Sunday, December 21, 2014

The Sooner State (from Growing Up Stories)

 



The Sooner State

by

Kenny A. Chaffin

All Rights Reserved © 2013 Kenny A. Chaffin


           


            Quite often on the farm plowing, digging postholes or just herding cattle we’d find ammonite fossils. Our black dirt farm was just off State Highway 99c a few miles southwest of Madill ‘in the arms of Lake Texoma.’ We were 10 miles north of the Evil Texicans as the crow flies, straight north of the Willis Bridge. There was never much love lost between Oklahomans and Texans particularly in the football arena. Lake Texoma was the major source of summer entertainment for swimming, water skiing and fishing but I never considered it a source for the ammonites even though I knew they were water dwellers. Ammonites were ancient sea creatures that lived from 400 to 65 million years ago and died out along with the dinosaurs. They were spiral shaped with segmented shells looking something like a giant snail or today’s nautilus but are actually related to the more intelligent cuttlefish and octopus.            


Ammonite Fossil

After I’d learned a bit about them from the encyclopedia and library books on fossils and ancient life I remember holding one that I’d come across in the pasture, a large one maybe a foot wide in my hands and just staring at it in awe thinking, “This was once the bottom of the ocean and this thing was alive wriggling, twisting and swimming through it.” I was astounded. I imagined salty blue-green water reaching from the black dirt at my feet to the puffy white cumulus clouds floating above. I was amazed that all this land could have been at the bottom of the ocean. That was one of several events which set me on a life-long quest to learn everything I could about life, science, nature and the universe, a quest which has never ebbed in my six decades and which I expect to continue through my last dying breath.
            Oklahoma sits slightly south of the center of the United States, in the lower part of the Great Plains and was at the edge of a great inland sea that filled the central U.S. until about 60 million years ago. The land where our farm was would have been under water and that water would have been thriving with life, much of it ammonites as evidenced by the abundance of fossils found on our land. To Daddy they were more a nuisance than anything, just rocks that broke plows or got in the way of digging post holes or other work, but to me they were magic they transported me to another world, another time, another place.
            The land left over from that abundant sea life and the sediments it left behind created The Great Plains, a huge swath of flat fertile land on which the prairie grasses (tall and short) would grow and on which the buffalo would feed. Because of that sea and its ‘recent’ demise the existing vegetation is relatively new by geological time standards and consists of mostly grasses and few trees. This is how The Great Plains came to be. This vast prairie would be undisturbed by humans for 60 million years.  
The first evidence of human travel through Oklahoma was during the last ice age and the oldest permanent settlements are from the Mississippian culture between 800 and 1450 BCE. These are the Spiro Burial Mounds near the Arkansas border in the eastern part of the state.
The plains Indians of course followed the migrations of the buffalo. They had no permanent settlements but they left traces of their travels over most of the state. The name Oklahoma comes from the Choctaw words okla and humma, meaning "red people" and was suggested by the Choctaw Chief Allen Wright during negotiations with the U.S. Government.
Geographically the state slopes slightly downhill from the northwest to the southeast. It has over 500 named creeks and rivers and 200 man-made lakes created by dams, the largest number of artificial reservoirs of any state. The Land of 10,000 Lakes has got nothing on Oklahoma...well except for a few more lakes....but ours were created by intelligent design.
The French explored and laid claim in the 1700’s to much of the land west of the Mississippi river including what is now Oklahoma. It was acquired from them in the well-known Louisiana Purchase of 1803. One hundred and four years later in 1907 Oklahoma became the 47th state followed by Arizona, Alaska, and Hawaii.
The things Oklahoma is most known for other than being in Tornado Alley is being the Indian State since it was the destination of the Trail of Tears and of course being part of the Dust Bowl in the 30’s. I won’t delve into all the Indian history as there is plenty of information on line (see the links at the end of this text) and in books but it was probably the most horrific thing to take place on American soil with the possible exception of the Civil War. The Native Americans were forcefully moved in tribes to designated locations, reservations in Eastern Oklahoma starting with the Choctaw in 1801 and proceeding systematically through all the eastern seaboard tribes. Sixty-thousand of the one hundred thirty thousand relocated Cherokees died as a result of the forced march they were required to make in the middle of the winter in 1838. Even those relocations were not to be the end of the evil perpetuated on the Native Americans though. During the cattle drives from Texas to Kansas and points north many whites began settling in the Indian allocated lands. Eventually this led to conflict and to the passage of the Dawes Act of 1887 another atrocity against the Native Americans. It subdivided the communal Indian lands into individual ‘family’ properties and allocated specific size plots to each Indian and in the process stripped the tribes of half their lands. The railroads and whites took it at the behest of the U.S. Government. This ‘open land’ led to another thing Oklahoma is known for – the land runs. The ‘freed up’ Indian lands were made available through the Homestead Act to any U.S. citizen that was willing to follow the rules. In some cases this meant lining up on the border and racing into the allocated areas to ‘stake a claim’ (i.e. literally putting stakes in the ground to mark a plot of land) of 160 acres as allowed by the Homestead Act. Some of these settlers were less than ethical and snuck in early placed their stakes and just waited. These were known as the ‘Sooners’ and that is where the state nickname comes from - The Sooner State.  It is also the name of the University of Oklahoma football team.
Although The Dust Bowl did not affect southern Oklahoma so much it was devastating in the panhandle and northern parts of the state and certainly made an impact in the psyche of the nation through the photos, stories and of course through Steinbeck’s classic novel The Grapes of Wrath.


