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    White Trash & Southern
    White Trash & Southern
    White Trash & Southern
    Ebook331 pages1 hour

    White Trash & Southern

    By C.S. Fuqua

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    About this ebook

    From the print edition's cover: "Poetry in this data-saturated age is not, for most, a viable way to make a living. So why expend the time and energy to create something that few people will read and even fewer will purchase? To which I must ask, why do people sing in the rain, paint pictures, dance? Because it provides pleasure and reward and perhaps even keeps them sane. As a writer of fiction and nonfiction, I am most concerned with story. When I write poetry, I view it not as some lofty literary tool to fool or condescend, but as an exercise in crafting story within the strictest confines. White Trash & Southern is a collection of such exercises, spanning nearly three decades. To create a complex story within a limited number of words—to communicate far more than appears on the page—is a challenge that can provide enormous reward and satisfaction. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I don't. But at least I remain sane. Sort of."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherC.S. Fuqua
    Release dateMar 17, 2023
    ISBN9798215392003
    White Trash & Southern
    Author

    C.S. Fuqua

    C.S. Fuqua specializes in DF/SF/H and literary fiction, music-related nonfiction, and Native American flute, world jazz, new age, and Americana music. His published books include Fatherhood ~ Poems of Parenthood, Big Daddy's Fast-Past Gadget, Native American Flute ~ A Comprehensive Guide, Muscle Shoals ~ The Hit Capital's Heyday & Beyond, and White Trash & Southern ~ Collected Poems, among others. His work has appeared widely in publications as diverse as The Christian Science Monitor, Naval History, Main Street Rag, and Year's Best Horror Stories. Please visit his websites at http://csfuqua.com and http://csfuqua.bandcamp.com.

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      Book preview

      White Trash & Southern - C.S. Fuqua

      From the Print Edition’s Cover

      ...An unflinching examination of the sorrows and joys we experience while moving through the world... ~Dr. Wendy Galgan, Editor, Assisi

      Poetry in this data-saturated age is not, for most, a viable way to make a living. So why expend the time and energy to create something that few people will read and even fewer will purchase? To which I must ask, why do people sing in the rain, paint pictures, dance? Because it provides pleasure and reward and perhaps even keeps them sane. As a writer of fiction and nonfiction, I am most concerned with story. When I write poetry, I view it not as some lofty literary tool to fool or condescend, but as an exercise in crafting story within the strictest confines. White Trash & Southern is a collection of such exercises, spanning nearly three decades. To create a complex story within a limited number of words—to communicate far more than appears on the page—is a challenge that can provide enormous reward and satisfaction. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I don't. But at least I remain sane. Sort of.

      ~C.S. Fuqua

       Contents

      Acknowledgements

      Those Days Are Gone Forever

      Studebaker 

      Holes 

      1963 

      Trusting B.J. 

      For Cathy, Growing 

      Churning 

      The Following Days 

      Hidden Inside 

      Home Movies 

      At 12 

      Hunchback 

      Last Date 

      Lunch 

      Waves 

      The Calm 

      Suicide 

      Night Beats 

      Another Parental Death 

      Rocks 

      Smoke 

      The Accident 

      Monroe 

      Parent Child 

      Penny

      Becoming

      Third Generation

      Bass

      At 16

      Familiarity

      Celluloid

      Fort Morgan

      Part of Her

      Sand

      Old Games

      Tell Me

      Tiddlywinks with Satan

      at the point of too far

      My Father’s House

      Carnalities

      Making Ants Pop

      A Question of Balance

      Bruised

      One Last Caress

      Carmel

      Currents Scattering

      Darts

      Living Room Fire

      Fumble into Fancy

      The Oddest Moments

      In the End

      Late Night

      Monkey See

      Wasn’t That a Party?

