omar’s the kid who slipped though my grasp And fell back into his wrap sheet! “Two roads diverged in a wood” and Omar, Omar took the one most traveled. ___________________________________    tadzio   lido pubescent pole depart dribbling seeping cholera of lubeck gossip driftwood venice, soddenly doge. recede sinking stinking prostitute of paris pillage. lagoon    e d ridgell revised 2020 © 2006 _______________________________________________  Time Waits For No One   She quizzed me Asking after the oxygen- Saying they would not want to loose me, and Suddenly the morning was not so lonely.   Where do all the lonely people go? Like me, do they seek to just fade away Into the waiting bosom of eternity. I can think of a worse fate.   Our little time Is swallowed in the vastness Just bordering eternity- A bit of sand in our hourglass.   Fame fades. All civilizations morph Into history. Only change Is certain. Death comes to all of us.   It makes absolutely no sense  For a Christian to fear death. It wins at chess every time- An opportunity to add One more to its flock.   Where do all the lonely people go? Like me, do they seek to just fade away Into the waiting bosom of eternity. I can think of a worse fate.                                           E. D. Ridgell 2019 ____________________________________________________  Little Boy Blue   Somewhere inside the aging shell of the man Was a broken boy. There is a child  Echoing in all of us for better or worse.   The shivered boy grew into a damaged man, The worse kind, the sort who can’t be mended  No matter divers and sundry efforts.   Broken men are unmerciful, Empty empathy. This man was no exception. Everything and everybody owed him. He was chosen.   Divinely favored men swallow warriors  And collected innocents spitting them Into individual and mass graves.   History would like to but can’t forget them. They are recounted in the annals of memory To be studied, dissected, and catalogued.                                              E. D. Ridgell, 2019 ______________________________________________________  Starship Enigma   The Cosmologists ponder The Big Bang in the sands of time That is theirs. I think on the beginning  And end of me in the grain that is mine. My time is almost spent, Time as I imagine it.   The greater question eludes me  Just as it does you. We are all of us trapped in this ship In search of what we do not know. The mathematicians are busy but content. They can’t afford illusions. Accordingly, they see no end to our journey                                                              E. D. Ridgell ____________________________________________________________________  It Isn’t Death I Fear!   It is its lynchpin, grief, That I disdain, deriding  That void that cannot be filled.    Memories- His warm embrace as he bit my cheek- That playful way he had of embellishing The most normal act with that physiognomy All his own, that roped and tied  My reluctant heart down.   That way she had of tilting her head just so, The one eye stepped forward so slightly before the other, All above a beguiling smile, that every so often Broke out into that charming laugh That pursued and wooed me.   The way she arranged her baby dolls all in a row, So that she could pick which next to hold, And rock in her sweet little arms  While mimicking her mommy.   I have not forgotten the gravestone I came upon, With all the little plastic, play trucks, tanks, and planes Some grieving parent must have strewn about the stone So that their sandy haired, little boy could play  Like any other pharaoh.   It isn’t death I fear. Death is simple. It is the wake Left behind that would engulf any who love me as much as I them. Would that I could not leave you so, but in my selfish way, I would have just a few espouse me. I am too much the coward, now, To live completely alone. Would that I could have you unfettered, I swear I would. It isn’t death that I fear. It isn’t death…                                                                                E. D Ridgell ______________________________________________ Mars, The God Of War After they finished fighting The war to end all wars, And before they fought the next war All the king’s soldiers and  What was left of the king’s men Couldn’t put the world  Back together again. Russia turned red and  The new world sighed. Austria Hungary broke into So many pieces that  Even Rand McNally was confused and Influenza riddled the continents  Further thinning the globe. The British still had their empire Including the gem in the crown and One would think there was no Further appetite to mow men down. Alas, No. What was left was as cattywhompus  As the price of bread and the cauldron  Still bubbled for the want of Mars, the god of war.                                                             E. D. Ridgell 2019    _______________________________________   Bumming Out The Mourners!   What's an old dullard to do? Publish a peck of poetry? Nobody reads poetry,anymore,  You doltish, idiotic fool! What are you trying to prove? Why do you feel any need To do anything at all,  But lie down on the Palace Green?   Finally, gone to rest- No more worries, No more decisions, No more noises under the hood- No more antiques to  Push on little or no taste! Who poked out the discerning eye?   I'm sick to death of everything. I'm sick to death of me!  I'm sick to death of you! All who were tasteful are dead or dying, Or debating there's anything as taste at all. Grief is become my talisman And all about me there is discord.     I'm buggered and never cease, Hinting at dancing a last waltz. Shut the fuck up! Enough, already! Slam that trap door on your endless yelping   Put a halt to these maudlin musings. "You're bumming out the mourners!" You’re sobering up the raven at the wake!                                          E. D. Ridgell 2017                                           Revised 2018 ________________________________ To He Who Waits Patiently Is it warm there tonight Spread o’er a Palace vista? Is the green cooling down Ready to emerge at morning’s mist? Surely you’ve settled in Since I gently laid you down. Some sums of the swings of a pendulum, And they’ll be  Daintily laying me down  To surround and abound with you, Where a Palace spies so faire a view. Nothing dead has deed to its property But the public ground is as good A waiting place as any!                                          