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"Beach" "Ecotone" "Murmur"
Matt Prater, Virginia "Aichmophobia" "5th Avenue Sunrise" "Bun Do"
Leah Gore, West Virginia |
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"That's Alright Mama" "Painfully Comfortable" "Explosion"
Mary K. Morgan, Kentucky "26" "Bearded Dragon" "Owl Dream"
Mary K. Morgan, Kentucky Diane Porter Goff, Virginia "The Intricacies of the Somnambulist’s "After the Wind's Prolonged "Aromatic Triggers"
Lipstick" Arousal" Bill Wolak, New Jersey "Untitled" "Untitled" "Weightless"
Corbin Fouts, Kentucky Erin Alise Conley, Kentucky "Belly of the Whale" "Egregious Flower of the Sun" "Impassive Disco"
Katherine Workman, Kentucky Avant(Story) |
"Interview with a Ghost"
Elizabeth Burton, Kentucky
Elizabeth Burton, Kentucky
Announcer: And today, we communicate with the ghosts of the boys who were beaten, killed, and then placed in the graveyard at the Dozier School for Boys in Florida. We are speaking with the inmate known as “R248.” Thomas Melton, as your family called you, what has brought you back here today?
R248 (Thomas): I never left. When the school closed and they unearthed the graveyard, suddenly people could see me, hear my voice. But in reality, I’ve been here all the time, calling out with the other boys.
Announcer: You say you want to tell your story. What is it you want our audience to know?
R248 (Thomas): I ran away from home when I was thirteen. No beatings or lack of love led me away—it was World War II and I was like all the boys in wanting to join up, prove that I was a man. I thought I’d call myself an orphan and join the Army in another state, so I hitchhiked out of Two Lick, Kentucky. I didn’t expect to be picked up by men in Tennessee who’d stolen a car and murdered its occupants. I didn’t expect to be arrested and charged as an accessory to their crime.
Announcer: So it’s your contention that you never committed any violent acts?
R248 (Thomas): I was only a boy looking for adventure. I loved my mother, teased my little sister, wanted to be brave and fight in the War like my father. I lived for fishing, riding the bike my parents bought second hand, and science. I could have been someone.
Announcer: When you were arrested with the men, you were sent to the Dosier School for Boys, a juvenile detention facility in Florida.
R248 (Thomas): I ran away from home when I was thirteen. I made it all the way to Florida before my ride ended, but I never saw the ocean. The heat of the Panhandle was as close as I got, just heat, no breeze to cool the blinding burn of your face. The first day I was there, they gave me a number for a name and put me naked in a room with one light bulb to keep out the darkness. I was fed once a day through a slit in the door. They kept me there for thirty days to break me in.
Announcer: And your family? Did they believe you were innocent? Why didn’t they fight for your release?
R248 (Thomas): I received one letter from my mother, a letter I read over and over until the ink started to fade away and the paper was almost worn into holes. It told me they loved me and were saving money for a lawyer to get me out.
Announcer: From your records, you didn’t last long at Dozier before you “escaped.” Can you tell our listeners what really happened?
R248 (Thomas): When I got out of the Hole, they turned me loose with all the rest of the boys. The boys whispered their names in secret, told me we had to stick together, and I felt hope for the first time. That was before I picked up a cigarette I didn’t even know was forbidden. A guard saw me with it and dragged me by the arm into the White House, the place reserved for punishment. I saw the looks on the other boys’ faces, and I knew to be afraid.
I never saw home again. The strap he hit me with came down on my skin over and over again (I lost count at thirty), turning my back into what must have looked like roadkill run over too many times. When the infection set in, the kindhearted nurse cried and said we needed to call a doctor, take me to a hospital, before it was too late. I remember a guard using the words “murderer” and “not worth the trouble.”
I died two months after I arrived at the Dozier School for Boys. I never saw the inside of a school or they might have seen I was smart, curious. They might have given me a chance. Death wasn’t peace for me but a waiting. I watched as they told my parents I’d escaped and they didn’t know what had happened to me. I watched as the years passed and the beatings turned into art classes, the deaths and the bodies forgotten in the overgrown patch of land behind the West Wall. I watched the school grow old, waited while the budget cuts shut it down. And one day, when the bulldozers came, I knew it was time to tell my story.
Announcer: Thomas, is there anything else you’d like to share with our audience?
