LAVERN SPENCER MCCARTHY

 

Looking At

My Brother's Photograph

 

I was washing dishes the day

my brother was slapped into the army.

Smirking and bold, loaded with

eighteen years of belligerence,

he was lounging at the kitchen table

bad-mouthing my uncle, not there to defend

his treacherous ways.

 

Mother, always handy with water-blistered knuckles,

knocked Harold all the way

to the recruiter's office.

Afterward, a Greyhound bus

propelled his furious momentum

toward boot camp.

 

He returned two years later

body-bagged and silent, all rebellion

lost in a rice paddy somewhere in Viet Nam.

Mother cried, but I stood at his coffin

angrily plucking petals

from his spray of long-stemmed roses,

wondering how he came to be dead

from a single slap.

 

Great Grandpa

 

Great Grandpa lay in his coffin,

a grotesque smile on his face

that the funeral workers

could not remove.

 

Little granddaughter Susie swore

she would not bolt and run screaming

when she viewed the corpse,

but when he winked at her,

she did.

 

Halloween Night

 

Tonight, the graveyard is a busy place.

The dead arise, to walk around and smile.

The grave is boring--such a tiny space.

They need to stretch their legs and dance awhile.

 

The Dead arise, to walk around and smile.

It's time to greet their friends who dwell nearby.

They need to stretch their legs and dance awhile.

Such efforts are amazing when they try.

 

It's time to greet their friends who dwell nearby.

They long to gossip for a year or more.

Such efforts are amazing when they try.

A croak, then all is silence as before.

 

They long to gossip for a year or more.

There are so many secrets in the ground.

A croak, then all is silence as before.

And then the music starts, an eerie sound.

 

There are so many secrets in the ground.

Who knows what revelations may be told?

And then the music starts, an eerie sound

The dancers waltz until the night grows old..

 

Who knows what revelations may be told?

The grave is boring---such a tiny space.

The dancers waltz until the night grows old.

Tonight, the graveyard is a busy place.

 

LAVERN SPENCER MCCARTHY

 

DORTHY LAVERN SPENCER MCCARTHY'S work has appeared in Writers and Readers Magazine, Meadowlark Reader, Agape Review, Fenechty Publications Anthologies Of Short Stories, From The Shadows, An Anthology Of Short Stories, Visions International, and others. She is a life member of The Poetry Society Of Texas and National Federation of State Poetry Societies, Inc. She resides in Blair Oklahoma where she is currently writing her fifth book of short stories.