      Quittin’ Time

      Saturday

      Sinking

      Slow Fans

      Debating the Problem of Simple Sores

      The Path

      Under Sheets

      This Woman

      Coupled

      Words

      Ashes

      Local Love

      Catch Phrase

      Crow

      Afterbirth

      Diamond

      Mother’s Lover

      Encounters

      Enough

      Accounting

      Kiss Me Onward

      Mortality

      Seconds

      One Thought

      A Quarter Invested

      Old Reliable

      Setting, Rising

      Private Tables

      Take My Hand, Take My Hand

      The Beat

      Becoming

      In what dimension do memories await rebirth and rebirth and rebirth?

      Relativity

      Air

      If Only a Moment

      Business

      At 30

      Brother and Sister

      Buzzard

      Counting Change

      The Bayou at Your Back Door

      Bottom of the Glass

      To Give a Child Choice

      Father’s Day

      The Iron Bed

      Last Rite

      Machine

      The March

      Mattresses

      Seeking Middle Ground

      Your Funeral

      Waiting for the Old Man

      Recycling

      Screening

      Last Rite Revisited

      Severed

      Stats

      The First Stroke

      The Second Stroke

      The Third Stroke

      And the Wife

      Thomas

      Time Rings

      Unk

      Worms

      Driving With James

      Pennies

      Acquainted

      Anyone

      Johnny

      And Music for Jeff

      For Angie, Waving

      The Kid at Dusk

      shutterwinks

      The Waiting Room

      Charlie, Passing

      Cheerleading

      Émeute

      Webs

      His Bed

      Jennifer

      All Part of It

      Connecting Lots

      Mainstream

      No Good Thing

      Moving

      When a Neighbor Dies

      The Park at One

      Quake

      On Reading Émeute to the College Girl

      Reconnecting

      Running

      Soul

      Stranger, We’ve Changed the War

      John

      The Mark

      Slices

      Slices, Too

      Surface Tension

      Rosé Tinted Glasses

      Another Drunk

      Waiting for the Post

      Spare Change

      Under the Banyan

      Beach

      My cat

      Closets

      A Dime’s Worth

      At this Distance

      Enemies

      When Hawaiian Girls are Grinning

      Holidays

      Hurricane

      As I Imagined

      The Immigrant

      Immortality

      Kimono

      Light

      The medic

      Metallic Wisdom

      Mistakes

      Music

      New Orleans TV, 2005

      For the New Order

      Under a North Wind

      Old Cat

      Leon, Passing

      Fritz

      One of a Kind

      Against the Palm

      Parting

      Pensacola Beach

      Playground boy

      Possum Eyes

      Ready?

      Relics

      Someone Said Words are Useless

      Scrap from an Old Notebook

      Self-Portrait

      September

      Shakes

      Simplicity

      Parked

      Deep Space

      Squoze

      Survival

      The Bird

      The Test

      Holiday Traffic

      Transplant

      Turtle Lawn

      The Vapor King

      Worth

      Neighborhood Watch

      Yard Sale

      Flight

      Desire

      Lump

      Taxed

      Dementia

      Of Mortal Creation

      Atalanta’s Legacy

      Burial Ground

      In Shadows, They Cry

      Armageddon Sky

      The Minotaur’s Last Meal

      Astral Dance

      Trilogy in Stone

      Incarnations

      Apologies

      Amen

      Journey

      Predator

      Make-Believe

      Religion

      Was, Is

      Key of G

      Flesh and Blood

      Coda

      For a Moment, I Shall

      Beauty

      Autumn Grove

      Strains

      Postal

      Leaves

      The Odor of Dust

      Ringing Out the Old

      Melodies

      Sea Roar

      I Was Young

      He Said Wishes are as Good as Prayers, but His Friend has Walked a Thousand Dreams

