The outsiders blew into town drivin
just a little too fast in their fancy foreign
car laughin at our roadside yard sales
and our little café, Lita’s Chicken Shack, where
you can get a blue plate special of turnip
greens, sweet potatoes, cornbread, your
choice of three meats, sweet tea and a
slice of Lita’s caramel cake every Friday of
your life for $5.95. They stopped and nosed
around the 45’s and the LP’s thinkin we
wouldn’t know a “vintage” Blues record if
it hit us in the face but, truth is, we’re the
ones been singin that tune since
we sat in the pea-pickin basket along side
our mothers in the fields, daddy plowin
with Ole Daisy pushin up clods of red earth
gettin ready for the next crop to be planted.
They rifle through the clothes on the line makin
faces and actin like we might have cooties but
then they set their city asses down in the
best corner booth in Lita’s, the one where the
boys from the shirt factory in Pontotoc
usually eat on Friday’s – they gonna be
fit to be tied when they come in and find
outsiders in that booth. But, bein brought
up with good southern manners, they’ll
just tip their hats to ‘em and take a table in
the middle of the room where they have to
watch out for the young’uns playin on the
floor with their legos.
Seems like they don’t much like the menu
but, bein’s this is the only place in town
to eat, they ask for water (probly don’t
know it’s from the tap) and eat most everything
but the greens, makin their funny faces again, I
guess they don’t know what real southern eatin
is (like they don’t know real blues) but they sure
did eat up that caramel cake, well, you’d have
to be crazy not to like Lita’s cake anyway. They
pay the check and flounce outa the café, get
in their shiny foreign car and drive off, just like
that. Us, we just smile and talk amongst ourselves
‘bout the funny ways of city folk, always livin life
in a hurry and thinkin the blues is just “vintage music”
played by some old black men in the country, never
thinkin any day they could be singin that tune too.
_________________________________________
Shared on dVerse Poets Pub.
I’m happy to report that “2 Worlds” has been accepted for publication in an upcoming issue of Dew on the Kudzu.
Charlotte Hamrick 
Sounds really like two different worlds would be clashing … Though I don’t understand every word, of course, I very much like the flow in your poems that makes them sound like songs.
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“…the flow in your poems that makes them sound like songs.”
What a great compliment, Martin, thank you!
I’m sure the southern American vernacular is confusing to a European. I’d be happy to explain if you have any questions. 🙂 This could almost be a creative non-fiction because shades of it come from my childhood in Mississippi.
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Hi, I’ve nominated you for The Versatile Blogger Award. If you want more info, click here (If technology stops hating on me and actually works this time! ) >> http://jenchay.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/abc-award-versatile-blogger-award-and-7×7-link-award/
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Thank you, Jen!
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oo this is a finely tuned piece with great story telling…love the sobering thought there at the end…that one day it might be them as well…and the line on the blues…nice….
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I love this with the use of the Southern vernacular-it makes the piece have a personal feel to it, Charlotte.
Pamela
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LOVE this! Our diner is Jack’s and there’s nothing better then getting some city folk in to have a gander at. You placed me in the scene, with six bucks in my pocket and a clear view of the corner. Thank you!
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Fantastic flow, a real page-turner, and the colours on the blue plate special at the outset are a little symphony unto themselves. (If I sent 5.95 would you send me one of those up to Toronto??)
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oh this made my heart ache for that real blues…that blues that’s stronger than time and tastes of caramel cake and summer…very beautiful write zouxzoux..love your stuff
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Love the imagery here, but I really adore the rhythm of the piece.
Flows so very well. Great work here.
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Thank you all so much! This was really a fun write and just flowed out effortlessly. I like those kinds of writes. 🙂
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Made me hungry for more than just food. Home-away-from-home. Roadtrip. Vacation. Blues.
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has good tone and flow to this writing
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