Things I learn from editing Richard Eller books

 

What I Learned Today

 

In the 1930s, there was a half mile packed red clay track

At the Catawba County Fairgrounds, now Hickory High School,

And they ran car races there during the fair,

Races that drew 10,000 people, who stood outside

The fence, and they staged a head-on collision

Between two cars, which drew the top billing.

They had found something particular to the area

Where bootleggers ran trunk loads of hooch

Down mountain roads, the like of which

We can hardly imagine, that one in six adults

Was involved some way in the moonshine biz,

That World War II stopped it all for four years

Yet it returned with a vengeance, men and machines

And soon enough baseball was dead.

 

Prine Poem

 

Prime Prine

 

There were years I lived on the

Strength of John Prine songs, singing

Grandpa Was a Carpenter

When I was feeling down or

Old People when I needed

To swim in melancholy.

I saw him my sophomore

Year Lenoir-Rhyne College.

He swayed and drank and warbled

Reaching for the mike stand one

Too many times when he near

Fell off the stage and then he

Sang a song I didin’t know

About Jesus walking on

Water into a boat’s path,

And when he finished a young

Man stood up and shouted You’re

A fool, Jesus can do any-

Thing and loud-stomped out the aisle.

Prine had been in the army,

Had been a mail carrier,

He had seen some crazy shit.

He reached for his beer and went

Straight into Illegal Smile.

Interview Poem

 

Al

 

He sits across the bar table

From his former student,

A wheelchair bound late teen

When he taught him English

At the community college.

 

He’s come to interview him

As an alumnus for a book

The college is doing on its history.

He’s early 40s now, still boyish faced

With the same gleam in his eyes.

 

I DJ here four nights a week, he says.

It’s just before Christmas and the joint

Has a life sized Donald Trump cutout

Dressed as Santa Claus. The sound system

Throbs the latest bro country tunes.

 

I’m a lucky guy, he says. I’m married,

Got two children. The doctors told me

I wouldn’t live past 25, but here I am.

Mind if I get a shot of you in the DJ booth?

He scrambles across the dance floor.

 

Same as the old days, racing his chariot.

Back at the table, he asks him what do

You remember about the school?

You guys took me bowling one day at lunch.

I’ll never forget it. I wasn’t worth a shit.

 

But everybody was amazed that I could

Bowl from my chair. People on the other lanes

Stopped to watch me turn and fling that ball.

I took classes and got a degree. I was already

Who I am. That Day y’all let me know I was one of you.

 

 

Lucky

 

Lucky

 

Never forget how lucky you were

To live your life with people who loved you

And how you were only alone

When you chose to be

Even when you chose it too much

Even if fame never came

Even when the flame burned low

When the pain was all encompassing

You were lucky to be with people you loved

Some people are not

Lucky