Farmer and sons walking in the face of a dust storm.


Oklahoma is primarily agricultural but it is also an oil state. I guess that’s one more thing! Oil wells have been discovered and drilled all over the state including ones on the actual State Capital grounds which are unique in the world. The Osage Indians got lucky in that there are significant oil deposits under their land in Northeastern Oklahoma making them the richest of all Native American Tribes.
Partially because it lay on the edge of the inland sea and due to other geological activity the land sloped downward to the southeast and ranges from red dirt in the northern and central parts of the state to rich black dirt of southern Oklahoma where our farm was located. The Red River brought much of that black dirt to the area and forms a natural border between Oklahoma and Texas with the designated boundary line running down the middle of the river and subsequently down the middle of Lake Texoma. The lake is formed by Dennison Dam and is one of the largest man-made lakes in the country. This is where I grew up; the lake was where I spent many a summer day.   
And this was the land Grandpa Sid came to from Missouri in 1901 six years before it was a state, when it was still Indian Territory. He would have been eighteen years old at the time and from what I can learn he moved to Indian Territory with his parents to a place just south of where the farm I grew up on is located. I can only guess that it was homesteading that brought them here when land opened up but I don’t actually know and the records are sparse. I’ve always wondered where, how he got the land and farm where I grew up. I wish I’d asked these questions when I was growing up or at least before it was too late but back then all I wanted was out, to be away from there. I believe that he or his parents homesteaded it or another homestead and later traded/bought the farm. There were two plots of land, two parcels, the land where the farmhouse and barns were, which was a quarter section – 160 acres and another parcel half that size across State Highway 99c which had no buildings or improvements other than an old dry water well.
            That farm and land was turned over to Daddy to work the year of my birth. For the next fifteen years that’s exactly what he did, he worked his ass off, but in the end it came to naught as the farm was lost to bankruptcy.





References/Resources/Links

Oklahoma:

Native Americans/Trail of Tears:

Lake Texoma:

Inland Sea:

Dust Bowl:




About the Author

Kenny A. Chaffin writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction and has published poems and fiction in Vision Magazine, The Bay Review, Caney River Reader, WritersHood, Star*Line, MiPo, Melange and Ad Astra and has published nonfiction in The Writer, The Electron, Writers Journal and Today’s Family. He grew up in southern Oklahoma and now lives in Denver, CO where he works hard to make enough of a living to support two cats, numerous wild birds and a bevy of squirrels. His poetry collections No Longer Dressed in Black and The Poet of Utah Park and his collection of science essays How do we Know are available at Amazon.com:
 http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007S3SMY8. He may be contacted through his website at http://www.kacweb.com


Thursday, December 18, 2014

Collision


Collision
by
Kenny A. Chaffin
All Rights Reserved © 2014 Kenny A. Chaffin


Damnit how many times does this have to happen before someone wises up and creates a fail-safe? This is the third time this millennium that the subspace signals got delayed and the transports collided in the wormhole. This time three new universes were created. God!

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Pumpjack (poem)



Pumpjack


A slow muted ka-thummmp.....ka-thummmmp...
ka-thummmp...fills the Oklahoma night. Just as you
think the gasping engine has died a final death
another quick succession comes
ka-thummmp, ka-thummmp, ka-thummmp.

Scattered across the flatlands
like prehistoric beasts, raising their heads,
moonlight glinting from crested brows
dipping their long tongues into the Earth.

Tasting, savoring, lapping up
the thick black soup,
returning it to the surface
and the sunlight it has not seen
for millions and millions of years.



