Poetry of the People with Kimberly Simms Gibbs

This week's Poet of the People is Kimberly Simms Gibbs. She is South Carolina upcountry poetry. She sees with an eye of southern cornbread sopped in pork drippings gravy. If you want to feel the Carolina hills and mountains read Kimberly Simms Gibbs.

Kimberly's literary voice is rooted in the Southern tradition of storytelling. Her passion for poetry from both the page to the stage has led Kimberly to garner titles such as former Carl Sandburg NHS Writer-in-residence, National Poetry Slam ‘Legend of the South’, TedX speaker, co-founder of CarolinaPoets, former Southern Fried Poetry Slam Champion, and award-winning teaching artist. In her first full-length collection from Finishing Line Press, Lindy Lee: Songs on Mill Hill, Kimberly chronicles the lives of textile workers in the Carolinas with historical accuracy and imaginative insight. Ron Rash, the award-winning author of Serena, says about Kimberly: "she writes with eloquence and empathy about an important part of Southern history - too often neglected."

                                  Trespassing after the Hysterectomy 

The Lily-of-the-Valley 

           pearly bells tremble 

            the way a child’s mouth brims 

                                   with laughter. 

Daffodils 

          headless green arms gesture 

          split-hearts subterranean 

                                leaves blackened. 

Mole, 

          how sweet is your tongue 

           after your feast of bitter 

                                 tulip daughters? 

Dark earth, 

           how do you embrace the emptiness 

            of your bloomless womb 

                                  your crumbling tubers? 

Lady Slipper, 

           my gloved hands long to plant 

            while your tendrils more exotic 

            unfurl sharp leaves, pregnant blossom 

                                   beneath the last living hemlock.  

                                                  Homestead 

                                 But nothing is solid and permanent. 

                       Our lives are raised on the shakiest foundations. 

                                   – Ron Rash, One Foot in Eden 

A bolt of barbed wire, black with age,

hints the way, jutting from the undergrowth 

like a wizened digit— the post long since decayed 

and lost to the crumbling host of litter. 

This sunken corner is a garbled message 

till we catch a tree pierced with another barb. 

A stone pile murmurs, entangled with the metal. 

This forest expands in every direction. 

Our eyes can see no horizon beyond it. 

Mountains surge as we weave 

up and down valleys, creeks, and ravines. 

Eighty years: a forest has fallen and regrown. 

Homestead cleared, tilled, planted, harvested 

then reclaimed by this hummocked beast. 

We follow the ancient line back to a single 

hearthstone and the outline of a foundation. 

A toppled stone wall, a brown bottle. 

All around us: a forgotten fence, an outpost of the past.

Wild Green Soup

          Newberry Cotton Mill Village

           South Carolina 1924  

Fingers of frost stretch across the windows.

Seasoned wood crackles in the wood stove

while I stir the last salty pork knuckle

with a handful of beans, wild greens

into a stock pot just off the boil.

Fall's harvest now a collection of empty jars;

the cupboards breath -- dust, dead moths.

Each stir is more a wish as the day considers

getting warm, sweet herbs summon cravings.

Morning casts its pink sap over frost-risen clay

as I shepherd this thinly-feathered brood

towards the cotton-strewn spinning room.

Today we will piece broken strings, weave

cotton scraps to make them something whole.

Liddy Lee Songs on Mill Hill (Finishing Line Press, 2017)

       Machine Tool Salesman

Bill run that grinder fo ten years

Machine bigger than a brown bear

in Manny's stretched machine shop

in the flats of South Carolina.

The metallic cold milled slack snow

big sloppy flakes. The guys put on

their coats and stuck out their tongues

for the rare southern crystals.

Scraping together snowball heaps,

they watched the yard go dark and drank

black coffee. They stomped their feet

and left their coats on cause the shop

was so cold. That year so metallic.

That's how it happened, the coat.

Bill knew better, but ten years

you get so easy. The machine caught

him-- metal grinding machine --instant.

I sold them that grindernew.

Just horrible, he had two little babies too.

Took a week to get him out of the wheel

but it still ran. Can't keep a machine

something like that happens. I sold

it down the coast. Just horrible, two little

babies too and that year so metallic cold.

                                                     Summer Swagger

Late August, we are still free summer children.

We run over the rocky banks laughing in some

chase game; muscles flex, tense, stretch, climb

the steep --- dig fingers into cracks, wrench ourselves up.

Mountain expanse of water calls to us. My skin

tingles with nervousness as I look down thirty feet.

"Take my hand," you tender, "We'll jump together."

Wind races around my feet! We send out seagull wails,

steal breath for the plunge. My body is a scream!

Down, down forever in bubbles, then buoyant, silent,

We are carp pulling ourselves up through the water.