E D Ridgell, 2017 ________________________________________________________  The Bipolar Suplicant   I don’t reach out anymore. I’ve let the few left slip away- I harbor myself in a solitary retreat, Shoring up my tremulous faith.   It has been my lot in life For three score plus To carry the chains Of the mother faith.   Oh, I glean that sensus devinitatis, But am loath to risk my soul To a writ nailed upon a door- After all this lot usurped Becket’s gold.   I’ve known much love And fidelity too- But since his untimely death My clockwork heart beats irregular.   I just can’t approach the revision Without cautious consideration. “Publish and be damned!” I’ll not be blackmailed.   Everything is sacrifice, A debt owed to crucifixion. I don’t question Doc’s Keeping me harbored in this waiting room.   One by one the grains of sand Trickle and the hourglass runs down- Soon I follow on the water And not a minute too soon!                                                E. D. Ridgell _____________________________________  Richard   Richard, you look swell with A martini in one hand and a tie on- Properly attired, just as so many years ago, Polytechnic boys, “Poly boys are we!”   I can exactly recall the last time we parted In front of a big white house in Mount Washington. Frank, you, and I would chase girls. I was still in a straight frame of mind, Fighting like so many queers then did Just to sort through confusion not our making.   When you heard were you surprised? People add blame to shame and try to tag you. Did you tag me? Pity, you! I stopped compromising. Learned love, respect but most of all service.   I buried my share of dead: bits of patchwork on a field; An elephant high name on a commemorative, black wall; Tangled poems of netted memories- The Lord is my shepherd. He maketh me to lie down With hot, sweaty palms, applying bandages to pustulant pores. His law is my law, and my law, knows few boundaries.                                                                                          E. D. Ridgell ______________________________________________________________             Cold Stone   Larkin was no lollygag Bent on filling up time, Opinionated, self-centered And dedicated to the hunt Provided you didn’t catch the fox. One thing and one thing only- The written word Anything his, with poetry Leading the chase.   Thing was he bummed out The mourners and depressed The party goers, All of whom read him avidly. Too fond of booze he Turned down a laureate, and like Verlaine, Ceased writing poetry, altogether. With nothing better to do, He died of esophageal cancer.                                                   E. D. Ridgell   Junk Mail for The Dead   Here is another letter; Junk mail for the dead. “This is your last warning!” Supplement Medicare wants you!   Some eleven years ago, WE skipped a movie, And took the light-rail downtown On the last day of open enrollment.   I’ll never forget the kindness Of those African American women Who did the dialing for me; Negotiated the bureaucracy.   Six months later you were dead; Spread ashes under catalpa trees, And I, with my broken heart, Began the groping through grief.   The tank truck of chicken soup, At last was as dry and empty as me. My waistline waned away While the mailbox grew obese.   Each sight of your name was a Jabbing, stinging step back, Sapping hard-won strength- Still, I struggled forward.   Years later, today’s junk brings a smile. If the Great and Powerful Oz Will not let you die, my love, Neither will I, neither will I.       <!--Creative Commons License-->/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" border="0" src="http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights20.png"/></a><br/><a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5     _____________________________________________________    Primary Colors is written in the "voice" of a Missouri Raider, a Confederate sympathizer who is actully setting up a  tradition that would become a horrible and unjust form of murder in the nation throughout the later part of the 19th c and early 20th. I think the artist here best describes it in the "blues". After listening to the UTube video just hit the back arrow in the upper left hand corner of your computer to stay on site.  <iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/h4ZyuULy9zs" frameborder="0"></iframe>   Written in the voice of a Missouri, Confederate raider in 1864  ______________________________________________   Primary Colors   Waning bluebells wilt Another hot, Missouri day As a red-winged, black bird Perched on a cattail, Takes fright and flies For the closest clutch.   A field sways mustard Backed by a blue sky, Next a blocking, brown marsh.   “Go on, then! We’ve ruddy deeds to do Outfitted in our hothouse, Uniforms of sweaty gray!”   Straitaway, Sighted shots send out White, puffy clouds As naked, lead sings through bits of blue Stained red with their swift stings.   Shrilly they cry, Then die, easy marks for the kill- Blue prey, with yellow bellies Spewing and oozing red.   All lay dead save two, White eyed, blue-bellied coons- Hands flap! Mouths yap!   “Neck them low from Yonder red bud tree- Take this hemp rope of pale yellow That hangs from a readied ring, Wound round and hung down from Side my chestnut, steely, steed.   