The End of Everythihg

 The fire didn’t realize the strength of water

until she killed him.

The water didn’t realize

the strength of radiation before she evaporated

like a magician’s rabbit (without the wiggle), and began to complain about the sky’s all-powerful portal

— which, as everyone knows —

will kill us all.

By Elodie Pritchartt, August 18,2023

All For Naught

 

I've decided it's true.

No good deed goes unpunished.

But that it's punished without question

says more about the accuser than the accused.

And the older I get the more unkind I realize people are.

Choose whatever you want to believe.

But remember. It is the belief that defines you, not the

actions of an innocent in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The world will go on, spinning into eternity, and it will all amount to nothing.

Put one foot in front of the other and live your life as if you still believe in humanity.

A hundred years from now, we will be nothing more than stones with dates set in the dirt for the few who will remember.

After that, let the archaeologists dig us up and wonder who we were and what marks we left.

With any luck at all, there won't be a mark to be found.

~ April 2, 2022

Passion Play

"Their souls entwined," the poem read,

and to the azure skies they sped.

A poem's no good unless it's spent

on passion, pain and lovers rent

from others' arms before its time,

all penned in verse, both free and rhyme.

I don't remember poems like this

in English class, all filled with bliss.

Our poems were writ on roads and mice

all forked and timorous (and filled with lice).

These sexy poems are more my ken

all wet and slippery, skin to skin.

Where brown is never brown, but bouillion

and blue is nothing if not cerulean.

And life is heightened by degree.

All senses more... sensitivity?

So you touch me and I'll touch you,

And 'ere you know it we're all through.

And smoking cigarettes and spent.

If only poems could pay the rent.

~ Elodie Pritchartt

First poem I ever wrote, circa 1994

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Waiting for Release

In the Dark

He lies
in the gloom and wastes
and waits.
He is tired.

He dreams
of the time before.

The moon clings to clouds.
The dogs sing
to the unburdened air.

In the dream he lifts his son
to the sky
settles him on a red horse,
offers it a sweet.

He wakes --
the vision of his baby
laughing,
tangled in the mane
of a wild thing,
blood
spit
tears.

~Elodie Pritchartt

Dreamscape

Last night I dreamed I was in 
India.

Elephants and houses had

memories as long as being.

A phantom shook my shoulder.

I tried to wake,
but my dream was syrup.
I could not swim up.

I felt you touch me,

and tried to stir.

I think death will be like this:

Sticky, sweet, heavy.

And silent as a sigh.

~ Elodie Pritchartt

April 7, 2014

Politics of Summer

Summertime.
Garden-district cottage.
Cats on the porch.
Ancient oaks. Peaceful.
Shady.

Tomatoes -- blood red --
and mayonnaise,
salted, peppered,
waiting
on the table.

Last week a feather
in the kitchen.
Yesterday a wing in the hall.

A cardinal batters
the bedroom window,
knocking to come in.
A wren batters from within.
How do I get out?
How did you get in?

Last night, a fight. Barking
In the den.  Flick the light
and then, a raccoon
dashes for the door.

Soon half a squirrel,
intestines twirled
on the front steps. Cats
draped on benches,
lick themselves.

Sweet scent of summer
Smells like death.

~ Elodie Pritchartt
07/02/2018

Inside Out

Outside

Doves the color of dust.
Dust scattered with seed.
Birds eat as though
nothing has changed.
Chatterings
continue unabated.


Inside

Movements have disturbed
old dust 

that settled, quiet

over time
on unmoving things until
we'd almost stopped seeing them.
Silence
after the roar.


Outside

In the aftermath I wait,
wincing at the insistent sun,
and fear the naked air.
Turn away, look back as
this rusted truck takes
roads long denied.
Dust lingers in its wake.

    ~ Elodie Pritchartt, 2007

Woodville Wildlife Festival

Woodville Courthouse

All the artists set up
around the courthouse square
beneath the oaks,
the resurrection fern
swollen and green with last night's rain.

The morning misty and damp
and strewn with color,
the smell of barbeque mingles with
hay. A skinny Catahoula hangs
around the cooking trailers,
hoping for a handout.

I buy pulled-pork sandwiches for
two -- one for the dog, one for me.
I watch her bolt it down as
a friendly cattle farmer stops
to tell me he'd bought her a hot dog
a few minutes before.

Camouflage is definitely in
at the Deer and Wildlife festival.
Don't be caught dead without it.

Didn't know what to expect,
but the dead moose being
draped over a form for mounting,
his lips hanging loosely off the side,
is a shock.

The air is filled with the sounds
of turkeys and ducks, made with
wooden calls by craftsmen
next to artists painting
things from life.

And the people....
The obese Black woman
with a blooming onion
the size of a football on
a plate, all for her.

The little girl in cowboy boots
and shorts, skinny legs so cute
it breaks your heart,
just because.
She has a puppy on a leash.
Balloons
tied in her hair,
her face painted like a cat.

The baby in the stroller,
leaning in to snag
whatever is in reach.

The friends sitting on the
corner, the same conversation
they've been having for
40 years.

Doctors, bums, wives, bankers,
lawyers, maids, babysitters, boyfriends,
girlfriends, children, vendors
all in motion as the band
plays the 70s greatest hits,
going round and round
and round.

A wonderful sound.

