Mountain Muses
by Marge Fulton
Tidbits
All There Is
A Wedgwood blue sky
Trio of boys riding bikes
Palm Sunday perfect.
by Marge
Watermark In the deep mornings and far-flung afternoons, I search for meaning. Titles change with each entry; each viable outpouring. The unthinkable has happened; I have declared myself an artist. Vonnegut and others did much the same way; writing and painting like one big omelet. At dawn, the imprint of every image is plastered across my face. There is a watermark and no one could ever duplicate these fragile sounds and ruins. A rainbow on my palette; a moonbow between the lines. The latitudes and longitudes of Appalachia become my cocoon, my attitude, my art.
Dark Secrets
He wears patchouli oil and if he got lost
At the Super Bowl maybe I could find him
Blindfolded because of it.
Patchouli can cure
Snakebite, bad breath and is an aphrodisiac.
He is powerful as Manchurian licorice whose
extracts are used to flavor tobacco, beer and soft
drinks. In traditional Chinese medicine
it is associated with longevity. Maybe if we eat
enough black jelly beans,
we can live forever.
Book Reviews
by Marge Fulton
Blindness
International Bestseller by Jose Saramago
Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for Literature
In our era of conflict and chaos, stories about calamity seem to come home. We can relate to misery. The international bestseller, Blindness, takes us into a time and place of sheer destitution, during an epidemic called “white blindness”.
The Strangers
“Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are,” said the doctor. In this narrative, we enter the lives of not only the doctor and his wife but a car thief, a girl with dark glasses, a boy and others. All but one fall victim to the epidemic.
The Commitment
One by one those affected are quarantined to an abandoned mental institution. The newbies are isolated on one side of the gothic prison. Between callous guards who shoot on sight any who wander outside the perimeter to ill-tempered male residents who steal food and demand sex for payment, this tale is full of woe. As conditions worsen, one resident gathers courage. Her efforts are a light in the darkness. They have been committed but she is committed to finding freedom.
Release
Jose Saramago’s language is rich and names are not important here. Character is what counts. The plight of this situational family winds its way through filth and fear to find home. As they expect, home is comforting but altered. The scene where the women strip down to shower in the rain is a spiritual cleansing. Highs and lows are frequent, such as the time the doctor’s wife spies him having sex with the girl with dark glasses. Her acceptance of his behavior is inspirational. She is the rock.
The outcome of this book is inspirational as well but leaves the reader with a handful of questions. Metaphors abound in this fantasy that views mankind in a harsh but rousing light. If this is seeing things as they really are, humanity is part phantasm and part angel.
ISBN#
978-0-15-603558-3
Harcourt, Inc.
Copyright 1995
Self-Rising Friends ask me to bring cornbread And my husband says he married Me for no less. Buttermilk is the key And a pinch of soda. Mine smiles like a mouthful of golden teeth And like poetry, it fills the emptiness. Round and hot as the sun, Cornbread is essential. Pops out of the pan Easy as my children were born. These are my gifts. Look for self Rising.
This poem is from a collection of the same name. The collection was a semi-finalist in Black Lawrence Press' 2007 Chapbook contest.
Surface Mining as Grief
Passed half a dozen strip jobs on the way as I made
a mental list of what to buy at the Mennonite Grocery.
I have numbered the days since you died. Mountains
have vanished. One month ago today, you slipped away.
And like someone whose small child is kidnapped, I hold out hope,wishing for a phone call to say you are safe, in a truck
stop in Montana. Ransom in hand, ready to make the drop.
I want you back. And no, I am not trying to capitalize on this
by writing and hugging your things. Yes, your life does give
me a lot of material to work with. This county is a wasteland,
in parts. I may need a hard hat to survive this grief. Picking
through final moments. Piling up old letters and recipes. Outlook
black as the faces of those miners you run into outside Hardees.
You are the precious mineral in me. Poetry comes out like slate. Mounds and mounds of it, not useless, just extra.
Mom, your passing has leveled me. This process is like that,
and I am torn, weak; a rubble that some say takes years
to smooth out. But I shall be reclaimed, replanted with sage
and the elk will bugle just out of sight. Outside the Mennonite store, for once I can relate to surface mining and see mourning
driving the biggest rock truck, taking a break for lunch. Grief
has a job to do; excavating, turning mountains into water parks.
Trains May Talk of Such Things
Whether trains have thoughts, I cannot say.
They have yowls strong as twisters gone mad.
Each like a choir on fire. Akin to a man’s resolve.
I heard the echoes volley. Rocks on top of rocks.
Whistles wide as they are long in a gritty song.
It cuts through mountain fog, kudzu, and me.
Cars bulging with coal, each firm as buffalo.
I heard the echoes volley. Wail on top of wail.
Over and over and over again, simple as crows.
They have bellies full of promise. Ripped from
Their mother’s arms. Each howls like a harmonica.
I heard the echoes volley. Days on top of days.
It is a dirge perhaps. For the men and the women
Left wanting. For the waters that go silent in spring
Where elk graze upon the backs of a land reclaimed.
I heard the echoes volley. Nights on top of nights.
(Pegasus, Summer 2008.)
Appalachian Nation
asking questions about the Appalachia half hidden.
At what appeared to be a dead end her father stood
beside a bony white horse. Because there was no
road that far. Her hair was a mess of tangles like that
horse’s tail. On the way back, we stopped at another
where the littlest one carried a plump black puppy
from the coal bin to the bus for us to see. The child’s
face awash in black. I told the driver what a perfect
picture that would make and he told me this like it
was gospel, “You must never take their pictures.”
Side by side we are this place of fixers, breakers and
imported people like me and the tiny dots on a hill.
All are Appalachia. Both are who we are becoming.
I see eyes deep as boarded up old mines, nearly
forgotten. Here are my pictures. Plain as table salt
