The Remodel

Today Pegman took us to Middle Torch Key, Florida. I had fun researching flora and fauna and bugs. I hope you enjoy the result.

When Roger drug me to Middle Torch I figgered I’d died and gone straight to hell without even sniffin the boundaries of purgatory.
Our slapped-together house on stilts was so far offshore we rowed through a mile of skeeters just to climb a ladder into what served for a kitchen.
Not sayin nothin bout the bedroom.
Screw worms, ants and love bugs that didn’t show love to no one but theirselves tormented me like the devil hisself.

Days brightened when Calusa Injuns showed me a few things.
Best thing? Torchwood.
Roger bout peed his pants laughin when I done told him to use lit-up Torchwood to attract shrimps at night.
Later he claimed he’d conjured the idea hisself. Kept the profits in his raggedy pockets.

So, when he got cut up fightin, I kept the knowledge bout the antibiotic nature of Torchwood to myself.
Yessirree, now I’m redoin the kitchen.

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The People’s Stand

Today Pegman took us to Black Hills, South Dakota. I immediately went to the history part. Hello! Custer. My husband and I visited the site of Custer’s Last Stand several years ago. When one looks over that field of slaughter, it is truly amazing. But Custer’s backstory brings chills. He was one self-centered guy.

 

Call me Lean Bear or Bloody Knife or Dancing Wolf
it does not matter.
My true name is Man Who Killed Custer.
When Yellow Hair came to The People’s land
we guided him through our valleys.
Let him kill our bears.
We did not stop his military band from playing unrecognizable tunes
that broke the silence of our mornings.
No one flinched when his troops leaned across saddles to pick flowers,
tearing the plants from the ground.
Plants needed to feed our women and children in winter.

We should have stopped the telegraph announcing gold was discovered
but The People were unaware of gold’s lure.
The gleaming rock had always been with us. Its glitter meant nothing.
We signed treaties proclaiming our sacred lands would be protected.
Still, men tore up our mountains.

Two years later Yellow Hair returned to make a forest of mistakes.
This time I was ready.

Lake Whatcom Divorce

when we met
you said you would do
anything to get money
in order to take care of me.
you bought me furs, diamonds,
two, no three, trips to paris.

i never asked how you paid.
why would i?
why should i?
i was hopelessly
ecstatically in love.

marriage was never mentioned.
i didn’t reveal
boring, unimpressive tom.
avoided asking if you had a wife
or children.

today, flying high over the lake
you, at last, reveal your secret.

tom, you say, is tired of me.
has paid for everything.
you inform me
the final payment arrived today
then shove me out the door.

 

Lake Whatcom is about a half-mile from my house.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g58350-d2527907-Reviews-Lake_Whatcom-Bellingham_Washington.html

My Mistake

You offered a kaleidoscope of promises strung on a golden thread of words.

Gardens brimming with succulent greens to guarantee comfort on steamy summer nights.
Brightly snapping fires composed of red flames and blue,
blending excitedly with tendrils of crackling yellow.
Fires built strictly to keep me warm while snow floats like pale sapphire feathers
across the grey rock face supporting your cliffside palace.
Madagascan oils, infused with the scent of juniper and colored with tiny flecks of gold.
And women, or men, to massage the oils into my hair and over my skin.

Now, here I sit, captured within a tower built of white-washed stone.
Alone. No way out.
I should be pleased. I have all you offered and more.
The one thing you did not offer and I neglected to request? Freedom.
My mistake, for I thought your heart knew that liberty is what I require above all else.

But We Did See

Well, this is certainly an interesting picture. Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields who chose the photo and to Roger Bultot for submitting it to our Fairy Blog Mother.

We called you Big Stan the Pretzel Man. Not kindly. You didn’t seem to mind. You gifted us salted pretzels slathered with spicy yellow mustard and told stories about your grandma, cotton plantations, the hard times and the easier ones. We kids sat, picking scabs on our knees, gobbling pretzels, wanting to get away while our mother’s voices repeating, “Be polite to Stan” rattled around in our heads.

The day they found you beaten, your cart burned to a pile of twisted metal and exploded glass, we pretended we hadn’t seen anything and slowly drifted away.

Revenge Takes Time

This Saturday, Pegman took us to Great Yarmouth, UK. What a marvelous place. The more I write Pegman stories, the more I want to travel. Thanks to Karen Rawson and J. Hardy for being our writerly tour guides, and to Crispina for suggesting this area.

Millwrights demolished the old windmill, claimin the canvas sails too tattery to catch wind.
They built a new one that accommodates a fancy turbine pump and patent sails.

Lack of wind ain’t the reason they tore down the mill.
We all knows there’s wind a-plenty long the river.

Twas the ghost.

Laugh. I won’t blame you. Some say ghosts don’t exist.
For others, they’re as much a part of everyday life as eatin mutton or patchin a tear in your shift.

Differing reasons brings them people back. Too much love. Not enough. Unimaginable violence. Left-behind wives. Or husbands.
They all gots excuses.

There’s little comfort inside the new mill. The old one sounded with rhythm wrought by the wind.
But I’ll sit here, sewing the rips Patrick McCrory tore in my shift,
biding my time til Patrick’s great-grandson arrives to oil the turbine.

Then he’ll get his come-uppins for the sins of his ancestor.

A Wedding Toast

Today Pegman took us to Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK. Having never heard of it I zipped over to Google and found the HMS Victory and this gazebo. 149-words later I present Cuthbert-the-Cad.

Cuthbert and I were to be wed within this gazebo. Standing tall in my gold-trimmed dress, breathing in a mixture of wax from one-hundred candles and the scent of seawater, I noted him waving his hat from the deck of the HMS Victory. The jingle of the small silver bells hanging above my head turned to a cacophonious clang.

Surprise overwhelmed me, for although he mentioned Lord Nelson readying the ship for war, Cuthbert never broached the subject of joining the Battle of Trafalgar. My fiance was a physician, not a soldier.

Mother cried when I destroyed my dress. Father stormed when I threw my silk slippers into the sea.

I expected to be grateful upon Cuthbert’s return. Unhurt he swaggered down the plank to whisper, “It was I who thought to preserve Nelson’s body in a barrel of brandy.”

“Pour yourself a toast,” I replied before turning away.