Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Fishing in the Creek




The Catch

I used to take a short cane pole
and head out for the creek
where tannin colored water ran
like iced tea over white soft sand.
It pooled in bends or near felled
trees in deep black holes where
fishes hid.

With weight and hook
and wiggling worm
I’d drop my line and watch the
bobbing bobber disappear
when fish would bite
and take their flight to
wrap my line around some
hidden snag.


Dennis Price




Thursday, August 16, 2012




Adrift


I lie adrift in an azure pool
with arms out stretched
in weightlessness
and shut my eyes behind
my shades
and gaze through eyelids
red with blood at
changing patterns light and dark.

The sun bares down
from cloudless sky
gulf breezes slowly
turn me round
and I can feel
my skin turn brown
as afternoon slips into night
and with it every troubling thought
fades on the gentle swells.

Dennis Price

Not a shred of evidence exists in favor of the idea that life is serious.  - Brendan Gill


Monday, August 13, 2012

Hauling Hay




Hauling Hay

I was a teacher
my salary was meager
I spent the summers
hauling hay.

The Texas sun
was searing at dawn
when I rose to see
if my hay truck
would start.

I climbed in the cab.
looked at the ground.
The truck had no floorboard
just blue smoke and sound.

The hay fields were strewn.
Square bales of alfalfa.
Heavy to lift,
tough to inhale.

We stacked them high
on the flatbed behind us.
One hundred and twenty
at twelve cents a bale.

We made for the barn.
A loft with no air flow.
Sweating and stacking
and swatting the wasps.

The scene was repeated
as long as the sun shone.
Then we, and the truck
coughed our way home.

Dennis Price

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

It Has Been Dry


My wife and I spent the week in Dallas, Texas last week.  It was HOT, and in most places extremely dry.  Texas has been suffering over the past few years with extreme drought and hot temperatures.  We are accustomed to hot weather here in the lower Texas Rio Grande Valley, but nothing like what we experienced in Dallas.  The temperatures were over 105 degrees everyday we were there.  The newscasters did some heat readings on black asphalt and dark colored vehicles and got readings in the 130 to 145 degree range.  We were glad to get back to our variety of summer heat here in the Valley.  Our temperatures are tempered by the breezes that reach us from the Gulf of Mexico.  We could use some more rain here, and I'm sure the farmers are praying for some now that the cotton crop is in.  I wrote this poem during a period of drought some years ago.  I could use a rain in the literal sense and also metaphorically in a writing sense.


God’s Symphony

The land is parched and dry
beneath the summer sun
and one might question,
why its been so long since rain
has spattered softly in the dust
until the droplets blend
in numbers large enough to
soak the crust and run in rivulets
steaming in the heat with
pitter, patter beat
backed up by lights
behind gray clouds
and roar of distant tympani?

First pianissimo, then forte
as the lightning cymbals crash
and drum roll thunder shakes
the core.

The howling wind joins in
for harmony and takes the
movement down to pianissimo
once more
then fades to blue.

Dennis Price