Just Write
Mixed in with the many poems and stories about lost love and drug abuse were these four gems, which the judges of the Our Generation Get Creative writing contest pulled out to highlight. Watch next week’s page for more winning entries.
WISH
I wish the wall
was the floor,
so I could walk
on painted carpet
- Tim Harnett, 19
THE DOG’S EYE VIEW
I belong to a family,
They live down south.
I eat the scraps,
And nothing else.
I obey this family,
But they don’t love me.
I am loyal to them,
Though they are nothing to me.
Oh, I forgot to tell you about their black man.
The children are fat,
Though I’m skin and bones.
They pull and they scratch,
And stomp on my toes.
Their parents just laugh,
When they do this to me.
They bark out commands,
But have never been pleased.
Oh, I forgot to tell you about their black man.
I once had a home,
But they took it away.
I once had a thought,
But it shall never say.
I still believe,
Though I don’t know why.
I can’t run away,
Though I try and try.
Oh, I forgot to tell you about their black man.
They care about things,
But not about me.
They’d change in a second,
If only they’d see.
It would be quite different,
Should it be them, not I.
They beat and they whip,
Not once did I cry.
Oh, I forgot to tell you about their black man.
Could there be an end to this fiery hell?
I see someone coming,
But they can’t hear me yell.
This story, you see,
Will go on and on.
This one you see,
Will never be gone.
Oh, I forgot to tell you, I am the black man.
- Kristin T. Thorne, St. Aloysius
A CHRISTMAS POEM
A lonely old lady with silvery hair,
sits by her window in a rocking chair.
Wistfully she gazes on Christmas sights,
families decorating with Christmas lights.
Her snowed-in walk, she cannot shovel,
for her frail old bones, it’s too much trouble.
Christmas cookies, she no longer bakes,
hand-made gifts, she no longer makes.
Her withered, small mind, it cannot remember,
when Christmas wishes filled her December.
She gazes out her window as carollers appear,
but their cheerful songs, she cannot hear.
To her mailbox, the old woman journeys one day,
let someone remember me, she silently prays.
She peeks inside, but it is frozen and bare,
then she thinks to herself, does no one care?
Back to her house, where there’s no Christmas tree,
she wonders to herself can they forget me?
Alone, she sits and silently weeps.
she moves slowly upstairs and goes to sleep.
Her tiny, old body shivers in bed,
as wonderful dreams fill her head.
Suddenly she’s transported to a time long ago,
When she and other children would play in the snow.
To a time in her life filled with Christmas joys,
When she would awaken to find boxes of toys.
When family and friends were together at last,
this ended her dreams of Christmas past.
Her rickety old house is chilled to the bone,
on Christmas morn, she wakes alone.
- Megan Albertus, Ferris
OILY PETE
By Travis Ormsby, Lewis & Clark
Folks ‘round here in Dummas, Arkansas love to scare the newbies who roll into town with the ol’ tale of Oily Pete. Now me, I don’t put no stock in any of them folk tales, but ol’ man Witherspoon - the oldest man in town - his Gaffer done seen all the weird goings on back in the summer of 1879 hisself. Now I don’t know what’s fact an’ what’s tall tale, but the way ol’ man Witherspoon ‘splained it to me, this is the story of Oily Pete.
Peter Blutume was just about the orneriest bastard these parts has ever seen. Worked in that there abandoned coal mine down by Faulkner Lake. The I-40 runs right by there now. Now Pete, he was one of the lucky ones. Worked there darn near 15 years. Many a mama came crying home after what they learned ‘bout what happened to their boys in that mine. ‘Tain’t no doubt a passel o’ fine family family mane done lost their lives down there digging fer coal. Now that coal, went on to feed them fire-belchin’ bohemoths on the Miss, bringin’ so-called civilization to these parts. An’ the mine, an’ the coal, an’ the river’, an’ the paddlewheels, an’ the men, were all owned by one Jean Le Gourdes.
Stubborn as a constipated mule, Pete hated Le Gourdes, and he repersented, with a fury that rivals the Arkansas. Pete done tried more’n once to shut down that black hole in the earth. An’ I kin unnerstand why Pete would hate Le Gourdes so much, the Frenchie was, a course, only the evilest man this side of the devil. And as is most often the case, Le Gourdes controlled a lot of men, most of the money, and all of the land in Arkansas. Course he got all that rhino by bein’ a greedy jerk an’ workin’ them miners to death.
So one day, ol’ Pete gets an idea. He done gathered up all them miners an’ told ‘em ‘bout how they was gonna end Le Gourdes. They all got on to the deepest, darkest, blackest part of the mine an’ set up enough black powder to give God a headache. But Le Gourdes didn’t get hisself a galleon of specie by bein’ an idjit. He could sniff out a stoolie faster ‘n ol’ Tad Duncan’s champion bloodhound could tree a ‘coon. We still don’t know who done it, but one o’ them miners done squealed like a fat hog in autumn, an’ Le Gourdes sent his private army to stop ‘em. All them yeller bellies done fed, ‘cept ol’ Peter Blutume. He blew up that mine while he was still in it, saving his dyin’ breath to curse Le Gourdes.
An’ when the smoke had cleared, an’ when the sun had rose, all the folks in Dummas, saw what they never thought they would: black gold bubblin’ up ‘round where ol’ Pete blowed hisself to kingdom come. An’ ol’ Le Gourdes was double rich as he were before.
But all the poor folk in town hated Le Gourdes near as much as ol’ Pete, and as they saw that king’s black ransom, their resentment towards him bubbled up in the form of Oily Pete. He had come back from the land of God to end Le Gourdes’ greed. And Oily Pete done grabbed him, an’ pulled him, an’ pushed him back into his black grave. Neither of ‘em was ever seen again. An’ to this day, no greedy oilman will drill in Dummas, for fear of Oily Pete.