Great-God-a-mighty folks feeling bad

Only limbs. St Johns Park, New Town. June 2011.

My word for the week?

flat [adj.]

...

7. Lacking interest or excitement; dull: a flat scenario.

8.
a. Lacking in flavor: a flat stew that needs salt.
b. Having lost effervescence or sparkle: flat beer.

Hard-time blues, William Waring Cuney

Went down home ’bout a year ago
things so bad, Lord, my heart was sore.
Folks had nothing was a sin and shame
every-body said hard time was the blame.
Great-God-a-mighty folks feeling bad
lost every thing they ever had.

Sun was shining fourteen days and no rain
hoeing and planting was all in vain.
Hard hard times, Lord, all around
meal barrels empty crops burnt to the ground.
Great-God-a-mighty folks feeling bad
lost every thing they ever had.

Skinny looking children bellies poking out
that old pellagra without a doubt.
Old folks hanging ’round the cabin door
ain’t seen times this hard before.
Great-God-a-mighty folks feeling bad
lost every thing they ever had.

I went to the Boss at the Commissary store
folks all starving please don’t close your door
want more food a little more time to pay
Boss Man laughed and walked away.
Great-God-a-mighty folks feeling bad
lost every thing they ever had.

Landlord coming ’round when the rent is due
you ain’t got the money take your home from you
take your mule and horse even take your cow
get offa my land you ain’t no good no how.
Great-God-a-mighty folks feeling bad
lost every thing they ever had.

Comments

ratatouille's archives said…

Hi! Kris...
The photograph and your word is very interesting...
The quote and song are very apropos for today too...If I must say so...Thanks, for sharing!
deedee ;-/

18 June 2011 at 09:20

Roddy said…

You aren't looking at the cooker at the crematorium are you?

18 June 2011 at 16:59

Kris McCracken said…

DeeDee, very tiring.

Roddy, I'm not sure what it was.

21 June 2011 at 15:30

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

Hold me now, oh hold me now, until this hour has gone around. And I'm gone on the rising tide, to face Van Dieman's Land

Theme Thursday again, and this one is rather easy. I am Tasmanian, you see, and aside from being all around general geniuses - as I have amply described previously - we are also very familiar with the concept of WATER. Tasmania is the ONLY island state of an ISLAND continent. That means, we're surrounded by WATER. That should help explain why I take so many photographs of water . Tasmania was for a long time the place where the British (an island race terrified of water) sent their poor people most vile and horrid criminals. The sort of folk who would face the stark choice of a death sentence , or transportation to the other end of the world. Their catalogue of crimes is horrifying : stealing bread assault stealing gentlemen's handkerchiefs drunken assault being poor affray ladies being overly friendly with gentlemen for money hitting people having a drink and a laugh public drunkenness being Irish Fenian terrorist activities being Catholic religious subversion. ...

This will hurt me...

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