Bleacher Trash
-WHITE ONLY-
Tell a tale, Thaleia, of a boy, his mother, and an ancient.
A summer of baseball, insight, love, and laughter among people long since boarded the Punt of Fierce Brightness to cross Acheron.
-Seated fondly in the bleachers of the boy’s heart-
the evanescence
of a lifetimes importance
a bunted foul ball
The summer was hot and humid. The boy and his mother were reading the ancients epic poem. And accounting for concession sales for the Danville Leafs, a New York Giants baseball farm team. His mother managed the vendors and counter workers
he filled their containers with drinks, popcorn, and snacks to
sell cheering fans eager to taste the coolness of the game.
mother existing
in a memory sweetly
a soulful recall
“Need Dranks here,” Billy cried out, “more Nee-Highs this time the bleacher trash seem to be thirsty for them tonight.”
Billy and Jessie were mill-hands by day vendors by night selling cold drinks and snacks in the –white-only- bleachers, filled with working-class folks, mill hands, farmers and their families; living without a second thought, for the most part, a Jim Crow way of life collapsing under age and exhaustion.
the world struggles to
awaken from enthralment
a hanging curveball
-
Author:
Jerry Reynolds (
Offline) - Published: July 28th, 2021 07:43
- Category: Short story
- Views: 35
- Users favorite of this poem: L. B. Mek
Offline)
Comments5
Initially i read this enthralling piece not knowing what a haibun or a bleacher were. Google clarified for me. Reading again i really like the way you have put this together and it's story line.
Thanks, Dusk.
I really appreciate you taking the time to look. I wrote the poem for my baby sister, a student of Greek myth, who wanted me to write something about growing up in the 1950s in the south.
you are a clever so and so ..
Haibuns are as rare as rocking horse poo around these parts ..
I have always enjoyed the mix of prose n haiku and the way they often interrelate ... yours is a great example sir .... 🙂
Thanks, Neville.
Glad you enjoyed it.
'a Jim Crow way of life: collapsing'..
and buried away, it shall forever stay!
hopefully...
'let us all endeavour, to turn History's
Ugly
into Poetry's: transcendent beauty'...
('Jim Crow was more
than a series of rigid anti-black laws.
It was a way of life. Under Jim Crow')
from: Jim Crow Museum*
(a poignant read Jerry
and such a vivid scene;
you know you've executed
your depiction, well
when we all, walk away
with a bad taste, lingering - within us
all fckng Day!)
Thanks, L.B.
I appreciate your in-depth commentary.
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