R248 (Thomas): Soon, my body will fly on an airplane back to Kentucky, the last place it was safe. It will be reunited with my family, put in the ground next to those who loved and never stopped looking for me.
I don’t know what will happen then. Maybe my spirit will join my body, finally experience the sleep of forgetting. But maybe, just maybe, I’ll wait here until the other boys have the courage to tell their stories. Each one of them had a life before they were left to die at Dosier. When they speak, they will become Billy, Alex, Fernando again. Maybe then we’ll go away together, find a new home where the sunlight isn’t hot but gentle. Where a breeze soothes and an ocean sings in the distance. Maybe then there will be quiet; maybe then there will be peace.
R248 (Thomas): I never left. When the school closed and they unearthed the graveyard, suddenly people could see me, hear my voice. But in reality, I’ve been here all the time, calling out with the other boys.
Announcer: You say you want to tell your story. What is it you want our audience to know?
R248 (Thomas): I ran away from home when I was thirteen. No beatings or lack of love led me away—it was World War II and I was like all the boys in wanting to join up, prove that I was a man. I thought I’d call myself an orphan and join the Army in another state, so I hitchhiked out of Two Lick, Kentucky. I didn’t expect to be picked up by men in Tennessee who’d stolen a car and murdered its occupants. I didn’t expect to be arrested and charged as an accessory to their crime.
Announcer: So it’s your contention that you never committed any violent acts?
R248 (Thomas): I was only a boy looking for adventure. I loved my mother, teased my little sister, wanted to be brave and fight in the War like my father. I lived for fishing, riding the bike my parents bought second hand, and science. I could have been someone.
Announcer: When you were arrested with the men, you were sent to the Dosier School for Boys, a juvenile detention facility in Florida.
R248 (Thomas): I ran away from home when I was thirteen. I made it all the way to Florida before my ride ended, but I never saw the ocean. The heat of the Panhandle was as close as I got, just heat, no breeze to cool the blinding burn of your face. The first day I was there, they gave me a number for a name and put me naked in a room with one light bulb to keep out the darkness. I was fed once a day through a slit in the door. They kept me there for thirty days to break me in.
Announcer: And your family? Did they believe you were innocent? Why didn’t they fight for your release?
R248 (Thomas): I received one letter from my mother, a letter I read over and over until the ink started to fade away and the paper was almost worn into holes. It told me they loved me and were saving money for a lawyer to get me out.
Announcer: From your records, you didn’t last long at Dozier before you “escaped.” Can you tell our listeners what really happened?
R248 (Thomas): When I got out of the Hole, they turned me loose with all the rest of the boys. The boys whispered their names in secret, told me we had to stick together, and I felt hope for the first time. That was before I picked up a cigarette I didn’t even know was forbidden. A guard saw me with it and dragged me by the arm into the White House, the place reserved for punishment. I saw the looks on the other boys’ faces, and I knew to be afraid.
I never saw home again. The strap he hit me with came down on my skin over and over again (I lost count at thirty), turning my back into what must have looked like roadkill run over too many times. When the infection set in, the kindhearted nurse cried and said we needed to call a doctor, take me to a hospital, before it was too late. I remember a guard using the words “murderer” and “not worth the trouble.”
I died two months after I arrived at the Dozier School for Boys. I never saw the inside of a school or they might have seen I was smart, curious. They might have given me a chance. Death wasn’t peace for me but a waiting. I watched as they told my parents I’d escaped and they didn’t know what had happened to me. I watched as the years passed and the beatings turned into art classes, the deaths and the bodies forgotten in the overgrown patch of land behind the West Wall. I watched the school grow old, waited while the budget cuts shut it down. And one day, when the bulldozers came, I knew it was time to tell my story.
Announcer: Thomas, is there anything else you’d like to share with our audience?
R248 (Thomas): Soon, my body will fly on an airplane back to Kentucky, the last place it was safe. It will be reunited with my family, put in the ground next to those who loved and never stopped looking for me.
I don’t know what will happen then. Maybe my spirit will join my body, finally experience the sleep of forgetting. But maybe, just maybe, I’ll wait here until the other boys have the courage to tell their stories. Each one of them had a life before they were left to die at Dosier. When they speak, they will become Billy, Alex, Fernando again. Maybe then we’ll go away together, find a new home where the sunlight isn’t hot but gentle. Where a breeze soothes and an ocean sings in the distance. Maybe then there will be quiet; maybe then there will be peace.