Kenny A. Chaffin – 5/6/2014

Friday, December 5, 2014

In the Night (poem)


In the Night


Every night Orion rises,
its vulgar Van Gogh stars
screaming out my name,
forcing me outside,
to look up, to open my eyes
and be blinded once again.



Kenny A. Chaffin – 10/8/2014

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

What Happens in Vegas

What Happens in Vegas
by
Kenny A. Chaffin
All Rights Reserved © 2014 Kenny A. Chaffin


            In my dream Las Vegas was being shoved against the mountains. At first it was actually fun riding the berm of a sand dune as it slid across the desert -- something like surfing  the Sahara. As we approached the mountains the turbulence of the sand increased and a huge lake formed between us and the tall buildings. We struggled to stay on top of the crest and not fall into the flaming abyss that had opened below. I somehow made my way to the left and up a path leading away from the bottomless pit. From there I saw the high-rollers in the high-rise fighting to escape. They were beating against the blue translucent plastic windows with anything they could find. Pushing outward, stretching the hot plastic. Some were already screaming as they fell towards the burning conflagration below them. Others were bending and bulging the plastic windows. Vague body shapes pushing outward beating to escape what to them must be hell -- only to fall free into another. Panic and fear making them fly. 



Friday, September 12, 2014

No Longer Dressed in Black (poem)


 

No Longer Dressed in Black

 (from my first poetry collection: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007SQ9JYC)

They no longer dress in black,
they’ve become accountants,
clerks, engineers and thieves.

Cobain is dead and so is Lennon
that mop-top leader of revolutions.

Now middle-American angst
replaces the illusion, replaces the
heroes pushed beyond death, the
black that waits for us all.

Only the Goths are left and they
never bought into it anyway, their
blackness worn only on their sleeves,
insulation from society.

They used to wear black, these clerks,
thieves, accountants; clinging to it,
as if to hope, but knowing there was no
challenge, no future, no reason to believe.

They were pulled inexorably
into society, depressed enough 
to go along, depressed enough
to suck the blackness into their bodies
and smile as they hand you your change.


Kenny A. Chaffin – 6/26/01


Monday, August 25, 2014

A Death at 964 Poplar Lane


A Death at 964 Poplar Lane
by
Kenny A. Chaffin
All Rights Reserved © 2014 Kenny A. Chaffin

It was hard to say how long she’d been in that position. The first responders indicated that rigor mortis was complete and Fox News was blaring from the TV. She had apparently been brain dead for some time.

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Ferguson (poem)




Ferguson


It’s about authority without accountability.
It’s about the unacknowledged class structure of America.
It’s about battle lines being drawn between rich and poor haves and have-nots.
It’s about taking cigars from a convenience store by brute force because you can.
It’s about the loss of morals and ethics by all classes.
It’s about entitlement and about everyone being a winner.
Well everyone isn’t a winner, everyone doesn’t have a point, in fact
most of the population is clueless unless you happen to ask about Survivor or
The Voice or those implanted beliefs provided by the endless thirty second spots
because that’s what it’s about.




Kenny A. Chaffin – 8/19/2014

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Apple (poem)

Apple

January brings a
solitary apple
that clings in iridescence
to a lonely upper branch.

A desiccated beauty
And why only one?
Squirrels have not touched it
birds have left it be

Poison, profound or pious
I may never know
I’m reconciled to beauty alone
for only crows know truth



Kenny A. Chaffin – 1/8/2013

Monday, August 4, 2014

Seeking Solitude

Seeking Solitude
by
Kenny A. Chaffin
All Rights Reserved © 2014 Kenny A. Chaffin



I ask the city to be quiet, but it does not listen.






Sunday, August 3, 2014

Out of Touch (poem)


Out of Touch


Can’t afford the price of bread
and coffee is beyond my reach
I like to think of myself as frugal
others might call it miserly.

The Clintons were ‘Flat Broke’
when they left the Oval Office.
If only I were so broke,
I’d celebrate with danish and tea.



Kenny A. Chaffin – 6/27/2014

Monday, July 28, 2014

Auto Mechanic to a young Steve Winwood





Auto Mechanic to a young Steve Winwood
by
Kenny A. Chaffin
All Rights Reserved © 2014 Kenny A. Chaffin

You've got a low spark there boy.








Friday, July 18, 2014

The Rusting of the Ocean and the Poisoning of the Atmosphere



The Rusting of the Ocean and the Poisoning of the Atmosphere


            Take time today to thank a stromatolite for the oxygen that you breathe.  