Part it evenly. It'll do, And we’ll be fair in what we share, As red tongues swell Outta our high-yellers gone blue, Collared and yanked to Hell!” There is nothing that has caused me more frustration and, in some cases, outright confrontation, because some readers do not understand that the "voice of the poem" is not always the "voice of the artist". The "voice is a vehicle" that can be maniupulated in many ways to do many artistic things. Here is a clip of Whoopi Goldberg, an artist whom I identify with a great deal. I think her "Parrot Joke" best illustrates what I'm trying to say...Ed :) My Islands of Smith and Tangier are Sinking The salt waters are rarely more than three feet deep in a hundred mile radius of what remains of the islands, making for the richest breeding grounds in all the world for their prized, soft shell, blue crabs. The Bay seems so calm. Everyday washes a little more away though with an ever faster beating and tow, an unkind progression, quicker than in the decades before. The erosion is inevitable and the shrinking so very visible as my beloved islands of Smith and Tangier, dubbed, “ Islands out of Time”; islands of the lower Chesapeake Bay, islands of my ancestors, islands of my roots, go sinking. The communities are shrinking with the young anxious to escape to the mainland. A few, the hardiest, do not want to go. It is in the blood, this feistiness: a tenaciousness born of centuries of holding on. Those that take the mail boat travel light with heavy expectations. Some never return but most do, at least for visits that start at first once a year for the annual camp meeting, and then become less and less frequent as if to emphasize the receding sands. They bring back foreign sounding words and a twisted way of thinking. Everything is said in a straight and unimaginative way. Speaking in opposites as is the custom is forgotten. There is a fainter resonance in the Elizabethan “a”s and they talk so fast, almost in a chatter that takes the breath away. The cats run under the boardwalks in search of silence and to escape the mainland smells. Those that are island bound don’t mix well anymore with these. The one have nothing but the optimism of the day, the other have everything in a pessimism of the times. The one drink on the sly while the visiting relatives no longer know the value of a lie. The older islanders politely pretend to listen, their thoughts lost in the crab shanties just feet away. Everyone though comes together in the big camp meeting tent. These islands are Methodist and Joshua Thomas part of their history. The name Wesley is still common. These camp meetings held in the single huge tent have always been the biggest event of the year. Some things are primary, so sacred they are inviolable. It is then that the bond is felt again and rekindled. There is no blame, and even if some forget to speak in opposites, that odd tradition of saying precisely the backwards version of what you mean to say, the truths no matter how spoken, straight or twisted round to need unraveling, they still ring true. They are inherent in things primary that even separation will not eradicate; values set in the cement of faith, optimism, and an acceptance that in the end the storm passes and the sun breaks through. Everything passes away except things primary; things not bound by any boundaries or no less solid with the caresses of the sea. They can’t be covered over or washed away. They are buoys that mark the channels and point the way safely into any harbor, any harbor you may find yourself sailing into, island bound or not. © 2007 by E.D. Ridgell   _________________________________________________________________________________________________  Scrooge! My universe was created with a loud, commercial Bang!- Advertising rich elements and resources spiraling out to serve you. These are very profitable if you’ve a stomach for commodity puts.  Everything living feeds off of something living; dwindling crops,  More manna from Heaven for me. Eat your fill this holiday season.  I’ve options on the grocers. The goose is very plentiful and reasonably priced. Everything dies to be sucked into a Black Hole. Yes, there is a fee for this as well.  Everybody serves somebody. How do you do,  My name is Scrooge and that somebody is me! This insignificant orb is dying quickly. Only greed can save it.....that’s me. Goodie, goodie! You’re back is to the wall. Worry, then worry some more. I’m directly between you and ruin manipulating markets Until I send you happily skating and sliding for a fall. Make it profitable and I’ll dip into my many, moneyed, market funds. I’ll clean up the coal for you at a variable rate. Nothing is fixed. I’ll gas you up, naturally, when I’ve had my spoils  From the rich fields of black oil you guzzle daily- Choking until due to the holiday you come up short, then, self righteously, Calling  on me, that greedy, greedy Mr. Scrooge. Stop griping. Everybody’s got a job or a dole check-some have two!   “The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigor...'' I’ll have my mortgage or my rent or you’ll feel my boot. Children don’t want to go caroling in the cold singing archaic songs. They’re whining for the latest iPod and insistent for the Nintendo Wii. They text you with their lists; you know, like everyone else, they’re busy. So is Granny and she isn’t baking pies, not anymore.  Get with the program. What would you have, a real tree?  Put the cookies and milk under a facsimile. Bah, humbug! “I don’t make merry myself at Christmas”...a small, spoonful of more gruel. “Keep Christmas in your own way and let me keep it in mine.” What’s that you’re babbling? Someone needs a new crutch, tinier than most?  We’ve a hot, titanium model, adjustable, fresh off our new, Chinese line. Merry Christmas to You and Yours and a Profitable New Year!                                         E.D. Ridgell, Scrooge, LLC                                           ..all rights reserved to me, Ebenezer! ______________________________________________________________________________________________     Eagle on High   With wounded wing And one too many Fallen feathers She swoops down Tallens drawn. Fierce Eagle on high, Screeching It’s eye fixed On the prey.   Kingfishers, peacocks in tow Rail and resist Any who would Smooth ruffled feathers. The Swallows Flock to Pluck out These insistent clutches With their feather mites.   There is no land In sadder disaray Than this with the clinging Nest of Fisher wanna-be’s Seeking the demise of the eagle.                                      E. D. Ridgell	Edward Ridgell Thu 7/9/2020 10:59 AM     To:  You Hear Me,   But do not heed me- That is more merit than is wise. I am in search of the soul of the self To sort the sounds that simmer within.   Hear me muse upon the mathematics of my mind At times like some paramecium’s scum Where I swim backwards, to and fro, In many synchronous schemes.   Hear me, As I strum my chords and stroke my words, Free and open futility to reveal, My mumpsimus of brainwash.   Hear me As I sing into shrinking time That is but overtime- I suppose.   