Poetry - September 20, 2012

As published in the White River Current - Thursday September 20, 2012

Thanks to all of you who have asked about the release date of my Christmas song.  I have some bad news.  I am delaying the release until maybe the latter part of next year,  Hopefully it will be completed by then and the recording studio work done.  I didn’t realize there was so much involved in getting a song published and recorded.  Of course, it isn’t finished yet.  To be honest, it’s the poetry thing.  I didn’t know rhyming was so difficult.  I have some favorite poems that I learned many years ago but can still recite from memory.  Isn’t it funny how you remember things that happened a long time ago but forget what occurred yesterday?  Or is that an old-age thing?  I can play several piano pieces that I memorized in high school but, for the life of me, I

can’t memorize a simple tune now.  Anyway, there was another student that I was in college with who could recite poetry.  He was a veteran of WW2.  The story he told was that someone had given him this book of poetry and he began to read it and memorizing the contents during the time he was confined to a foxhole somewhere in Europe.  Frank was a likable guy but a little rough and I didn’t spend much time around him.  But he could recite poetry.  Such as “The Face on the Barroom Floor” and even “The Touch of the Master’s Hand.”  The latter is very inspirational and has provided many preachers with some good sermon material.  You can find both these poems on U-Tube.  Some of Frank’s poems would  not be suitable for this family newspaper so I won’t mention them.  I continued to see Frank occasionally at conventions and at one time, when he was a representative of a pharmaceutical company, he called on the local physicians and often stopped by the store.  Frank is no longer with us but I may include him in

a column entitled “characters I have known.”  I don’t know when I will get around to writing this because I am so busy with my song writing.  As a matter of trivia, two of my fellow songwriters died recently.  Hal wrote “Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head” and some other good toe-tappers. Marvin, who was also a conductor, penned “The Way We Were”  and many other hits for both the movies and Broadway.  Interestingly enough, Marvin married a young lady whose parents were Izard County people.  I knew her dad, Bill, and her aunt, Jean, who are natives of Melbourne.  I wish I could have met Marvin.  You know, maybe a little “shop talk.”  Too late.

Anyway, I almost forgot the good news.  I have decided to write a book, probably a historical novel.  I figure I could knock it out in my spare time after working on my poetry.  No doubt in my mind, it would make the best seller lists and then, of course, the movie producers would start lining up to start biding for the screen rights.  I hope to get all this completed by next Spring.  I have the outline ready and I know you will all get excited when I tell you about it.  The story goes sorta like this:  A large group of pioneers have been wandering around, camping at times but mainly living off the land.  This has been going on for some time and mostly takes place in an area in North Arkansas known as the Leatherwoods.  The chosen leader of the group is a tall,  handsome figure by the name of Moses Jones. (I expect that I will be tapped to play this character in the movie).  The real action starts when a group of armed outlaws attack the pioneers and start driving them out of the woods.  Following their leader, it looks like the group is going to escape when all at once then come to a large river that is at flood stage.  Not to be outdone, the leader holds up a boat paddle and the water miraculously parts and the pioneers walk across on dry land.  I failed to mention that there was a small settlement on the other side and that there were tall, multi-colored bluffs both up and down river.  Anyway, the group is welcomed by the small settlement population.  Their leader is elected mayor and later becomes the Governor of the state, then, you know, etc. etc. etc.  Man, what an exciting tale.  I can hardly restrain myself

I’m on such a high.  By the way, the tentative title is “Calico Mo.”  Look for it next Spring at your favorite book store.  Hot at work at the word processor here in my corner in the Queen City of the Ozarks, beautiful Calico Rock, Arkansas.  This is Reed saying Bye til next time.