Friday, July 11, 2014

It’s Just as Well




It’s Just as Well
by
Kenny A. Chaffin
All Rights Reserved © 2014 Kenny A. Chaffin



            Even if we knew the asteroid would strike tomorrow – destroying all life on Earth, they’d still park their car at an odd angle across the lines taking up two or more spaces to prevent dings to their doors.









Thursday, July 3, 2014

Rage, Rage



Rage, Rage
by
Kenny A. Chaffin
All Rights Reserved © 2014 Kenny A. Chaffin


I hate miller moths! I know, I know, hate is a strong word, but still... An entire squadron of them attacked me last night just as I was reaching over to turn out the light. I can’t sleep without reading a bit first so when I go to bed that is the only light left on in the house, well, other than the chargers and blinking cable modem and wireless router and the light from the streetlight slipping in. Speaking of slipping in, I don’t know how in the world these li’l bastards get in the house, but anyway at bedtime they are naturally attracted to my reading lamp like a dying man to the light.
            I sleep with a flyswatter for that very reason – to kill the bastards before they have a chance to crawl into my ear canal in the night. When I’ve finished reading, when my eyes are tired and I reach to turn off the light, that’s when they attack, like out of nowhere there are a dozen or more of them suddenly swarming around the light, thumping against the lampshade and wreaking havoc. I reluctantly move my water glass out from under the lamp and reach for the swatter. It’s tough to hit them in the air, yet I waft the flyswatter around just in case and get a couple of them....one is only stunned and clambers under my pillow twitching and wiggling. I grab a Kleenex and smash him but it leaves dust and goo on the bed sheet.

            They are all but impossible to kill, particularly without disturbing the lamp, the phone or my ‘night-stuff’ -- my shrine as my daughter calls it – the Kleenex, Chap stick, earplugs, nasal inhaler, antacids, pen and notepad, my key of G tin whistle and the cheap-ass clock radio. Still I try my best to kill them without damaging anything. I’m wide awake and angry at this point and just want them dead. I slap at them with the flyswatter and the first inadvertent result is the Lavender drops knocked off the nightstand, then the earplugs, the Kleenex flies under the bed like a moth itself trying to hide. They continue to flicker and flit and I’m so mad at this point that I can spit but I finally either kill them or chase them into hiding. I clean the moth-dust residue from my pillow and sheets and turn off the light. Now if I can just settle my mind it’s off to sleep, but then...then...I hear them, wings flittering and thumping against the lampshade as they continue to rage, rage against the dying of the light.





Kenny A. Chaffin writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction and has published poems and fiction in Vision Magazine, The Bay Review, Caney River Reader, WritersHood, Star*Line, MiPo, Melange and Ad Astra and has published nonfiction in The Writer, The Electron, Writers Journal and Today’s Family. He grew up in southern Oklahoma and now lives in Denver, CO where he works hard to make enough of a living to support two cats, numerous wild birds and a bevy of squirrels. His poetry collections No Longer Dressed in Black, The Poet of Utah Park, The Joy of Science, A Fleeting Existence, a collection of science essays How do we Know, and a memoir of growing up on an Oklahoma farm - Growing Up Stories are all available at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007S3SMY8. He may be contacted through his website at http://www.kacweb.com


Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Black Racer (excerpt from Growing Up Stories)


 

