Author
Cynthia Parker

 

Abstract

Southern Styles is a select four poems from a larger collection about rural life in the South and the extreme cultural and socioeconomic contrasts that exist in its people.  As a southerner, it is often difficult for me to reconcile these extremes.  Exploring these extremes through poetry has helped me to better understand how the beauty of the South co-exists along with the violence and inequalities.  I use a sparse poetic form – short lines, few words – so that the important images do not get lost in a flood of language.  For me, the socioeconomic and cultural contrasts in the South jar against one another abruptly and this style allows that conflict to be the focus of the poems.   I hope that my poems will help readers view the South as if they are seeing a young African-American woman in tribal garb driving a minivan with a confederate flag bumper sticker – full of amazing contrasts that speak volumes, and perhaps not the same story to every person.

 

Submission

 

I.  Jagged Edge

 

Emerald-green glass,

broken

from the neck of a bottle,

stained with tobacco juice,

edged in red clay –

This is my South.

 

White pillars

line the porch where belles

in bell-shaped dresses

sit

to sip mint-y iced

drinks – struggling not to

 

stain their brow with one drop

of the sweat that runs

like a muddy river down

the broad back

bent

in hard labor.

 

Breaking rocks, digging rows;

Breaking ground, digging graves.

 

Spanish moss and cypress knees

Oversee twisted growth.

 

II.  Drowning

 

Air so heavy it sticks to skin

Like cling wrap as

She peels the sticky

Peaches for dinner.

 

Hard to tell if

That pesky buzz is

Gnat, fly, or blood-sucker;

Singly sweetly in her ear.

 

The wood floor creeks

With the step-slide-step

Of a Southern waltz;

She twirls in her apron.

 

Screen door slams –

Home again; peck on

The cheek. Follow-up with

A slap – laundry’s not done.

Snoring beside her,

Smell of sweat drowns her.

 

III.  Fireflies

 

Evening slowly wraps

Her dusky cloak

On the day.

 

As she descends,

Tiny lights rise,

 

Flashing steadily,

They float skyward.

Children scurry

 

To capture them,

Peeking through chubby fingers

 

Before dropping them

Into clear glass jars,

Tiny holes poked

 

In metal lids to

Let in the night.

 

 

IV.   Pray for Rain

 

No rain –

Dusty, red road coughs

Clay clouds with every

Step, coating everything

That gets in the way.

 

Shoes, jeans, skin, hair –

All with a fine film

Of red powder that

Pleads

For rain –

 

That runs in red rivers

On the road, cutting

Tracks through the dust

Until it slides to the

Ground becoming a

 

Red film that clings

To everything

As the ground shifts

And the dusty dwellers

pray –  Stop.

 

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About the Author

 

Cynthia Parker