Heyday’s Past
The heyday’s passed
and cracks have drained
the party’s life blood,
but one last fountain
plays a Bessie Smith solo:
“Nooo-body knows you
when you’re down and out.
In my pocket? Not one penny.
And my friends? I haven’t any.
Mmmm, I done felt so low.”
Wind whistles through
pines like syncopated
saxophone fanfares.
Grass chokes bricks
where beaded dresses once
punctuated the Charleston.
“Don’t look at me
in that tone of voice,”
the fountain burbles,
with Dorothy Parker‘s words.
The air is cold with ghosts.
But I’m warm, remembering
my Grandmother Louise,
nurse, teacher and flapper.
She was a maverick and
pioneer in one charming,
take-no-prisoners woman.
I wish I’d known her, but
I catch glimpses of her
in her descendants' stories
about her hopping freight trains,
stowing away on steamers and
living large from Engadine
to Kalamazoo.
The heyday’s passed
and cracks have drained
the party’s life blood,
but one last fountain
plays a Bessie Smith solo:
“Nooo-body knows you
when you’re down and out.
In my pocket? Not one penny.
And my friends? I haven’t any.
Mmmm, I done felt so low.”
Wind whistles through
pines like syncopated
saxophone fanfares.
Grass chokes bricks
where beaded dresses once
punctuated the Charleston.
“Don’t look at me
in that tone of voice,”
the fountain burbles,
with Dorothy Parker‘s words.
The air is cold with ghosts.
But I’m warm, remembering
my Grandmother Louise,
nurse, teacher and flapper.
She was a maverick and
pioneer in one charming,
take-no-prisoners woman.
I wish I’d known her, but
I catch glimpses of her
in her descendants' stories
about her hopping freight trains,
stowing away on steamers and
living large from Engadine
to Kalamazoo.
Brenda Davis Harsham lives and works in New England. When she isn't writing or reading, she snaps photographs, creates art and eats chocolate. Her poetry and prose has been published in various literary websites or journals including Silver Birch Press, The Writing Garden and The Paperbook Collective. One of her poems won First Place in NY Literary Magazine’s Poetry Contest and is forthcoming in their Awake anthology. Another poem is forthcoming in the Best of Today’s Little Ditty Anthology.