Black Racer

(from Growing Up Stories available at Amazon.com) 
by

Kenny A. Chaffin

All Rights Reserved © 2012 Kenny A. Chaffin




You know how kids are; they get an idea in their head and won’t let it go. Well, maybe not just kids, I’ve known more than a few adults like that. I’ve never cared much for snakes, most people don’t and there are deep evolutionary and psychological reasons for that. When I was in about the first grade someone, some relative most likely a cousin or aunt or someone scared the bejeezus out of me talking about black racer snakes and how fast they were and that they would intentionally chase you down a road or trail just to bite you. I was just a kid so didn’t consider much about why a snake would want to do something like that rather than just stay away. I figured they were able to think and plan and chase and be mean like the bullies in school. I became a bit obsessed about the whole thing even though I’d never heard of anyone seeing a black racer and I’d never seen one myself. Every day I dreaded walking home from the school bus stop the mile or so on the gravel road that led to our farm. I just knew the black racers would be hiding in wait at the edge of the road for someone to walk by so they could chase them. In my fear I developed a plan which I saw as perfectly rational. I’d cross the culvert into the cattle field next to the road with its chest high weeds and Johnson grass and I’d run, run, run for my life all the way home rather than risk a black racer seeing me on the road, chasing me, and biting me!
Never mind that the field was more likely to have rattlesnakes, water moccasins or copperheads! It’s crazy how you can convince yourself to ignore real dangers in order to avoid imagined ones. We humans seem to do that a lot though, worrying about airplane crashes, lightning strikes, asteroids and sharks when the real killers are heart disease, stroke and car crashes.
Sometimes I think my life has been driven by snakes. Or maybe a snake is my ‘spirit animal’ rather than a Chinese dragon. I suspect though it’s just my innate fear of snakes, probably egged on by my mother. I don’t think she was very ‘snake-friendly’ in fact I’m pretty sure she was terrified of them. She certainly wasn’t very accommodating the day a six foot rattlesnake showed up in the flowerbed on the west end of the front porch. She managed to pin it against the concrete porch with the hoe she’d been using to work the flowers and was screaming for Daddy, “Kenneth! Kenneth! Help!” She was leaning into the hoe with all her weight and the snake was still managing to make some headway in escaping. I just tried to stay outta the way as the snake writhed and fought and tried to escape. Of course Daddy was nowhere to be found. He was off working. She told me I had to hold the snake there while she found something to kill it with. What else could I do? I took hold of the hoe-handle and leaned into it with all my weight but the damn thing still managed to wriggle a bit more free. By the time she got back it had slipped through another foot or so and was thrashing and hissing and trying to strike. I was thinking “nuclear bomb” might be the only way to kill it, but Mama returned with another hoe and a shovel. She chopped and hacked at it trying to sever the writhing head and it still kept slipping through despite my attempts to keep it pinned against the concrete. Finally she was able to pretty much chop its head off, but that mouth and fangs still dangled by a strap of skin. The rest of the body continued to writhe and struggle to get free. I let it fall to the dirt and it continued to knot and twist for a long while but it was no longer a threat. We both collapsed with sighs of relief. Certainly it wasn’t the first or the last rattler we’d see. I have no idea how many we encountered on the farm, but lots -- probably at least one a year. Nor do I remember how many rattles were on the tail of that particular snake, but something like six or seven comes to mind. Rattlesnakes were and are a fixture of the Oklahoma prairie. They were to be expected.
Fears are funny things. As a kid I was pretty much terrified of snakes. Spiders though didn’t scare me much. I’d dispatched a tarantula with my tricycle when I was only two or three years old.  And well before my teenage years I’d gotten past the fear of Hell-fire that was preached in the churches across the South. Snakes however were a different matter; I definitely projected into them minds of their own and gave them super ordinary physical abilities. My childhood bed sat under an east-facing window and I feared going to bed every night, bracing myself against the snakes. You see, there was a small gap between the windowsill and the wall. It couldn’t have been more than half-an-inch, but you could see light through it and feel the wind. I knew for certain that a snake could climb up the outside wall and through that hole into my bed. I knew it! I’d curl up into a ball as far away from the wall and the hole as possible. I knew there would be a snake climbing up the rough outside wall, I knew they could, I’d seen them climbing trees on National of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom! Despite my paralyzing fear I was still afraid to say anything to anyone. I knew they’d just laugh and ridicule me for my ‘silly fears.’       
It may be that my fear of snakes was set by one of the earliest experiences I ‘remember’ but I’m not really sure how much of it is actual memory and how much was fed to me by Mama. It was another flowerbed incident….hell it’s a wonder I didn’t develop a fear of flowers! As the story goes, I was probably about 18 months old – well before the killing of the tarantula. Mama was working in the yard or garden or maybe even in the same flowerbed in front of the house. I suppose she had put me in the dirt to play – when you’re poor you play with what ya got and we had lots of dirt. I remember reaching out to, or through the flowers which were growing at the back of the bed to pet the ‘pretty lizard.’ Then came the scream from Mama and my being jerked violently away. The pretty lizard turned out to be a four foot copperhead its scales glimmering like golden rainbows in the sunshine.
Despite many other such encounters during my fifteen years on the farm no one ever got bitten. There were snakes in the chicken house, hay barn, fields and sheds which either got away or got dispatched to the great beyond. Most of them we probably never saw as they really do try to avoid confrontation. We certainly didn’t live in peace with the snakes, but we did by necessity share the land.
My most recent snake encounter was actually in Colorado a few years ago -- quite far in both time and space from those childhood experiences. I was taking a lunch-time hike up South Table Mountain in West Denver when on the way back down what should appear in the middle of the narrow trail but a coiled and angry rattler. We have them here too in the Colorado eastern plains. This one was probably a good five footer, coiled and rattling to beat the band. I have no idea why he’d be there and it was a bit surreal in that there was a circle of large rocks around him as if they had been specifically placed or arranged that way. The trail was cut into a steep slope covered in scrub-oak so there wasn’t much of an easy way around the beast. You’d think I would have known better, but I picked up a few rocks and heaved them in the snake’s direction.  All that did was piss him off more and increase his threat behavior – hissing, rattling and striking at the rocks. Seeing as he didn’t see fit to move I thought maybe I was on Candid Camera or something, particularly with the ‘circle of rocks’ around him, but regardless I figured safety was the better part of valor and  took the cross-country route through the scrub-oak around him and back down to work. Thinking back on it now I guess it was not really that different than running through the field to avoid the black racers. His mate could easily have been in the brush that I bushwhacked through. Sometimes one wonders what it is they have learned in a lifetime, why one obsesses over certain memories, certain fears and why they are always there just below the surface ready to pop out, ready to guide you or return you to your childhood. The things you learn later can also put a different twist on those past events and one thing I recently learned is that black racer snakes are non-poisonous.
  