Hear me in your mind’s eye, The modulations you mediate, Misled by my coarse, rough punctuation Of so little regard.   Hear me, Expecting nothing in me. I do not sing for your praise- In this silkily triggered trope of voice.                                                      E. D. Ridgell  Muster Up Muster In Snap out of it! What is it? “ For I have miles to go before I sleep.” Muster up the ancestors. I uncovered but one suicide and He, hovering at one hundred, Would not subject his family to it.  With courage he blew his brains out! Orville had been but a distant relative  Yet his sepia offering was a memory of  What’s best for the common good Of not just family but all. Everybody serves somebody and No one makes it entirely on their own “People who need people are  The luckiest people of all.”                                      E. D. Ridgell 2020 ____________________________________________________________    On The Sleeve Again!   I strolled into your man-cave And looked around for a change. I’ve not really studied you in awhile- So absorbed with myself.   I made a mistake  I’d not made for well o’er two decades. I fell in love. Oh no, not limerence and  Whatever these past years have become, But the deep, deep, deep vow I had chanced with him so long ago and lost.    I wasn’t going to do that. I swore I wouldn’t- And now we’re Oh so much older And I’ve gone and raised the ante. Oh, God have mercy on my soul. I don’t know what I feel most- Gratitude or fear!                              E.D. Ridgell 2017                                     Revised 2020 _____________________________________________________  Ave Maria Swaddle me in the religion Of my forebears- The whispering chants in Latin, The brightly colored, church vestments, The magi’s aroma of incense. Once again, me kneeling ‘fore Our Lady In intimacy with the Madonna- A childlike trust in secrets  Wrapped in blankets of blue and white Bedazzled by Her golden light. Carry me to tarry again in prayers To temper a child’s confusion- The  solidity ‘fore a plaster facsimile, Her gaze imparting boundless  gentleness, Trusting all that is feminine and pure. Áve Marī́a, grā́tiā plḗna, Dóminus tḗcum. Benedícta tū in muliḗribus, et benedíctus frū́ctus véntris túī, Iḗsūs. Sā́ncta Marī́a, Mā́ter Déī, ṓrā prō nṓbīs peccātṓribus, nunc et in hṓrā mórtis nóstrae. Āmēn.                                               E. D. Ridgell 2019 ___________________________________________________________________  Goal!  Goal! You only do it once, supposedly. Maybe, that’s why it’s so intimidating. You have to get it right The first and only time The young fear it most And with good reason. The old fancy it as Some sort of initiation. They make the drums Unfurl the flags Pimp the young  In their regalia. War needs an end means And the young fit the spot Admirably. They’ve been  Well prepped in sports. Most perform admirably. Goals are made. Games are won. Comes the pause. They bury some And they start all over again.                                     E. D. Ridgell 2019 _______________________________________________________  White Anger Blinding, Bordering on rage, Co-dependent co-habitation, True love aches For the father, the hero, and the lover. In the tomb Of the unknown Lies a statistical possibility. Stir in Jesus and You have a probability. I snuggle up Of a night To the decorated veteran, The father, the hero, and the lover. It is a story as long and as ancient as that love That dare not speak its name.                                                            E. D. Ridgell  2019 ___________________________________________________________________________  Far Far Too Short It is possible me thinks To be religious and moral- More too, me thinks the opposite can hold. Then too, me thinks one can be moral With no religion at all. Worse though Is to be irreligious and immoral. Too much religion Can prove immoral as  Bloody Mary is no historic hero. The last Tudor Seemed to strike a middle mark. Lo, today she is still esteemed “Great”. Many would and could  Espouse to be “Great”, While falling far, far too short!                              E. D. Ridgell, 2019 ________________________________________________________  Promises  Beg pardon. Never promised some rose garden. Who are you to question me? What, are we doing- Trading bubble-but insults now? But another’s head. I’m about reconciliation. Come together right now Over me! How did you come to Trinity? In death you up and separate? It ain’t fit’n. It just ain’t fit’n! Whose gonna milk This here cow? It ain’t me. It ain’t me You’re looking for. I never promised you A candy cane ass A bubbling up, bubbling up A Kansas tornado Dripping down your fat leg. Angie, Angie- Your kisses still taste sweet I hate that sadness in your eyes, but Angie, Angie- Never promised you a rose garden. Angie, Angie, I’m so old. Ain’t it time we say goodbye- Ain’t it time we just die?                                         E. D. Ridgell 2019 ____________________________________________________________  Plumb Me At the parting plumb me Like a shadow upon the ground, Cast by a stately palace before the sun. Lay my ashes gently down Upon green grass within the circle round. Catalpa trees shall feather me, As footfalls of citizens come to Promenade peacefully as to Pay due homage to past pedigree. Throughout the colonies you see The cast markers, monuments to martyrs, Some unnamed who gave the full measure  That I might have this bed, a tyrant's placemat. Let dustings of me, Meander to mingle  With that much loved  Bone and ash Strewn by me so long ago In this perfect spot- The place we strolled in Salad years of genteel things, Paint swabs, and hand picked boxwood. Nestle me down in rich sheep dung, To sleep the sleep of patriots. God bess this bountiful land And forever plumb it to Liberty.                                   c. E. D. Ridgell, 2019 __________________________________________________________  The Waverly Theatre I wish she would leave me in peace, the muse. Of late, she’s always at me at me at me Stirring up memories, sifting and sorting them- Launching them toward hard copy. Some sixty years ago, a solitary, lonely boy Sat one night in the Waverly Theatre when Suddenly a stranger, a man, parked himself Beside the boy a loaded jacket in his lap. The shoe was first, then a knee, All the while the jacket was still until A hand eased out. The boy, young,  Dumb, and full of cum eased out of his seat. I went out by a back door. As I say I was dumb. He followed, of course. He wasn’t coarse but rather vanilla considering  So far he’d been two scoops of Rocky Fudge.  