This document contains several poems by Renae Bonnett that explore Appalachian themes including nature, family memories, and the impacts of mining. The poems use vivid imagery and metaphor to describe experiences like picking blackberries as a child, the arrival of winter, and the effects of mountaintop removal mining.

1. STRIP TEASE By RenaeBonnett Appalachian Themes and Voices, Marshall University November 11, 2010

2. Germs on a microscope slide scurry from the high powered light and cling to the sides of our Petri dish culture as a despotic eyeball raids and disarms us, robs each stain of us bare, overexposes us to magnification as the trespassers pass judgment on germs on a microscope slide.

3. I Remember I remember indigo stained fingers that reached into briary thickets and plucked out fat blackberries that hung like manna clung to thorns... evenings lit with fire flies that hovered low in fresh cut grass and the scent of cool wintergreen alcohol that soothed chigger bitten legs. I remember the creak of front porch swings that sang in cadence with the whippoorwills and complemented tenor crickets as velvet night pulled in around us… cloudless days of late September bathed in autumn’s lemony sunshine that drenched woods from hilltop to holler in hues of amber and crimson fire. I remember the gray dawns of November and grass covered by half-hearted frost that melted on the hearth of an Indian summer into an afternoon of spicy afterglow… the spell cast by the first flurry, and noses pressed to schoolhouse windows, while December dressed for winter and dawn awoke in snowy-white clothes.

5. FENCES We build fences to keep the outside out and hold the inside in with barbed toothed wires that gouge our skin from the outside out to keep the inside in

6. Spring in 51 Syllables Air heavy with lilac bloom Robins on the ground Warm earth springs forth green Peepers under newborn leafs Chirp resonant notes And stir sleeping souls Cold rain falls in pitter-pats bathing buried seeds under muddy ground

7. In 2002, US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, ordered the covering of the partially nude, female statue representing the “Spirit of Justice.” The statue, which adorns the Great Hall of the Department of Justice, was draped at a cost of more than $8,000.

8. Remembering Mr. Ashcroft: A Fashion Statement to Justice Perhaps it’s all for fashion, a fashion government’s decree, to clothe every nude statue from A to Double D. The government knows a bargain, only eight thousand dollars spent to hedge the liberal bosom of Lady Justice in a drab conservative tent, lest mounds of marble femininity disturb folks so weak of constitutions even lifeless monoliths cause anxiety and upset their rigid institutions. So, we frocked her, for the sake of piety, concealed her in burka–like clothes, and precluded the temptation of society to see an inch of Justice exposed. Photo by SabbathaBonnett, 2003 Cloaked – the statue of Mothman before unveiling at Pt. Pleasant, WV

9. A Blackberry Winter, Spring 2003

10. Blackberry Winter On wings stretched wide with downy plumes, anemic spring denies the bramble greens and drapes a white spell to cover hilltop to holler in blackberry winter that shatters the new born clutch of blooms. In the frost-lit air of morning, the rooster throws his sun-crackled salute to the day’s dim dawn and ruffles the straw-lined nests of broody hens who cast out the still and the bitter born to the ravenous beaks of tar-plumed crows.

11. Fall of Dark Angels

12. Fall of Dark Angels In the ice-etched morning, they gather, with quills dipped deep as ink well black and claw feet wrapped about a low hung branch of a crystal coated sycamore… In wings tucked tight as a widow’s shawl, they loom, with scythes ready to reap as the sugarcoated weeds and bitter bitten seeds wait for the half-lit stream of the ice-crust thaw… In the bone-bare trees, they hold their line, heaped as ruffled soldiers on glassy tracks and tinny green gleaming across their backs when blood-orange breaks across the black of the over-night freeze… In the feeble day break spell, they descend, with wing beats as silent as the falling snow and they scratched among the wheat and oats with a familiar sound caught in their throats of murder, as the feathered angels fell.

13. Trees in November If a tree could make a sound it would be an icy screech like the razor-sharp rasps of a witch’s fingernails raked across a sheet of glass

14. Memories of a Barefoot Summer Before sunrise scalded through the stagnate haze, a barefoot brood meandered to the dwindled creek and filled knee-high buckets from the scum covered holes that remained in the acrid days of summer, when copperheads go blind, no cut heals, and Canis Major reigns in the nocturnal sky. We carried our burdens like lop sided ducks, one wing stretched longer by the weight that sloshed beneath the bails as we pecked our way up the hillside to the draught stunted field. Plant by spindly plant, we emptied green tinged water on cracked ground and watched the earth swallow each drink in thirsty gulps, then retraced our footprints from creek to crop to water every inch of our half-tassled woes. Swelter poured over the far side of morning and stirred a heat charged wind that at last draped a stratum of darkness across the hilltops, that called down jagged strikes and throbs of thunder that shook the fractured earth beneath our feet. We let the rain win the race back home but lingered long enough to splash through long forgotten puddles that splattered our calves muddy. Later, we scrubbed our dog-tired bodies fresh, then flopped face first into a cloud of feathers, and listened as a melodic lindy-hop poured across the rooftop, content in the lullaby evening pulled down from heaven.

15. Prowling Capable brood, armed with flashlights and pails, prowled through the drizzly dark in search of night crawlers, and gave no notice to unfurled tresses or dainty feet soaked inside old sneakers. Heads perched on crooked necks, we sloshed through the yard for hours, ready to descend before the slick creatures withdrew when the narrow beams caught them. Fingers transformed to fleshly talons, we swooped like kestrels upon our prey, snatched the slimy quarry and then deposited them, one by gooey one, into open-mouth pails. Sandy eyed and eager, we meandered to the creek and sat cross-legged, still as statues on the shoals, with bamboo poles propped on forked sticks, content to squint for hours at tottering orange and red bobbers. We waited, loyal as Job, and held our breath as lines grew taut and sank our lively, two-toned floaters. Then we set our hooks with slick, quick yanks, sent reels singing, and hauled in the whoppers.

16. Dragline Used to remove mountaintops in the extraction of coal. Acid Mine Drainage from past strip mining practices. Acid Mine Drainage buildup of deposits that have rendered this stream lifeless. Mountaintop Removal site in WV.

17. SWAGGER There is the swagger, the way out west Sand in the saddle, grit in the girdle Down to brass tacks and level best Under a 10 gallon hat and no cattle, Swagger. The smoke ‘em out, take ‘em out, they got weapons of mass destruction, gonna twist and shout, no time to doubt, gotta pay for the reconstruction, Swagger. The “wanna buy some wood” right hand red, left hand yella, turn in your whole neighborhood play spin the wheel of terra, Swagger.

19. To Sleep / To dream Halfway through the night I caught a glimpse of the first quarter- a sliver of silver, a scythe pitched into blue-black velvet that ripped the fabric of the veil and let beams blow to this side of the cosmos as it had since the labor of creation when newborn eyes first ogled the puncture wounds of hollow blackness like a thousand rusty nails pounded through the floor of heaven as I watched, distant sailor lamps flickered until heavy lids closed like ebony curtains draped around a humming dream machine.

20. Special Thanks and Acknowledgements To those who provided support to this project, without whom it would not have been possible. Bobby Bonnett III: Guitar (music featured in this project) Ramona Asbury: Photos, “Orb and House.” Bobby Bonnet Jr., Photos ( Nature: Winter, Blackberries, Bees, Wetlands, Scenery). SabbathaBonnett: Photos (Barbie, Mothman) subject of “Fall of Dark Angels”