About the Author

Kenny A. Chaffin writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction and has published poems and fiction in Vision Magazine, The Bay Review, Caney River Reader, WritersHood, Star*Line, MiPo, Melange and Ad Astra and has published nonfiction in The Writer, The Electron, Writers Journal and Today’s Family. He grew up in southern Oklahoma and now lives in Denver, CO where he works hard to make enough of a living to support two cats, numerous wild birds and a bevy of squirrels. His poetry collections No Longer Dressed in Black, The Poet of Utah Park, The Joy of Science, A Fleeting Existence, a collection of science essays How do we Know, and a memoir of growing up on an Oklahoma farm - Growing Up Stories are all available at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007S3SMY8. He may be contacted through his website at http://www.kacweb.com

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Spinning


 

Spinning
by
Kenny A. Chaffin
All Rights Reserved © 1990 Kenny A. Chaffin
(from Prosthetic Amalgams)


            Have you ever spun around and around until you were so dizzy you fell down and when you did the world just kept on spinning? My brother does, and he sees things. He hears things too. I've spun and spun and haven't seen anything. I just get dizzy.
            Mom says he's just makin' it up. I don't think so. I've seen his eyes when it happens. It scares him to death. He did it last Sunday morning in the church yard. It was the worst yet. I had to hold his mouth to keep him from screaming. Well, I had to, he would've had all the church-people askin' all kinds of questions.
            He says it's a bad monster. He says the monster will eat his heart. But he keeps spinnin'. Sometimes I think he's just makin' it all up. He's three, I'm seven. Sometimes, though, I think it's true, those are the times I look in his eyes after he's been spinnin'.
            Sometimes he looks at me, eyes wide in terror, and says, "Help! Save Me! It's the penis monster, it’s tryin' to get my penis. Help me! Help me!" Then he stops and says, "You can help me, because the monster's already got yours." And he rolls on the floor laughing. What a stupid three-year-old. 
            We live in the city. Well, not a big city, Beaumont, Texas. But my cousins live in the county, on a farm. We're gonna' go visit them soon. I wish my brother wasn't goin' though. Him and his monsters, that's all they want to do--talk about monsters. Sometimes I wish the monsters were real and they really would come and eat his heart. Mom says I shouldn't say that, she's   probably right. Sometimes he makes me so mad, I just can't stand   it.
            We went to see our cousins last summer. I got to ride a horse, all by myself. They ride all the time. Jill's only five and she's got her own pony. I wish I had a pony. Be kinda hard in the apartment though. My stupid brother went and got lost down the road from their farm house. We had to look for him for two hours. He said the monster made him go to a special place. It was   a fun summer though, with our cousins.
            My stupid brother was a lot more fun when he was two. Before he could really talk. He'd spin around and get that look in his eyes and dad, that was before mom made dad leave, would throw him up in the air. And he'd laugh. That was fun, when he was two.
            Then he hit me with the hammer. He told mom the monster made him do it. He broke my head, so some of my brain leaked out. I don't remember that part so well. It hurt pretty bad, but not for long. Mom says it's okay. That I'll be okay. They'll take care of me in this place. Mom says they've been doin' it for twenty years now.





