Claiborne S. Walsh
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Claiborne Schley Walsh: Native of Mobile, Alabama and resident of Montrose, Alabama.
Author of "101 Ways To Know If You're A Mobilian". Published writer and poet: Red Bluff Review Anthology, Will Work For Peace Anthology, Austin International Poetry Festival Anthology several times; West Florida Literary Review, Bravo, Pensters Anthology and too many others to list
Featured poet: Fuller Museum, Brockton, MA; Eastern Short Art Center, Fairhope, AL; Barnes and Nobles - several states. Café Myth, Washington, D.C..
Particpant by invitation in: Austin International Poetry Festival, Back Door Poets, Pensters, Savannah Georgia Tour, Mississippi State Poetry Society - South Branch, Jackson Mississippi Tour, Boston, Massachusetts Tour.
Featured speaker and workshop coordinator for schools, universities, poetry societies and poetry festivals.
Favorite place to ever give a poetry reading - on the continent of Antarctica.
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On A Good FloraBama Day
Texas two-step with Alabama twang reverbs
"She's a good-hearted woman in
love with a two-timin' man". Creates
stiff smiles on those who consider themselves
arched-eyebrow privileged
as they march in starched linens.
Women with their men in
Ralph Laurens looking, lining up, weaving
through the crowd and leaving
You find yourself wondering, "Have they ever
yelled in fun?" "Stood up and just
laughed out loud and gone for the move?"
"Gotten sand in their Weejuns?
Or worse yet, sand in their "schlitz"?"
Liquor loosened:
younger women,
middle aged women,
older women,
all express joy, suprise, fun,
a flinch of pain
or just plain ol' boredom.
Selma reunion, the boys of '68
unlike, alike
are brought a common table by old bonds
drinkin' bonded.
Makes you wonder, ponder if they ever all
screwed the same ol gal in high school.
But these boys are men now and learned
values imposed on real gentlemen.
Rednecks and movie star lookalikes,
those that were and wannabes,
heads of industry, two-teethed people,
custom threads and wallet chains,
ugly or pretty...all here.
This odd casting call has been netted, met,
compiled and completed.
Each day sees new actors easing into parts
in this old soap.
Everyone makes a move or
has a chance to be a 15 minute star,
whoever you are, you can if you want,
scribble "eat me" or "shit" on a bathroom wall.
Even the yuppies have to urinate here but don't worry
I'm sure they won't read as they lower themselves.
Even the Florida home-boy on bass guitar
never really ever left home but
has his own followers.
Bluegrass fiddler? Hell yeah! And the
crowd goes whiskey wild
Stands, stomps, claps for a little
Kentucky with a touch of Kershaw
Cares gone, left at home.
Reality with it's regular path will come again all too soon.
But here, now:
there is no hurricane
there is no starvation,
no unjust cause,
no other side of the world,
no sadness, no crisis;
only this moment.
Bass player busy being happy what he is,
just a bass player -- that's all.
A lanky, long-haired man caught in the rhythm beam
Across the floor
there are men jockeying to win the lucky sperm game
Some of the women blatantly wave checkered pasts
and cottage cheese thighs
to let them know they want in the race.
Laughter and liquid washed dreams
bullshit and schemes
on a good day.
Gets to the point? The band doesn't matter
'cause it's getting late.....some lookin' to grab
a not-so-steady date.
I lean and tell a girl she looks like a young Angie Dickinson,
suprised that this child even knows who she is.
She's unsure about the compliment but thanks me anyway.
At the FloraBama more bullshit than mullet is tossed today.
The RV Tampa king guffaws as
Santa Monica Boulevard is brought back from '94.
Hell, Son, I was on Santa Monica Boulevard when
the sun came up and it first aired!
Now I'm in L.A. (lower Alabama) and paired on the floor
dancing to it.
But finally, basketball scores mean nothing and no one knows who
won the Kentucky Derby. Lottos are bought, scratch-offs hopes are dashed.
Cashed in for another drink.
These married women have danced and satisfied arcadian psyches.