He wanted to drive me somewhere. I said “no”. He said  “please”. How does a boy make all the right decisions? I just turned, and fumbled the half mile or so home. I’ve always wondered if the movie had a happy ending.                                                                                 E. D. Ridgell 2019 _____________________________________________________________________________________  Send In The Clowns My Spaniard had the perfect ass. I say that dispassionately. I used to admire him walking away, Something alas, one day he did for good. I could have stopped it, turned it around, But truth is he was lost in mid air. Like me he was charting a divorce  Not an auspicious time for either of us. I saw him from a bus months later  In front of the central library. I made no effort and he never knew How close he had come to taming the ball. I don’t know why, a mixture of curiosity and nostalgia  But I’ve googled him down.  He made it to the Big Apple And is counseling needy Gays now or something like it.  He still is hopelessly helpful I suppose. Forty years ago we were in Spain and in love. Franco was living Although just. The Spaniard wanted to be an actor. He was  Hot blooded and he had the ass for it. I’d say something about Two  paths and a divergent wood but I mustn’t. I really mustn’t.                                                                                          E, D. Ridgell 2019 No Need For Mixed Media Or Metaphors And yet, …Lorca and Dali Juxtaposed- Before the last master, Rodriguez. Mix it up- Make and match.  Pugnacious and rebellious,  It’s like him to drive Into a nest of Franco’s fighters. How then to turn the poem?  Paste a pic with links to Tinged words and masochistic needs- No limitations! None! In 2008, planes overhead dropped Facsimiles of his white-winged sonnets And Spain sobbed, weeping decades later- Too many with memories. Mix it up? Yes, mix it up. They shot the muse in the ass,  And then the whole world went to war As though summoned to anarchy.                                                      E. D. Ridgell                                                        Revised 2019 ______________________________________________________________  Lum, Deedum, Dee, Dadee Dum Johnny get you gun, get your gun,  A rum-tummy, tummy, tummy tum. It ain’t over till the fat lady sings And she’s got high in the sky hopes, Miss American pie, do or die hopes. Put another nickel in the nickelodeon. The nicest part of any war is that look, That look in his eyes when you stick him, Throw’im a kiss and twist twist twist- It’s all in a day’s war, my son. Johnny get you gun, get your gun,  A rum-tummy, tummy, tummy tum. It ain’t over till the fat Lady’s sings And she’s got high in the sky hopes, Miss American pie, do or die hopes. This’ll be the last one.  Would I lie to you son? You’ll see. You’ll be home by Christmas- Noel, oh well I never promised you a rose garden. Johnny get you gun, get your gun,  A rum-tummy, tummy, tummy tum. It ain’t over till the fat Lady’s sings And she’s got high in the sky hopes, Miss American pie, do or die hopes.                                E. D Ridgell 2019 _______________________________  Shoot The Dove I am stuck, A disabled bundle of creativity  Waiting around for the sickle thrust. It only hurts when I feel And I am forever feeling. The tiny cells Dwell on big fears Made bigger by the times, A gentle man in an ungentle time-  Trying to figure out which button is the safety. If only it were about me- Lo it ain’t though. Too many Sentences coming at me  All beginning with ‘You’- Fuck you! Words used to glow. Now all is muddy “Lovely, dark, and deep”. Everybody’s pack-in ‘cept me. I never could shoot the dove.                                  E. D. Ridgell ______________________________________________  Note To John Locke   Seven decades And my many memories trip O'er one another as I look back And reckon on the tally of my life's course The sum of the parts that have been me.   We are not born  Some blank sheet, but marked In so many ways 'fore we rise From that foundation, the mortar and mix Of familial and social ingredients.   There is a yeast to us all-  "the body too goes to the making the man." Before you would write your treatise You must first press your papyrus, Carve your nib, and stew your ink.   Only then can you put pen To the blank, bleached white sheet of paper! He did not choose to be the nigger,  And I did not choose to be the queer, These ingredients were included with no charge.                                                          E. D. Ridgell                                                           Revised 2018 _______________________________________________________________  Days Grow Chilly Chrysanthemums wane heralding season’s end. Days grow chilly beckoning in Rituals of gathering wood for firesides to tend- Musings portend cozy evenings side the kin. Soon the snows will drift o’er the land Sculpting contrasts in windy rows that shimmer so. Skaters cut eights as ice fishermen tan- Children warm hands round rusty barrels aglow. But with the cold fears stir At the fallen twigs too thin Swiftly tramps hop trains south to avoid her, As the rich fly in pursuit of the trade winds. Elephants forage eating the upper greens Laying low the forests and draining the streams.                                               © 2005 E.D.Ridgell                                                  Revised 2018 ______________________________________________________________________________________  Leftovers I died some time ago  But you did not notice until now. It was inevitable  And inopportune So I do not  Hold it against you. I just managed the  Last Rites Although barely conscious. My pain was embarrassing  And distracting I did not notice your absence. Try to have a painless death  If you can manage it. Have your affairs in order. Let people know  What you want done with  The left overs!                   