      Acknowledgements

      Grateful acknowledgement to the following publications where the majority of these poems first appeared: Abbey, Amelia, The Archer, The Armchair Aesthete, The Autumn Sound, Blank Gun Silencer, Backspace, The Blind Man'S Rainbow, The Blotter, Blue Light Review, Bogg, Bottomfish, CaKe, A Journal OF Poetry & Art, Cellar Roots, Chili Verde Review, Chiron Review, Chopper Journal, Chrysalis, Coal City Review, Cokefish, Conceit Magazine, Confetti, A Contemporary American Survey: The Unitarian-Universalist Poets, The Contemporary Review, Cube Literary Magazine, Curbside Review, Daring Poetry Quarterly, Devil Blossoms, Doggerel, Draconian Measures, Edgz, Elk River Review, Empirical Magazine, Erete's Bloom, Fauquier Poetry Journal, Fennel Stalk, Gertrude, The Green Muse, Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, The Higginsville Reader, Hunger Magazine, Illuminations, Impetus, In Concert, Inky Blue, Iodine, James River Review,  Just West of Athens, Lactuca, Late Knocking, Leapings, Lime Green Bulldozers, Main Channel Voices, Main Street Rag, Metropolis, Miller's Pond, Mind in Motion, Minnesota Ink, Mobius, The Muse, Oak Square, Oasis, Odin's Eye, Omnific, Onionhead Literary Quarterly, Oxygen, Paisley Moon, The Paper Salad Poetry Journal, Pearl, Piedmont Literary Review, Pinehurst Journal, Poet Magazine, Poetic Voices, Poetry Forum, The Poetry Peddler, The Pointed Circle, Powhatan Review, Protea Poetry Journal, Proof Rock, Raw Bone, RE:AL, The Journal of Liberal Arts, Red Dancefloor, River King, River Poets Journal, samizdada, The Screech Owl, Seedhouse, Sierra Nevada College Review, Sisyphus, Slipstream, Snow Monkey, Spirits, Stuff, SubtleTea, Sulphur River Literary Review, Thirteen Poetry Magazine, Thorny Locust, Tipton Poetry Journal, Tight, Tripwire, The Triskelion, Twisted, U.S. 1 Worksheets, Up Against The Wall Mother, The Vein Literary Magazine, Veil, Vice Versa, The Village Idiot, Wilderness House Review, Williwaw, and Zuzu's Petals Quarterly.

      Many thanks to Rick Kennett of Cooperative Ink for his editorial assistance.

      I am indebted to all who contributed through experience or assistance, by design or accident. Rick asked if the poems within are autobiographical. Yes. No. All of the poems evolved out of experience, but that doesn’t mean the events in the poems transpired as detailed. Some did. Some didn’t. Some sort of. Many of the ideas came from other people. Some poems are simple exercises of placing myself in other people’s situations. An idea has a way of becoming more on the page, transforming into something completely different from the original inspiration and intent. Don’t believe anything you read. Believe everything.

      Thank you, Bonnie and Tegan. Who could ask for more...?

      Finally, I am deeply grateful to you, the reader, for buying this book. I hope you find some part of it worthwhile and entertaining.                                             .

      Those days are gone forever

      Studebaker

      There, next to the polished Mercedes,

      the yellow Studebaker,

      rust holes in the fender walls,

      paint-chipped hood,

      worn seats—nothing like

      the old man’s.

      He kept his sparkling, let me tell you,

      just like the Model T before,

      and the Thunderbird, the ’56 Chevy,

      and the entire freeway of cars

      that sped through my youth,

      but none was so striking

      as that hand-buffed Studebaker

      with its white walls,

      its custom steering wheel,

      its immaculate seats,

      and that night,

      coming back from Andalusia

      when they thought I was asleep

      in the back,

      and he reached over,

      grabbed her hair,

      jerked her hard enough

      to spin her head to the side.

      I found two spots of dried blood

      the following day,

      and I remembered how the moon

      had hung in the rear window

      just below a cluster of stars

      as he muttered, Christ,

      why’d you make me do that?

      And she had rested her head

      back against that perfect seat

      as the hum of new tires on asphalt

      rose through the floorboard.

      Holes

      It remains a hole, nothing

      more than a description

      of a few moments,

      thirty years after the fact.

      The music’s twang led him

      into the doorway. His father

      changed shirts, shaved,

      slapped on cologne.

      His mother demanded answers.

      The record skipped as the boy flattened,

      his mother and father passing him as though he was

      part of the wall. An ashtray shattered through

      the front window, and the boy cupped his hands

      over his ears, forcing screams into hollow echoes.

      He is no fool, this boy, this man.

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