(I'm sure)

[the mingo]

(I'm sure)

ps - I buried a redhead once,
the grass over her grave all turned blue,
me too. I remember way back before there
were any women when potholders were
my thing. I made them by hand and sold them
door to door. there were a lot of farmers in the
neighborhood then & they all needed potholders.
So I made a little money and, (I'm sure),behind my back,
got a little fame. This was before women and
before the redhead - I don't make potholders any
more & the farmers are long gone. Lots of things
are long gone, it will happen to everybody. When
the redhead went I couldn't go so I kept to custom
and buried her. A trucking company now occupies
the spot, the trucks go to Canada loaded & come back
empty over & over again day & night.
I'm not saying I understand it but I'm just tellin'.
Years after I buried the redhead I heard she bought
a motorcycle. Now she's the redhead dead motorcyclist.
It must be all tied up somehow with being fun for her.
Sometimes, when I'm out on some road myself,
negotiating crossroads or rounding some curve,
I think about her, somewhere out there dead & riding
that motorcycle. She's probably wearing a helmet and
probably a leather jacket. She would be wearing the
leather jacket for the pure jazz of it, (I'm sure) She'd be
wearing the helmet, not for safety reasons, but because
(I'm sure) her red hair is long gone and the visor would
readily serve to hide all the hard naked bone
thats left of her face

[constantine]

a macabre journey mingo. life is macabre in many of its aspects. we do seem to bury people in our past - they are dead to us now, but aren't. shit, i must have been laid to rest a thousand times, but i keep rearing my ugly head every chance i get. great read.

[mtmynd]

good head trip, el mingo. biker noir.

[mindbum]

i'm so baffled by those potholders.

were they the mitten kind?

makes me think of red sovine. phantom 309. and tom waits just came on random.

and ghost rider. (blazing skull motorcycle. not cowboy version.)

but these things dont really have to do with me liking the poem muchly. thank you.

[saw]

creative twists abound, and i am entertained...a contemporary
Legend of Sleepy Hollow....wild connections for consideration....
Fun Stuff............

[the mingo]

thx cons, life is macabre good and macabre bad - I just found out the word is french...I never would have guessed

thx out to you too mtmynd - and to redhead dead motorcyclists everywhere

mindbum - the potholders baffle me too but they did give me a way to get from where I was to where I was going with this piece - they were the flat kind, like you make on those toy craft looms - thx for reading

saw - every connection I've ever seen is pretty wild - thx for taking the time

[hester_prynne]

Wow, I really love this piece.
I concur with Saw, it's legendary sleepy hollow stuff....
H

[the mingo]

thx hest - glad you liked it - thats twice on the sleepy hollow ref...so i reread the piece - ya know it did not occur to me when me and the piece were teasing each other out about its shape but I can see where ya'll are coming from - I'm glad ya didn't ask me about the potholders...mindbum really blew me away when he mentioned them...Ive been thinking 'bout it ever since - last night at work it occurred to me they might have something to do with the fact that some wombs are too hot to handle...and ya need a pair of good potholders for that kind of thing...thx for reading, hest...

[mnaz]

They never quite stay buried, do they?

[the mingo]

not quite, mnaz, not quite, sometimes they come at you out of nowhere decades later, smiling at you to top it all off and, of course, there you are in the middle of the road exactly minus the moves that used to be yours to command, them coming at you then SPLAT! you're flat in the road staring up at the sky wondering why o why you didn't enter a monastery at age 18 instead of joining the God blessed Navy.

[mtmynd]

el mingo, this is still a highly readable piece.

[SmileGRL]

pop up they do and usually at the most unexpected times and even if you did join the monastry it would have been something else our brains make the connections at lightening speed reminding us of mundane things like potholders for handling hot stuff and fire in her hair and what is she doing buying a motorcycle when she's dead and buried years ago ghostrider coming to haunt your uninvited memories of once upon a time and now she's really (?) dead & very real feelings sometimes produce macabre poems

nice!