~ Elodie  Pritchartt
10/11/2009

The Weight of Water

The wind whispers secrets soon to

be revealed.  Pushes him along.

There is no cure.

He shuffles. Small steps. Unsure

for the first time

in forever

whether he can make the hill.

Pail in hand, he bends, turns

the spigot, spends 

precious minutes.

Watches water fall. Rinses

out the larvae and the slime.

Fills the pail and after

a time convinces himself to stand.

Physics is cruel. And a body at

rest remains. He moves forward.

Pours water for the cats,

seed for the birds, feed for the possums

and raccoons. Corn for the deer.

Meat for the dogs.

They need. They all need to live, he says.

Everything is creation or calamity

and he the only thing between.

What will they do when he is gone?

It is hunger that drives him

though he does not eat. He is shrinking

and I think he may shrink into the earth

when his credits and balances are due.

He is winded, his time near its end.

He passes me the pail. I bend.

Turn the spigot.     Water falls.

~ Elodie Pritchartt

March 9, 2012

Falling Leaves

Perhaps it would be better if I don’t speak.

Reflect the silence back into the water,

listen to the evening come to help the night begin its dark trip behind the  sun.

The winter apples turn.

Fall nudges summer gently to the side,

and the light burns amber, realigns itself

so shadows  lengthen early.

The pages of this book that will not

be lain aside rustle toward its solitary end.

The dead revisit, though they are far away.

Anticipation turns to fear

that winter will not forgive.

Silence becomes prayer.

Breathe the honeyed quiet,

and brace yourself for the tilting

of the world.

The Forest in Fall

She walks in dappled brown.
The trees, emboldened in
their bare embrace,
reach down, carress
her freckled frown
from their anchored
heights to touch her face

A pile of tiny bones,
ivory needles in forgotten
threads.  Small
among the roots and 
acorns put away,
peek out and shudder.
Hides itself away.

Circled round like fiddlefern,
tiny boxes -- vertebrae --
soft as chalk
and fragile whisper
under baby's breath,
"Don't leave."

She kneels, blinded by the dapples
darting through the trees
that sigh and shiver.
Enchanted by its size,
she lies beside it gently
Closes her eyes and smiles.

Cherry Grove

Cherry Grove: A Ghost Tale

All around the old place,

the dead visit. The

day he opened up the trunk

of that sweetgum tree,

and before we saw the

horseshoe hanging inside,

something brushed against

my face. I heard a nickering

far away, and the smell of oiled

leather and candlewax.

A few days later Lloyd

found an anvil half

inside an oak tree, back

by the old barn. It was ten

feet up that tree, and

the color of storm clouds

when the air smells like metal

and electricity breaks

it right in two. They say

a shipwright lived

there once. I know.

I've heard him hammering.

That was before the rumor 

of the slave revolt across 

the road. Nineteen men killed, 

tortured, all for the sake 

of a child's tale. A child

named Obey. No excuses.

The crape myrtle we cleared from

the back forty bled claret-

colored sap, and stuck inside

one old, stubborn knot

was a skeleton key.

The silver lying all around,

tarnished forks and bone-

china plates. Papa said

she burnt that house a’purpose,

took the tram to the train

and left town. Nobody

Ever saw her again.

But to be frank, I don't

believe it.

I saw her walking in the fog

one morning, early. Picking bones,

rearranging bricks,

breaking twigs over and over.

She saw me too.

We've been talking

back and forth, she and I,

between the branches.

~ Elodie Pritchartt

Unbearable Happiness

Unbearable Happiness

So here we are, all cozy warm
and wrapped in secret dread
that this might work
and now instead
of rejection's shiny hook
on which to hang our failed
potential we must face
the possibility that this
isn't what we wanted, after all.

Happiness, that angry bear
stomps down the hall to maul
our expectations, fling our
sorry asses out the door
and make us look at what
we've done and haven't done before.

It's not too late to fuck this up
if angst is what you crave.
Just save yourself and run.
The bear has only just begun
to tear your shattered life.
The wives who left you
crying on the floor can
stay, replay your failures one by one
and give you what you need.

Just say the word, I'll bleed,
but tell me now before
I've bled too much. My life
is such a clean, blank page.
Come help me fill it, if you want.
I'm here; I'm near, but time
is running short.

And bears are wild things,
quick and fleet, can disappear
before you've glimpsed
them, hairy, hoary, clumsy, big
and scary like first days of school.

They learn to dance between
the aisles and listen for the bees,
delicate and fragile in their way.
Just say if this is what you want
and I will watch the bees.
The bear is yours today.

~ Elodie Pritchartt

13 Jan 08

Signs

All around the city

sparrows fell.

Pigeons lay like litter

in the streets.

That's what it took

to make us stop, look

up and think

about

the end.

Is this how

it begins?

Not with a bang

but a flutter? When I came

across the turkey on

the north fork trail

I wondered

how long

we’d have.

The clouds hung

low, like dirty cotton,

a nagging ache

behind my brow.

I squinted against winter’s

stubborn glare.

Is it too bright? Or is it

darker now than ever?

If God’s eye

is on the sparrow,

where is his ear?

Is he listening?

A thousand

thousand feathers fall

like prayers from the sky.

Silence.

~ Elodie Pritchartt

17, May, 2007