E. D. Ridgell 2018 _____________________________________  Inca Incantation The rope bridge Of woven grass Rests ready for offerings Prescribed by the gods Generations ago. The gap is wide The fall deep and deadly- Nerves taught in anticipation  For priests to bless  The toothless woman’s walk- The eldest stateswoman. In an ancestral rite from  Before armor-clad horsemen. A mountain ritual of Tribes so high in the sky As to be inaccessible to Hooves of invaders- Bespeaks a tradition Meandering back to origins Forgotten but never rued.                       E. D. Ridgell 2018 _________________________________________  So Lay Me Gently Down Now He’s been dead now these many years And yet his obit still hangs there A haunting reminder of  Just how much I loved him. I don’t think he ever thought I’d leave, And it was that complacency that laid the seed. Decades later I muse on those days, My days of wine and roses. So along came the kindest man I’ve ever known. He clipped my wings as the wood-be priest had warned, And “I went off to Babylon against  that Nidintu-Bel Who called himself Nebuchadrezzar.” In but a little while they’ll lay me gently down  Under the catalpa trees that were a second home to us Those many years when God seemed to abide by me and Before these pancreatic ghosts that haunt me. Old age is the time for meeting God or a facsimile. Whether there is a God or not is of little consequence  To your need for one, and I have need for one- So lay me gently down now, lay me gently down.                                                          E. D. Ridgell, 2017 ____________________________________________________  It’s Media, But Where’s The Social?   So that thing I have about taking risks- It kicks in awhile ago, and I just friend one and all, Antique amigos, artsy-fartsy sounding names- Any face or avatar that catches my fancy.   At first, there’s the confusion of wading through Thank-you’s and howdy-do’s. Each day ya make the rounds, hit ya likes- Try to cultivate favorites. Thing is, it’s lopsided.   A few months in and I realize I haven’t met many newbies, one or two, And ya daren’t get too political- It’s media, but where’s the social?                                            E. D. Ridgell _________________________________       Lorraine    Toronto is Reggie,  Did you know that?  A real beat-  A sweet rhythm!  Shake your hips,  Be Hawaiian!    I remember now,  She took hula lessons.  Everyone talked behind her back!  That kitchenette was a roundtable  Of backstabbing gossip.  Her hubby supplied the firewood.  His mother stoked it!                        c. E. D. Ridgell, 2014  ______________________________________________  Prehistoric Pelican! Just out the back door to the kitchen Of the house that floated on cinder blocks, Under which dozens of, wild, feral cats and their kittens lived, There extended a goodly bit of rough, fescue, grass lawn  Bordered on one side with a wired in chicken-yard with its  Hen house ending and blocking any further lawn.  To the right of this green sliver of lawn was a muddy, stream, the  Habitat of large and mean snap'n turtles, Ill humored at my  Constant unrelenting harassment of them with Dick's crabbing net, Fishing them in and out of the stream, willy-nilly just for the fun of it. At the very farthest end of that lawn, off and out to the right Was a single treacherous, wide, plank-board  for crossing the creek into  Acres upon acres of soybean or corn field.  Make a left turn here and you were on another's property with still more fencing to your left Wherein grazed the moo cows who kept to themselves chewing their cud contentedly. Take this another quarter mile back and you opened up into a hidden cove, isolated And not terribly big or too unseemly small, perfect for skinny dipping or just pretending to fish. One day, I remember a huge pelican flew into at tree that was so big I just lay there in awe of it, Frozen to the ground where I had fallen. I wondered if I was not to be seized by some prehistoric creature. All of this and more, I remember today vividly, while I can't remember the grocery list, Or what's on it or even to take it with me when I go shopping!                                                                                                          c. E.D Ridgell, 2016 _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Costume Jewelry! Sometimes, I feel like I'm dying, One dreary day at a time!  This latest pain  On the rosary bead of life, A broken rib, still aches As the weather dictates, And I'm groping in My unkempt bed- One awful poem at a time. The minimum wage Leaves them in poverty, And we debate And churn their  Inadequacies and needs As if these needed Any championing. Where has our conscience flown On that broad feathered back  Of that beautiful bald headed eagle,  The symbol of that state that would Lift any and all up To one and the same height? Where has flown equality? The bedpans need  Emptying, again. The stink has seeped into the  Sacred halls of congress. Children are hungry and  The streets are littered  With the poor and needy. Wounded soldiers! Like open wounds Mingle amongst us Ignored as though they Were not worthy- Costume jewelry!       c. E.D. Ridgell, 2014, all rights reserved   Big Daddy’s Sage Speech Modeling a flagging medal below the Mason Dixon Line, Big Daddy was given a warm Buckler hastily chilled by ice cubes snapping quickly. Big Daddy is triggered at the sound of cracking. His needs require preparation and some consideration for denial. Big Daddy expects applause if not standing ovations, so heckling was a surprise almost as extra large as the expletives thrown at his second coming. With seeming aplomb and appropriate rhetoric prepared for just such an occasion, Big Daddy, a practiced magician, commanded the ice cubes vanish amidst the yanking and yapping of division, and he got his standing ovation from the applause of the ever faithful; their clapping rote, their shouts no fire works to further disturb the blueprint of that cherished hillock. © 2008 by E.D. Ridgell ___________________________________________________________ In Metered Seasons Cows to Keep A passing spotted cow With rusty bell To welcome autumn now And herald summer knell The brownly calf in tow A mindful spring Is hesitant she go From Mooma’s harbored wing As finches faint away The colors fall To tart a shortened day And make the morning raw In hilly Maryland The farmers stir To rustle herd and send In bovines fore the cur © 2005 E.D.Ridgell ___________________________________________________________