About the Author

Kenny A. Chaffin writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction and has published poems and fiction in Vision Magazine, The Bay Review, Caney River Reader, WritersHood, Star*Line, MiPo, Melange and Ad Astra and has published nonfiction in The Writer, The Electron, Writers Journal and Today’s Family. He grew up in southern Oklahoma and now lives in Denver, CO where he works hard to make enough of a living to support two cats, numerous wild birds and a bevy of squirrels. His poetry collections No Longer Dressed in Black, The Poet of Utah Park, The Joy of Science, A Fleeting Existence, a collection of science essays How do we Know, and a memoir of growing up on an Oklahoma farm - Growing Up Stories are all available at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007S3SMY8. He may be contacted through his website at http://www.kacweb.com


Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Chihuahua (poem)



Chihuahua


The blind man is walking
his chihuahua, swishing
his white stick from side-to-side
across the rough concrete.

I take care to noisily approach
so he is not surprised,
as I pass I say, “Howdy,”
and before I can blink

his white stick lashes out
like Daredevil on steroids
stinging my cheek and
blooding my lip.

“Damn!” I yell, “What the fuck?”
He looks at me with his
unseeing eyes and says, “Sorry,
I thought you were going to rape me.”



Kenny A. Chaffin – 3/27/2014
(from: A Fleeting Existence)

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

When We Are Gone


When We Are Gone


by

Kenny A. Chaffin

All Rights Reserved © 2014 Kenny A. Chaffin
(from Prosthetic Amalgams)


           
            It starts with ants excavating the driveway, it will continue for years. They will bring their detritus up through the cracks. The winter snows will melt and seep into those cracks, freeze and force them open further. Water will gather, flow, settle, lift and shift sidewalk slabs. Tree roots will drill into foundations, vines into mortar and brick, climbing and covering. Wind-loosened shingles will lift and fall, lift and fall, ‘til they fall away for good. The sun will bake the asphalt shingles, the ice and rain will do their work, abrading and washing grit into the rain gutters and down onto that driveway.
            Manicured lawns will fade as native plants reclaim their territory. Manicured shrubberies will explode, twist and warp into their own shapes, their own selves. Flickers who have always drummed upon flues in search of mates will continue drumming on the rusting flues until those flues fall and can no longer be drummed upon. Woodpeckers will open the way; honeybees will follow taking purchase within walls protected from the elements. Rabbits and deer will return sheltering where we once were. In almost no time at all, life will return to normal.







About the Author

Kenny A. Chaffin writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction and has published poems and fiction in Vision Magazine, The Bay Review, Caney River Reader, WritersHood, Star*Line, MiPo, Melange and Ad Astra and has published nonfiction in The Writer, The Electron, Writers Journal and Today’s Family. He grew up in southern Oklahoma and now lives in Denver, CO where he works hard to make enough of a living to support two cats, numerous wild birds and a bevy of squirrels. His poetry collections No Longer Dressed in Black and The Poet of Utah Park  are available as ebooks at Amazon.com as well as How do we Know? a collection of science articles and essays. These and more are available at his Amazon.com author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007S3SMY8


Thursday, January 30, 2014

What we did (poem)

What we did

Danielle died last night
we are all dying
dear God what do we do.

There is no food, no water
no water that is clean,
disease is rampant.

We ate grass yesterday
it only helped briefly to fill
our bellies and made us sick

There is only one way
if we are to survive
we thank you Danielle.




Kenny A. Chaffin – 1/29/2014

(This is from an in-progress project tentatively titled 'Fate')

Saturday, January 25, 2014

The Fabric of our Lives (poem)




The Fabric of our Lives


What if reality were like a fabric
woven together by laws of physics?

What if we happened across a loose stitch
and happened to give it a tug?

Would we learn, or would we lose?
Would it be the Big Bang Redux?



Kenny A. Chaffin – 1/15/2014
(From - The Joy of Science - Poems of Science and Speculation )

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Borrowed Bones


 

Borrowed Bones


by

Kenny A. Chaffin

All Rights Reserved © 2013 Kenny A. Chaffin




A poet ought not to pick nature's pocket.
Let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay
by the very act of borrowing…and trust more
to the imagination than the memory.
-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge




