Poetry Forum

Done been fucked out the home
of ma forebears—got ma rights
straight stripped off’n me. Yup,
done got the sho’t end of the
stick an’ no one gives half a shit
less’en mebbe me.

Guess ma lines ain’t long enough,
writ nor blood nor t’other wise. Mebbe,
cause I come from the plains
not them bogs, mebbe cause half
a ma soul done scalped the other half
and sent it home with his brains
hanging out—been way back when, long
way back when.

Wahl, mama done got fucked by
them Anglo-Sexists, but least they lent
mama some seed afore leavin’, way back
when, long way back when.

Got no rocks in ma mouth, ner in
the fields I work, but they come from
somewheres—jus’ as sho as I’s born—from
across an’ upward, I reckon,
for to smack me ‘cross the skull
an’ addle me proper—right an’ twitchin’.

I’s just fertilizer—when
ma blood an’ bone an’ body be
gone but the fuckin’ rocks’re
still here. Sho’ as a hog sits in
shit—I been fucked by the trunk a
ma family tree.

at the risk of sounding like a thick brit, what dialect is this written in? and this is probably not relevant but as an actor im interested in poets who write in different voices - is this your voice? either way the character comes across really strongly...

Desi,

It's not my voice, rather the voice of someone say, like my father, from the Mountains of Georgia or the Carolinas. Its meant to be a very southern, almost negro, voice.

...and thick Brit you certainly are not.

--A.S.

Yeh,

I think you did a grand job, I thought of Rednecks so I wasn't far off.

well played.

and a Redneck I am to be sure! any remnant or variation from my original intent could easily be grouped into the hick category, since that was indeed my second language. Good ear!