Daddy’s A Real Live Artist   And all of a sudden out of nowhere she said, “Daddy, you’re a real live artist, aren’t you?” I nodded…”Yes.” I didn’t know then it would be a test.   Daddy can’t, Daddy won’t feign a child’s hero! Art is more important you see Than some false front of me.   I hope that you will weigh my “to be” With what some falsely see and say- I must be free and I’ll risk the fee- Daddy is a real live artist, you see.   Sown of Plantagenets And rough men of the sea, You need no better pedigree. I hope you’ll always love me as I…   © 2005 E.D.Ridgell   Revised 2020 Potter's Dust!   I can't be all that, I can't do all that! It's geeked me too high. All I see are Mama’s eyes.   We scurry in the cold, moonlit night-  Nudge up ‘gainst strangers  O’er sagging, rusting ironwork Warming any old, bold, brassy-polished bank.    Await a fate, icepick sharp and chilling, A last stab into a fentanyl rotting carcass-  Tumble weeding down into Potter’s dust!   © 2018 by E.D. Ridgell ______________________________________________________  Duck's Blood I loved him. He was my best mate. We'd risked our freedom together.  My chest was open to him and my back feared nothing. We were young Dads with like aspirations.  Each week we smoked peace pipes together. We swam naked of nights, cool water on young bodies. We made art as gifts for one another. I was young. I trusted as only the young can. I was naive and cherries were being plucked a plenty, No less mine. The ropes were twisted and loose ties come unmoored  No mater the raker. She was so ripe for plucking, she turned my stomach. In truth anyone could have had her, but why would he  Make a mockery of his own chaste house? Why had I wretchedly succored, in manly surrender one unworthy? What's for you, won't miss you, and he had been for me. It stings me to this day, and yet, I confess, he still charms me. The worms feed on her and we are on the menu. It is all sorted out on the surface. I am mated properly and happily, and  He's still in a married bliss that is stable.   The blood cools with time and with it the duck's blood thickens.                                                               c. E.D. Ridgell, 2015 CLICK ON THE LOWER LEFT ARROW TO WATCH THE VIDEO The Robber Barons First, they moved the noble poplars and the tall pines, stripping the hills in only a generation. Tempered now in greed, next, they proffered to pitch their tracks to a greater tender; these barons of the rails; robbers with newly purchased “n” rights. They sent hireling men, many a former logger and lumberjack; the hill men, underground to scout out Salley’s find; for profits suspected to lie beneath the bruised, and full-bellied Appalachians. In the passages dark and dangerous, the shaft-sinkers found seams; black riches beyond greediest expectations. With industry and speed the company owners, representatives of barons back East. soon had the recently discovered seams yielding rich loads borne out on long tracks. Too few though were tracking the robber barons. The wheels turned; whirling in all directions. It was an era when immigrants proved profitable; an agitation invested into this brew of native, negro, and the new benefited the “Man” and seasoned the company store still more. The rich and slick soon had all in a kind of slavery that incited a wretched worker, often a family man, to strike, temporarily shedding soot stained, hard hats their shiny lamps symbols of that servitude. Fields strewn with tents soon housed the dispossessed united to work for something fair, anything freer feeling. They never stood a chance. Strike after strike failed and in the end they had to await “Big Bill” trailing his friendly, “Teddy” bear, both finally checking and tracking the robber barons. Victory came in an act. Robbery that rude and reviled, successfully railed against was thought to be relegated by law, put to past. History though is too often a reflection of our future. Today, many of the great grandchildren of the hill men are again fooled and won over; run over, so to speak, by quick change, and slight of hand, tricksters; forgetting sacrifices made, and seduced by a new breed, so alike those robbers thought to be history; barons who first paid to have the tracks laid that proved to be more a burden than a boon to the hill people of Appalachia. © 2007 by E.D. Ridgell _______________________________________________________ Dealt And Done! It was that house, that house,  That some half a century ago, I walked out on you- then adding insult To your injury, I came out, burst out Of the well spun cacoon I was supposed To stay closeted in so society would not Have to deal with its irstwhile next of kin. I burst out in so many colors At times I thought I'd blind myself, Took so many risks that I took first prize. I was a stately Queen in half the allotted time. I was positively puzzling and emphatically embarrassing! I was the centipede to a monarch butterfly, my wings so Beautiful they made nicknacks and trays to show off me! So there, it's done. Don't tell me that my short stint  Through your parallel infidelity, ruined your flight. You nose dived and crashed of your own making. I'll not mask your infidelity with mine. Mine was  Nary as homespun and did not smother love  As completely as your feigned innocence would deceive. Your denial ain't no Nile for this crocodile not by my reckoning!                                                                            