Explore William’s poetry and short stories including the pictures of his loved ones and places that inspired them.
Thunder Mountain
Spent several days with friends at the base of Thunder Mountain in Arizona. It’s beautiful. However, I couldn’t help but wonder what it must have been like for the early settlers to the area. We took a day trip to Prescott, where we walked along Whisky Row. The women working the saloons in the 1800s must have had a difficult job keeping laborers happy in the days before air conditioning and often sparse water supplies. The following is my imagination of what it was like for these early settlers.
They call it Thunder Mountain
In a place that seldom rains.
Towering over the cacti,
The snakes and red dirt plains.
I was born in her shadow
In 1872.
My mama cried in misery,
As vultures above her flew.
Growing up on Thunder Mountain
The old folks always said,
Hard scrabble life will make you strong,
If it don’t leave you dead.
Katy was the queen of Prescott,
Worked saloons on Whisky Row.
Many men would hold her,
But her pain they’d never know.
I met Katy on Thunder Mountain,
Her feet danglin off the edge.
I begged her promise not to jump,
But she wouldn’t make the pledge.
We talked way past the sunset
About the pain down in our souls.
Mean misery on Thunder Mountain
And the tears on Whisky Row.
Next morning we saddled the horses,
Headed east down Thunder Road.
Never once did we look back
At the sorry life we knowed.
We settled in Kentucky
Where the verdant fields did grow.
Left behind the pain and tears
And the hell down Thunder Road.
Kelley’s Song
I didn’t marry until I was 29. Dating for me often felt like going to a party. It was fun, but I found it difficult to make a meaningful connection. When I met my future wife Patty, it didn’t feel like a party. It felt like going home for the very first time. In a typical “feast or famine” situation, I found that I loved two people. Kelley’s Song isn’t about the one I married. It’s about the other one that I came to love and still do to this day.
Freckles cross her face,
Love lights her eyes.
A reflection of her mother
She’ll never disguise.
And I’m the lucky man
With whom they share their lives.
One’s a step daughter,
The other’s my wife.
And she says
Mommy, can I stay up
Ten minutes more.
Perhaps there’s another
Adventure in store.
But we take her off to bed
And she falls right to sleep.
With Care Bears and Muppets
And seven-year dreams.
Well I know that she’s growing,
One day she’ll leave home.
Though the land may be big,
She won’t’ be alone.
Cause her mother and me
Grow more in love each day.
One thing’s for certain,
This family’s to stay.
Snake Venom
I could have died that summer day. At the ripe age of eleven years, I could feel the poison of the snake’s venom invade my veins as I rode in the back seat of my parent’s Buick. My head was dizzy and my skin clammy. Next to me sat my best buddy Gary, clearly stunned at the manner in which my father was driving.
My father would eventually go to his grave having never been stopped for a traffic violation. A dying eleven-year-old in the back seat, his only child, was not going to threaten his perfect record.
“Dad!” I managed to blurt in urgent desperation as we waited at a red light that would not change. There was no traffic to be seen in any direction.
My mother, bless her, sitting next to my dad in the front seat, turned to him and in her genteel southern belle way said “You know sweetheart, it’s OK to run the red lights. Trust me darlin, it will be fine.”
Her reassuring words got my father’s attention as he looked both ways and carefully moved through the red light and each of the other five lights on the way to the hospital.
Riding in the back seat, my dizzy mind thought of the obituary that had been in the newspaper when my grandma died. It was a nice synopsis of a life well lived. For me, there would be no obituary synopsis. It would be a biography, three paragraphs tops. Maybe four if anyone remembered the great catch that I made on second base in Little League that helped save a game.
The whole snake episode started at Gary’s house next door to ours. He and I were in his bedroom listing to music when we heard his mother scream from the den. Running into the den, we found her standing alone in the middle of the room looking scared. “What’s wrong?” we asked.
“There’s a snake trying to get into the house! It was right there on the windowsill trying to get in!”
When there’s a snake trying to invade the house, there’s no time to lose. No time to put shoes on over stocking feet. There’s only one thing to do with an invading snake. Catch it. With a little luck, it might even become a pet.
Gary was stronger than me, but I was faster. I ran out the back door, jumped off a small stoop onto the concrete patio and landed – – on the snake. Looking down, I saw the snake bite down on my stocking foot as it tried to escape the weight of my landing. Gary close behind witnessed the reptile’s assault. Thinking quickly, he grabbed a shovel and hit the snake as it tried to slither away. We carefully placed the twelve-to-fifteen-inch deceased snake into a clear sandwich bag, put our sneakers on and went to my house next door to let my parents know what had happened.
My parents knew nothing about snakes. However, there was that afternoon a dishwasher repair man at our house who fancied himself a snake expert. The repair man looked carefully at the snake in the sandwich bag and in a calm, measured voice said “You need to get that boy to the hospital, now. This snake is venomous.”
Dad parked near the emergency room; the tires precisely equidistant between the white lines of our parking space. I started to suggest that he drop me off at the emergency room door, but the dizziness was getting the best of me. Apparently walking across a hospital parking lot when you’re near death is what people do. Gary carried the snake as we made our way into the one place that could save me.
To my great relief, it was a slow day for emergencies. My parents told the receptionist what had happened and I was soon in an exam room lying on a table. My parents, Gary, a nurse and a doctor looked down on me with concern. After a few brief comments, everyone left except the nurse. An attractive young woman not much more than twice my age, she removed my shoe and then carefully removed the sock from the foot that had been bit. My toes, ankle and everything in between had turned black. “Oh my,” she said in a poorly veiled effort not to seem overly alarmed. My arms and legs, pale and clammy, were a stark contrast to the black foot. Removing the shoe and sock from my other foot, she found that it was also black.
It was summer and we ran barefoot, a lot. When it was time to go into the house, there were three options. First, we could wash our feet with a hose, which took far too much time. Second, we could go into the house with dirty feet, which would generate strong parental scorn. Or, we could put on a pair of socks, which was the most efficient and reasonable thing to do. So it was that both feet had turned black. The nurse carefully cleaned the foot that had been assaulted, looking for obvious puncture wounds. Satisfied that she had done her job, she left me alone in the room with one white foot and one black.
Nobody wants to die alone. And yet, I was very much alone lying on the exam table feeling forgotten. I expected one or both of my parents to enter the room. I expected the doctor to return. What I did not expect was for Gary to walk into the room with no adult. Looking down on my pale and dying body he scornfully said “The only snake that would bite you would have to be a chicken.”
This was confusing. “What are you talking about?”
“You got bit by a chicken snake! Wouldn’t you know.”
“You mean it’s not poisonous?”
Gary tried to look serious as he repeated “It’s a chicken snake! Would you get up from there. We have to go home.”
“I’m not dying?”
“Get up!”
I sat up and noticed that my skin suddenly was no longer clammy and the dizziness had disappeared. After putting socks and shoes on both my pale foot and the black one, Gary and I followed my parents towards the emergency room exit. Just before the exit, we heard the nurse calling from behind us. “Ya’ll want your snake?” she asked, holding up the sandwich bag with our deceased chicken snake.
“No thanks,” I said. “You can keep it.”