Appal(Trad)
"Bert Gert On Dirt"
Bonnie Gay Patterson-De Hart, Kentucky
Bonnie Gay Patterson-De Hart, Kentucky
This is your roving reporter, Bert Girt, speaking with Dr. Doolittle on dirt,
“Dr. Doolittle, since you speak to the animals, do worms when walked on get hurt?”
Digging in the soil and removing an earth worm he puts it to his ear
The worm shakes its head “no, except when on top of the ground is our fear.”
It talks of how tasty the soil can be as it digests the lumps of earth,
And oh how it loves horse manure when dumped, it really extends its girth.
Moving on to the horse, grazing on grass, we ask him what he thinks of dirt.
He raises his head with a mouth full of grass and whinnies as he gives a squirt
Then lifts his tail and with a big grunt drops a pile of moist warm lumps,
He explains how he helps to make more soil from the grass that grows in clumps,
And oh how he loves to roll in the mud after master has given him a bath,
With that he shakes his head, stomps a foot and gives a horsey laugh.
A mole does emerge, blindly looking around, as we pick her up from the earth,
She squeals in fear and wriggles while bound but we held her tight at her girth.
When asked what she thought of her life in the dark and tunneling down under,
She remarked that her job was to help siphon water and roots were her plunder.
"Now leave me alone and let me go home you've disturbed my work enough.”
So with that she wiggles, shaking herself free, and leaves in a disgruntled huff.
It's just us now, Dr. Doolittle and I, walking about on the ground
Until we spot, a few yards off, a horticulturist making a sound.
“Um, um,” he says squeezing the soil his hand rubbing it back in the bed
Of flowers, so pretty and dainty and fair as in talking to self he said,
“It's just perfect to plant, just moist enough this dark humus loam,
I'll put in these bulbs, rhizomes and crowns then go for dinner at home.”
Dr. Doolittle reminds me we, creatures all, are made from the dust of the ground,
The first job Adam and Eve were given was cultivate Eden then spread it around.
Alas they did sin, bringing death to all, to the dust of the earth we return.
But all is not lost for we hope in Christ Jesus, resurrection for us He has earned.
Creation is His to free us from sin and death, the grave and decay
We live with certainty that He will return, we wait for that very day.
So with that I sign off, this report is finished, what more can be said about dirt,
Except that without it we wouldn't be here. Fair well, good day, Bert Girt.
“Dr. Doolittle, since you speak to the animals, do worms when walked on get hurt?”
Digging in the soil and removing an earth worm he puts it to his ear
The worm shakes its head “no, except when on top of the ground is our fear.”
It talks of how tasty the soil can be as it digests the lumps of earth,
And oh how it loves horse manure when dumped, it really extends its girth.
Moving on to the horse, grazing on grass, we ask him what he thinks of dirt.
He raises his head with a mouth full of grass and whinnies as he gives a squirt
Then lifts his tail and with a big grunt drops a pile of moist warm lumps,
He explains how he helps to make more soil from the grass that grows in clumps,
And oh how he loves to roll in the mud after master has given him a bath,
With that he shakes his head, stomps a foot and gives a horsey laugh.
A mole does emerge, blindly looking around, as we pick her up from the earth,
She squeals in fear and wriggles while bound but we held her tight at her girth.
When asked what she thought of her life in the dark and tunneling down under,
She remarked that her job was to help siphon water and roots were her plunder.
"Now leave me alone and let me go home you've disturbed my work enough.”
So with that she wiggles, shaking herself free, and leaves in a disgruntled huff.
It's just us now, Dr. Doolittle and I, walking about on the ground
Until we spot, a few yards off, a horticulturist making a sound.
“Um, um,” he says squeezing the soil his hand rubbing it back in the bed
Of flowers, so pretty and dainty and fair as in talking to self he said,
“It's just perfect to plant, just moist enough this dark humus loam,
I'll put in these bulbs, rhizomes and crowns then go for dinner at home.”
Dr. Doolittle reminds me we, creatures all, are made from the dust of the ground,
The first job Adam and Eve were given was cultivate Eden then spread it around.
Alas they did sin, bringing death to all, to the dust of the earth we return.
But all is not lost for we hope in Christ Jesus, resurrection for us He has earned.
Creation is His to free us from sin and death, the grave and decay
We live with certainty that He will return, we wait for that very day.
So with that I sign off, this report is finished, what more can be said about dirt,
Except that without it we wouldn't be here. Fair well, good day, Bert Girt.
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