smitisan's profile

This all happened way back when, before Elvis started putting on weight. Back then, there was a county judge who had three daughters. There was the eldest, Olivia, who was as skinny and bony a thing as ever you saw, always and forever on some new diet or other. There was the middle daughter, Netta, who was maybe a little bigger than she should’ve been. You know how some girls wear their jeans so tight folks say they must’ve had to been poured into them? Well, Netta wore hers like that, only m...

Now this all happened way back when, even before your Aunt Inez run off with that jukebox salesman from Saint Louis and they had them that baby that comes through here every year with the carnival. Back then there was these three bears who lived in a great big house and did things just like regular folks. Papa Daddy Bear was a big old hulky kind of feller who once played something on the line at Alabama, and after that he worked for the railroad. Mama Bear was just a petite little slip of a t...

A pond, an ocean, strangely still, strangely serene, no water, dry waves. The yellow koi leaps, slipping splash off the lotus. Damn! Missed it again. A simple sozu,* a drip of wood, splash of stone, cool spring, liquid time. I left a footprint where the cloud cuts the circle. My signature-chop. Cherries were in bloom all through this year's Sakura. Nature was with us. The kingfisher squats, still and sharp in the bamboo. Oh, for a paintbrush! Ho! Poison ivy tangled in the azaleas. Work for th...

The hawk building her nest over the Zen garden, does she hear the slow slap of gravel on the wall? Does she watch for fish darting under the waves? Does she dive at a flash of fur and suddenly pull up short, wondering that her dinner should scamper over the waters so? Does she gyre on Zen thermals to a higher level? Is she building here for that dry Zen ambience, or just the view? Does she watch me at work, raking in the pattern, and deplore on high my ragged lines and insipid curves? Do the ...

Prissy and the Grit by Bill Smith aka smitisan Now this all happened way back when, back when Coca-Cola was dope and all the dope fiends hung out at the beauty parlor. Back then there was this girl living hereabouts who got herself engaged to a feller from New York City. He come down here on some kind of government grant to study the ways of the hillfolks, and it didn’t take him too awful long to settle in just like he was to the half-moon house born his own self. Had some kin blood in him so...