E.D. Ridgell, 2016 _________________________________________________________________________________________	Point Lookout Hotel Torn Down By The State After Taking The Land For A State Park ‘Up the Road’ from Point Lookout! I went ‘down the road’ alone wanting no living company. I checked out the gravesites at Trinity in St. Mary’s City and those ‘down the road’ at St. Michaels; buried Dad’s old Ronson lighter in the Judge’s chamber and planted tulip bulbs a few feet away in the recently turned soil of her grave. I drove down to Point Lookout before going to the house. The Point’s too changed to care much anymore but I did; I cared a great deal at the desecrations of what had been the best memories of a childhood not very blessed. We’ve ne’er been folk to lay our resentments down easily. There are fewer and fewer now who remember the white, clapboard, naval hotel, three stories high, with its long pier, jutting out over the Potomac, and the small surrounding community of cottages; all bulldozed decades ago making way for black, asphalt, parking lots and sandy, stucco, bathhouses. It was then they seized the Judge’s land in the name of a state, we knew more about what parts were wise to waist or waist not. We still do. Those publican funded outhouses erected in the name of progress were locked that day against the coming winter, their graffiti covered, fleck painted walls, hissing defiantly back at the pushing winds. It was fittingly chilly even at high noon on that early November day. Anger was a warm salve for cold, wounded memory. I climbed up into the van, said my goodbye to the ghost made redundant, and headed ‘up the road’ and over the causeway at a speed I remembered Cotton would have dared and took that curve for a last time and held the road, with a rebel yell; eight cylinders and gas at three dollars a gallon! Go to Hell! Ten minutes later I was to the monument for the confederate dead who died in the prison camp that had existed and vanished just ‘down the road’ at the Point long before all that I had just conjured to recollect was built up and then torn down in its turn. History has ne’re respected man-made changes to geography. I’ve read those bronzed names for so many decades now in search of some connection, just for the sake of community, but to no avail. They are planted in a garden too far from home left to our responsibility. The family homestead this last century lies just across the road, and it is to there I now hesitantly turned to tread with a unfamiliar fear for the future; to the old, one room, Victorian school-house added on and onto, one room at a time, until it had become a nursing home floating on cinder blocks settling into sandy soil; shaky pinions but firmly planted with the conviction of an intention to stay. That stay had now come also, in its turn, to an inevitable end finished with the sign marked ‘sold’ at the end of the drive. Surprisingly the door was locked. We had ne’er locked doors. I broke a window pane and entered through that kitchen that held such a cauldron of stirring recollections of family matters played out to an audience of colored women cooking on black and white enamel stoves under Miss Sophie’s supervision, her manner intimidating everyone. Even my formidable grandmother was temperate in her own kitchen. I won’t dwell on the food; paradise lost. I took a sad last tour, through the bedroom where I remembered Mary Allen brushing my Granny’s hair, unbraided to the floor, and on through to that bedroom where Dad crossed “over the river to rest under the shade of the trees”. All the rooms had something to say but in the end it was all goodbyes. The grounds, mercifully, were much changed. The sty was gone, the ghost broken up for it’s cypress, the chicken houses long ago torn down. I ne’er did know what happened to Dad’s beehives that he started and tended in the cancerous months leading up to his death. Her garden was there, though, so recently tended and already so quickly grown over. That’s why I planted the tulips for her in anticipation of next spring. My aunt always looked forward and ne’er back. I must try even now past that halfway buoy to master this. It was done. None of the children cared enough and in truth it was not practical. All of us through the years laid down roots too far away to stay. It was agreed upon. It was done. All including me were ‘up the road’ and too far away. It was done and gone so quickly. Who wrote, “haste makes waist”? I drove the length of the drive and stopped at its end before turning to go ‘up the road’. Stepping down out the van I scooped up a handful of soil and ‘Little Butch’- ‘Ed, Junior’ put this in his dungaree pocket, the left backhand pocket reserved in any pants since childhood for such treasures. I have no idea what I will do with this rich and loamy soil, but it is a physical memento of a family’s ups and downs, it aspirations and disappointments, its happiest and saddest moments. It holds memories and secrets that will forever go untold. Just canvas the ghosts of the many dead, naval veterans who still haunt these acres, or if you dare ask Cotton’s spirit back ‘down the road’ at the causeway curve he finally failed to turn on two wheels, or try to pry from me all I know. No, it is done. It is that side of history that is lost with every goodbye. And so I climbed back up into my fittingly, white van, made that last turn, and I drove and drove, ‘up the road’, ‘up the road’, ‘up the road’… forever from Point Lookout with a heart as heavy as a sink-box decoy. © 2007 by E.D. Ridgell ___________________________________________________________ In Search of Great Grandfather Dize A scholarly sojourn down pedestrian aisles, bordered with slight variations in form and style, and there it is, one more cold marble slab chiseled with data and dates, shadowed recesses, of a hot Maryland sun. Under this stood, a lovingly laid out playground of little plastic toys in blanched colors that would not decay or rot. Between the neatly combed rows of yellow daffodils stood the many memories, mementoes beginning with a blue airplane, bordering a purple dinosaur, and in a second row a brown pony, and a pirate’s dagger to pierce the heart. A little imagination conjures him up to play again, his fair, sandy hair, now resting below in the dark, unbleached by the Somerset sun. Death presents the living with unwanted tests, whims of the fickle fates; doling out check-offs until in the end all are passed. Stooping to close a last token left open, the little toy treasure chest filled with tiny seashells collected after the recent bay storm, I continue on my quest with a heavy and hesitant step, In search of great, grandfather Dize. © 2007 by E.D. Ridgell ________________________________________________