You begin your existence as a single gelatinous cell deep in your mother’s body though you will have no understanding, no awareness of that existence for a number of years. That single cell from your mother along with a single strand of DNA from your father was assembled from proteins, nutrients and amino acids. Those things, like all things are made of atoms which have existed since their birth in the hearts of stars billions of years ago. Those atoms once brought into existence by those nuclear furnaces are extremely stable and extremely long-lived. Everything that we are and everything around us is made from those ancient atoms that are at billions of years old. The hydrogen in your body (mostly in molecular water) is as old as the universe itself having been formed shortly after the big bang. The other elements range from 7 – 12 billion years old and were created in first and second generation stars. First generation stars formed just after the birth of the universe 13.8 billion years ago. Second generation stars formed after many of the first generation exploded in supernovas spreading their atoms and remaining original gases into space. Our own sun is a third generation star made from the remains of those that have gone before as well as primordial hydrogen and helium. In something of a similar manner, when you die your proteins, amino acids and the atoms they are comprised of will return to the Earth from which they came to be reused by others or for other purposes such as trees, mountains, clouds or oceans. We are all borrowers. We borrow what we need while we are here. We live on borrowed bones that someday must be returned.
            That original single cell that was you did what all cells do, with no direction from you or from your mother; it conscripted atoms from its environment and incorporated them into itself. It grew, divided to become two cells, then four and eight, all using those atoms from long-dead stars. As an adult your body is constantly replacing itself. They say that all the cells in your body are replaced every decade or so. That being the case, how is it that ‘you’ continue to exist? Clearly it is not the physical cells that are you. Even brain cells which are the seat of awareness and consciousness are replaced over time despite the urban myth to the contrary. What is it then that is you or me? Is life an illusion? Are we nothing more than ambulatory repositories for selfish genes as Dawkins argued decades ago? Would life be any different if we were?
            Just as the features of your face, your skin color and texture does not change when its cells are replaced neither does your experience of self – your self-awareness -- when your brain cells are replaced. Certainly injuries to the brain can change this, just as a bodily injury can change your appearance. Brain injuries can of course cause you to become someone else or even become unaware of yourself, but under normal circumstances even though all your cells may be replaced, you are still you.
            Your facial features, the color of your eyes, those freckles on your skin as well as your brain cells and their connections are maintained by your bodily processes in a constant battle against entropy (the tendency of things to fall apart, lose energy, etc.).  New cells replace old cells and are copies of the cells they replace. Skin cells die and flake off. Internal cells such as those responsible for the color of your eyes, die and are carried off by the blood stream or are broken down into their constituent proteins and amino acids and carried off or reused in place. This is all done in a manner that maintains that physical arrangement that defines your features, your body. It’s that pattern, that arrangement, that relationship between cells and proteins that makes your body what it is and makes you who you are. Your consciousness, your self-awareness, your mind is an arrangement as well. It is a pattern of connected brain cells and their neuronal firings that begin long before you are aware. You are a pattern of information, a process of your brain that is maintained by your body’s homeostasis. All the cells, atoms, neurons and neurotransmitters in your brain can be replaced individually and as long as the replacement maintains the original pattern you will still be you. If on the other hand the replacement is faulty like with Alzheimer’s disease then we begin to change. We become someone else or we lose a part of ourselves.  
            Each of us is only on this Earth for a short time; we arise from the atoms around us, driven by unique information in our DNA. Our bodies are arrangements, patterns built from the information contained in our DNA. We learn, we become, and we are those dynamic arrangements built of borrowed bones, borrowed atoms, neurons and neuronal firings in our brains. We are borrowers. We borrow atoms to build and repair our bodies for the time we are here and when we are done we return them for others to use over and over and over again.



References/Resources/Links

DNA:

Stellar Nucleosynthesis:

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis:

Brain/Mind:





About the Author

Kenny A. Chaffin writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction and has published poems and fiction in Vision Magazine, The Bay Review, Caney River Reader, WritersHood, Star*Line, MiPo, Melange and Ad Astra and has published nonfiction in The Writer, The Electron, Writers Journal and Today’s Family. He grew up in southern Oklahoma and now lives in Denver, CO where he works hard to make enough of a living to support two cats, numerous wild birds and a bevy of squirrels. His poetry collections No Longer Dressed in Black and The Poet of Utah Park and his collection of science essays How do we Know are available at Amazon.com:

 http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007S3SMY8. He may be contacted through his website at http://www.kacweb.com

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Radio Waves (poem)


Radio Waves


I listen to Radio New Zealand as I prepare my evening meal.
I think of life before Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, cell
phones and 24 hour infomercials.

A time when life was harder but simpler, more content.
I think of radio waves beamed from Christchurch, circling
the Earth, spreading news, music and culture not only around
the globe but into space as well, beaming towards Alpha
Centauri, spreading at the speed of light from our tiny
corner of the galaxy.

What if somehow we could catch that wave,
pass it and return to a simpler time.


Kenny A. Chaffin – 12/30/2013
(From - The Joy of Science - Poems of Science and Speculation )