"White Cow, Black Sheep"
© C.C. Brooks

“There has never been a poem to explain anything.  For that reason many people who would otherwise write poems do not.  Praise such people.”

            -from the poem “On Hearing About the Death of Mitzi Mayfair” by Miller Williams

From the barstool . . .



A LONG WAY TO GO

He left the Kenworth idling in the Walmart
parking lot so his company would think he was
in the sleeper instead of on a barstool next to me.

He’d been on the road for three years so his

daughter could go to college. 

When I asked if he knew where he was he said

I’ve no idea.  It’s pretty simple I said.  You’re in
the middle of it all.  But you’ve got a long way to go. 

© C.C. Brooks



LINDA ON MY MIND

Geovanna told me that Linda
rescued all nine of them from

an oilfield whorehouse in Seminole
County.  That they’d grown up

working in Linda’s tavern on
the edge of town.  That one day

Conway Twitty stopped by and
then again.  But then he left and

was gone forever but not without
the words to a song.     

“Linda on my Mind” by Conway Twitty:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKCvLvkfXM8


 

former NBA dude and me
Dallas, Texas
© C.C. Brooks

THE RAVEN

I noticed the raven tattoo on her

forearm as she poured my whiskey
drink.  I said we only have crows

around here, although I once saw a

raven in the crown of the blackjack
I used to climb as a child.  She said

she got the tattoo the day her grandfather

died, because he’d recite Poe’s “The Raven”
from memory every time they’d meet.

© C.C. Brooks

THE
        
         BARTENDER

Didn’t have

a single drinker in his

first three hours.  Only on

Sunday I guess.  Only in Oklahoma.

© C.C. Brooks