Ronnie Blackwell

I was formally trained as a poet (M.A. from The University of Southern Mississippi in Creative Writing) and have published a number of poems in journals. In 1985 I won a Salt Works Press’ national contest (”Search for a New Voice”) and they published Young Mules. In 2005, I republished Young Mules as a 20th Anniversary edition with new artwork and slight revisions on LULU, where it now resides for download and/or sale in hard copy. In 2006, I published Chai Songs, also on LULU. On this page, I will occasionally post some passages from my poems. Stay tuned. I’m looking forward to your comments and feedback.

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Poetry Entry 3: From Young Mules (May 25, 2008)

YOUNG MULES

There are no young mules now and very few old.
You see them at roadside near crumbling
share-cropper chimneys. Slack-hided beasts leaning
fences from habit, muzzle deep in forbidden
but forgotten grass, too frail to drag the rake
through a spring garden. But they turned a world
of loam in their strength.

I remember them kicking their way out
of cramped, dark stalls into the dawn, standing
at tandem, snorting steam into the cold,
rolling their skin in the traces with power
never fully harnessed.

Smart enough to know hate, they would run
heifers to miscarriage and turn carnivorous
as Macbeth’s horses on the calves, never
bothering the steers. They worked in quiet
rebellion–kicked, pushed, bit. No mule ever
pulled a plow willingly.

With not even an old mule to hold now,
the gate melts into the paddock where weeds
struggle for purchase in too-rich dirt. Down
the dark corridor, the stalls, even smaller
than memory, make skin prick, and I see
those steaming giants, screaming to the moon
churning down the hall white-eyed and kicking,
balking, refusing to enter, slinging foam
red with the blood of calves.

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Poetry Entry 2: From Chai Songs (March 5, 2008)

PAST ALLEYS PAINTED BLACK IN SHADOW

I’ve fallen for five nights now through sleep

to the soft pavement blue-stenciled with pine

shadow by the humming street lights, to walk

the narrow streets between slouched beauty

of decaying Victorians. Velvet

couches, silhouettes etched against their arched

backs, sit the porches. Hushed conversations

give rhythm to my pace. Drawn to the yellow

cast of bug light, I find the patio

already filling. I catch a waitress’s eye, pull

her through the screen to where it’s spring always

under the pines. I press a fleshy bloom

of wisteria into her face, lead her deeper

into vine, but she stumbles and is lost

in a tangle of leaves and tendrils.

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Poetry Entry 1: From Chai Songs (June 17, 2007)

The Winter Rose

Rose grew at my summer window

A pale peace pink against softest green.

Thorns, noticed only now in winter,

though the same rich peach of petal,

win no praise, only scorn.

Leaves blighted, blossoms picked,

only they remain — ungathered, unassailed,

waiting patiently to prick.