Those married men have found someone to talk with besides themselves
and their same old stories without compromising anyone's lives.
And looking around
in this room, you realize
tonight some people are gonna get laid.
And looking around
in this room, you know some aren't;
and you and your friends are just glad you ain't.
It all makes no sense
It all makes perfect sense.
Just another day on the beach
at the Alabama-Florida line
As imagined predator or prey and
no matter who thinks they are which
I just don't play
the game
but chill; mellow in the watching.
Carleton Communion - December
Epigram "What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath
of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across
the grass and loses itself in the sunset." -Crowfoot, Native American
warrior and orator (1821-1890)
The top of the lodge's road stands open
and bright despite the early morning mist.
I am alone in the wood trudging carefully to
the blind. Dressed to the max.
Like a small child
in a snowsuit, I feel oafish, clumsy.
Rifle at the ready folded across my chest,
I remember you truly must be prepared for anything;
bear, deer, wild hog.
Trying to sofly step in feet enclosed in thick socks
then crammed in awkward hunting boots and
heavily insulated camouflage clothing,
I hang a left on the leaf strewn road
between these gnarled and wintery woods.
A left at the old, grey wooden shed,
the one with the silent, blue tractor beside it, and
am merely steps away from the "Hilton",
the enclosed, raised, plywood shooting house closest to
the Lodge.
I unsling my rifle, empty the chamber, click on the safety
while with unerring caution carefully clamber up the ladder,
not an easy task in cumbersome clothing.
Once in, I settle onto the un"form"giving, wooden seat and survey
the meadow, the mist, this scene so beautifully
laid out for my eyes' pleasure. It is bone chilling cold
but I don't feel anything but amazed and at peace.
I am learning to listen,
learning the sounds of deer as they approach,
the hogs as they root and grunt. I am learning
to see the deer before they are in the open field.
Some emerge like ghostly apparitions, some rustle
like young schoolgirls walking through a local mall.
Although I am armed and ready, I am really here
not to kill or maim but to suck up and sponge
the energy of a quiet morning in a winter forest.
Three hours pass. I have seen forty-seven doe and yearlings
gamboling in their freedom. Watched the interplay
and politics between them all. Laughed at their antics;
the snort, the stomp like a spoiled child when suspicious.
The wild boar are nowgrazing and
I have nothing against any of these
creatures. They, unknowingly, have been my
entertainment; the objects of fascination
and interest. They have been teachers and I,
their willing student.
The imagined, large racked buck never
manifests. I could have taken the hog,
could have taken any one of a number of doe but
this was an almost holy experience
and I just could not bring myself to mar the
morning's chilled, silent air.
This day, hooved parisoners as well as myself,
all left this magnificent cathedral with a quiet peace.
Sex On A Plate
It's been said there can be no quake without a fault
but I, knowing otherwise, find subduction to a harder crust
meeting strict resistance to create an ascent
beyond those that any vibrating nibs ever recorded.
Richter be damned,
listen closely. You can hear the crepitation.
Yes, like an earth's center, become an
ultimate reactor; move and shift
beneath a dam of rigidity from the pit of hot cinders
bubble as liquid basalt searching,
seeking a completed outlet.
Rise I say!
Rise like Himalayas.
Rise like Andes.
By centimeters I as
North America am tectonically directed
towards Asia once more
Liquifaction starts with movement;
sand and water
under a hardened surface build.
Only then tremors slight
become tremors large, full of aftershock
movements, unstoppable
Somewhere in this world
ice cliffs plummet, raise tides and the
wonder of a new global age tolls grimly.
In an ancient, cold caldera
heat remains near-surface close.
This warming builds as:
oceans grow wider, plates shift and grind,
continents glide closer, mountains
come to cities, rivers change course
by geological consent.
Remembering the cause of true catastrope
lives outside of this planet not in our minds,
the love for creating highest mountains
calls us back to beginnings;
fondness for our known framed by a single moon
until prior to each magnificent, ultimate
eruption and flow,
I know I have finally found the place
all women want to be