We burst back into heat, hollowing out triumphant bellows.

Poetry of the People with Amy Drennan

This week's Poet of the People is Amy Drennan. To meet Amy is to walk into bright sunshine. She is Charleston's house mother of lost poets. She is a gifted writer and poet who feeds and houses poets who need a safe place to land and sacrifices her opportunity to shine to promote others. She is a gift and a treasure and my friend.

Amy Drennan was born and raised in Los Angeles CA. As a reluctant military spouse, she’s lived all over the states, and now calls Charleston SC, her permanent home. She is an advertising executive, an above-average wife, and mom to several exceptional humans, a scraggly dog, and anyone who finds themselves in need of some love. She enjoys writing, as her Irish heritage has rendered her impervious to traditional forms of therapy.

If You’d Tried 

It’s ok.

I’m a bit much.

Not everyone likes a woman

with a gap in her teeth

who cries

a lot.

Some can’t handle a bunch of words,

being fed all the time.

Some prefer hungry.

I’d just tell you

you’re beautiful every day.

You wouldn’t want to hear it,

couldn’t bear it,

already know and don’t need it.

Maybe you don’t have needs.

You may not like your name

when I say it.

I’ve whispered your name

into a few mouths.

Some don’t care for whispering.

Some don’t like their mouths.

There’s peach fuzz

at the base of my back.

It’s ok to dislike peaches

and my back.

The way I’d curl it into you.

The way I’d arch it in your honor.

Some prefer the front,

like to see what they’re dealing with.

I’d love you so softly,

so loudly,

you’d be sick of it by now.

Maybe heat isn’t your thing.

You’ve been burned,

had your fingertips singed off.

You don’t touch anything warm now,

you promised.

I have freckles on my freckles.

Maybe you don’t like freckles.

Maybe you’d learn to love them.

I’d have shaved my legs for you,

if you’d told me you were coming.

Do you like women in bathtubs?

What if they stay there

till sunrise,

writing and not sleeping,

writing about not sleeping?

Would you like to not sleep with me?

You wrote your number for me

on a notepad, a matchbook,

the back of my hand.

I didn’t keep it, it kept me.

I’m calling you from up North,

down South,

out East.

Somewhere you’ve never been,

have always wanted to go.

You might think I’m a firefly, a star,

Christmas lights in June.

From this distance there’s no telling.

We could be night sky.

Two blinks to navigate by.

Point A and point me.

The shortest distance between us,

a wish.

We could’ve found each other

if you’d tried.

 Kissing a man without lips

Last night I dreamt a tiny tooth

broken on your boyhood gums

sunk into the flesh

of my cellulite thigh,

my stretch marked hip,

my salt lick neck,

my all I have is yours,

if you’d like it.

The first time you planted in me

up came everything hardy,

hungry,

difficult to kill.

It’s peach season in the south.

You can travel there

without leaving the West.

You can wipe sticky sweet

from your chin,

eat till your belly hurts,

till Summer is an abomination.

I am a fire you set.

A sun plucked from its sky,

made brighter for shining

in dark places.

My memory is thick and unforgiving,

but yesterday you is forgotten.

I can’t recall you before you now.

Punch drink me,

and you a punch pourer.

A lover of your own reflection.

I make an awfully good mirror.

 What I will tell your daughter

who is old enough to ask

Your dad was maddening

and he was loved

He held his ear

to a glass

held the glass

to my chest

he listened

he listened harder than anyone

He heard pins drop

secrets spill

belly aches and butterflies

He heard pieces break

the push-pull

of stitching back together

He washed my hair once

I didn’t ask

but he heard me

always listening

He had the softest spots

the brokenest bits

he thought himself ugly

but he cried like music

when he cried

he was the bluest

most beautiful boy

 Not sorry

You are sorry not sorry

‘bout the fire you’ve become.

By the time you read this,

I’ll have flown the coop.

By the time you see this,

I’ll be blue eye disappeared.

I loved more

than either wing,

gave up flight for you,

stopped singing.

Each leaf I know

has turned color

and dropped.

Every leave I know

has left.

I’ve gone gone before.

Old news,

fresh ink,

ablaze in the end.

I wove you a bed

you’d never need,

stepped lightly over,

apologized never.

Don’t deliver the news of our deaths

Repeat after me.

We are ok.

It’s all ok.

We can breathe

don’t need to breathe

to be here. 

We don’t die,

we make room.

We are enough light

to fill a teacup,

a sky,

a memory full of here

and gone again.

Bushels of babies are born

while grievers grieve.

If we hold our ears

to them,

lay hands,

we can hear the whole ocean,

feel what made way.

We wish us

Hallelujah

each time we walk

through a door.

We wish us

a soft touch

a gentle goodbye

when it’s time.