Stories, Poetry, Thoughts, Life
To a poet, writing is the blood that flows
Through the veins, words the sinew of
Their being, creating the movement of
The body, finishing uplifts the soul,
Failure not an option as the story must
Be told.
The lines may read of sadness, of stars
Hanging in the dark blue, shivering in the
Distance, creating against all resistance.
Waiting for the finished poem to float in
On butterfly wings, in perfection poetry sings.
©2019.elizabethannjohnsonmurphree
Honey Wine – A short – short Story
Serena knew that beauty had an ending that all things fade and die; now she was in the winter of her years. All her friends were gone, as was much of her family, some forgotten like goldenrods falling to dust upon the wind. Her eyes yearned, her heart bled for love, frustration guided her thoughts, and she kept repeating the words…
“Old, old, old.” Serena hated to eat from a plate made of paper; if she was younger, they may let her dine on fine bone china.
“Now you come with me Ms Serena, its supper time.” Lucas had a special bond Serena. He did not mind that she lived in the past or the present.
Satiation, that was where Serena was in her mind, then she thought…it is necessary that people should feel wants beyond the want created by mere hunger.
The clouds of time have spun away like the seasons; she now waited for the last leaf to drop. All that was left was the sweet memories, like the taste of her father’s Honey wine. Please she whispered let it go quickly…
“I am so tired of time”. Serena looks at the setting sun, as it melted into the lake next to where she shared a room with a stranger
©elizabethannjohnsonmurphree
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Wild Mountain Rose…#14
There is a legend up on Mossy Ridge that children hear while listening to the old folks weaves their tales around their supper table at night – About…
Two gentle spirits walking the rutty mountain roads under the mystical Tennessee moonlight. These stories begin many years ago about an old Cherokee and a little girl he called his Wild Mountain Rose – Folks …
First, saw her drinking from a cool mountain stream all legs and dirty yellow hair abandoned by her family so the stories go, but no one is sure of that, if the truth were told. The first time the old Cherokee saw her, she was sleeping under a bush folks call the Mountain Rose – Afterwards…
She was with him no matter where he would go. Folks would say that without old Willie Youngblood she would not have survived – Willie…
He knew that without her, he himself would have died. The years went by quickly and they both grew old, time had touched their hair with gray – They…
Could only dream about their younger days. One cool spring morning Willie woke to find her gone from his side, he sat for hours head hung low as he cried – Later…
He found her lying peacefully she had died there on a soft bed of leaves, a mournful death chant was the only way the old Cherokee knew how to grieve. Now if you know where to look it is in the Tennessee Mountains where Willie Youngblood’s Wild Mountain Rose can be found – Beneath…
The damp rotting forest floor in a shallow grave up on Mossy Ridge near the entrance of Chicopee Cave. The following winter Old Willie died and they buried him next to his Wild Mountain Rose – Folks…
Say in the moonlight two ghostly spirits can be seen sitting on the banks of Chestnut Creek or floating along the rutty mountain roads. When the sun comes up they disappear, or so the legend goes, but everyone on Mossy Ridge knows that it is Old Willie and that golden haired pup he found those many years ago, His…
Wild Mountain Rose.
©elizabethannjohnsonmurphree
Revenge – Script #13
Doctors looked down at the young girl in her drugged sleep; her pillow wet with tears shed before the medicine took effect placing her in a coma. Her face innocence even though she had lived a nightmare: she would sleep until her broken body and mind could heal. Her attacker had taken her for self-indulgence and pleasure. Andrew “Stubby” Bodine’s type was always on the prowl; always taking from others; especially young girls. He did see the angry mop coming in their flatboats. Mary Jane Ayres would heal while her abductor hangs from a Swamp Oak in Louisiana’s Atchafalaya Swamp.
Author Note: You have just read the beginning of my script, one page into a new book.
©elizabethannjohnsonmurphree
Earthly Cycles – #6
January was cold and depressing; it’s February, and until the sweet girls birthday is here; we do not celebrate it as we use to, as young girls they make more adult like plans, for me I just sit and remember those cherub face and hands.
February is drenched with the beginnings of winter thaw; two more sweet children celebrate while shivering in the cold. March rushes in with the winds drying the earth; getting ready for springs daffodils’, another sweet birthday comes and goes, like the sweet girl I use to cuddle and hold.
In April, the birds begin to sing bringing to life the flowers of May, sunny June comes another birthday, with it comes the longest day of the year that brings the winter lovers to tears. July is yet another birthday along with the scorched days of summer’s heat. In August the earth gives its children acres of corn, September comes the fruit the trees and vines have born.
October earth removes her summer cloaks as stars shoot across a November sky; the nights become long, cold with early frost. The strong December winds begin and soon comes, January the seasons have gone through their Earthly cycle with cold and snow all over again.
©elizabethannjohnsonmurphree #6
Death, a Saving Grace
At dawn, the life light went out of the woman’s abused body, it lay in front of her the children she tried to protect…she was a mother, she was a woman, and she was a wife.
A coal oil lantern glowed against rustic rough boards, shadowing the fragile souls left behind in the damp shanty where, she was a mother, she was a woman, and she was a wife.
Laid to rest in a shallow grave in the Louisiana heat, dug by a man with moonshine seeping from his body; the moon glowed upon soft damp earth holding, what was once a mother, a woman, a wife.
Tears burn hot upon the dirt-streaked faces of her six children as relatives who heard the shots from the long arm barrel of hate ring out into the night took them to their homes, she was their mother, she was a woman, and she was wife.
Drunk with evil spewing from his tobacco-laced mouth the skeleton of a father had shot his wife, because she was pregnant again; she was a mother, she was a woman, and she was a wife.
No one will ever know beyond the borders of Bayou Gauche, that mother, woman, and wife will never return, her death for her, a saving grace.
©elizabethannjohnsonmurphree
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We are day ten into the New Year, I try to recall the past and what have I done, what have I accomplished during these many years. My childhood, I more often than not I raised myself, along with those wonderful women my great-great-grandmother whom I call “Ma” a solid rock of full-blooded Native American ancestry and “Aunt Francis” a black woman of wisdom. I raised five children alone . Along the way, I worked in the public sector for forty years. During retirement, I begin searching for who I was, and what I wanted out of the second half of my life.
I returned to painting and writing. I have written and published nine books of poetry. I had a daughter who passed in 2010; I published her story, I also published a photo journey of my special companion Mason, my four-legged child, in pictures. I published a book of my own paintings. I have tried to reinvent myself during these past twenty years and I am still working on myself as I continue to travel down a mysterious path on my journeys into yesterday, tomorrow and that final day. What have I learned?
I believe that the journey we humans lead down one of three paths. The first path leads to success, these are the people that have material riches and yes, sorrow. Then there is the second path, one that leads to happiness and sorrow, yet, these people live a good life. They are capable of handling life. The third path is one of total destruction. The important question now is how you and I are going to live our lives, which path will we take.
When you find yourself at the crossroads of the here and now, will you put in the effort to be free, will you walk through the doors of reality, choosing the path wisely. I believe in meditation, it is simply about being yourself, finding yourself, your life is always unfolding in front of you, seeking the answer to truth. If you are not careful truth will be ignored, be fallow and unacknowledged.
Life is at times like a slippery slope, the grave will hold all of those years of life-unexamined half-truths, fears, you did not achieve that which was given to you on the path of your life, and you ignored the wealth, happiness and greatness. If you wake up and breakout, your life unfolds on a path of success. Get off that slippery slope and follow your path to importance. No one can do this job but you. At the end of a long life, dedicated mindfulness will be acknowledged and you will be remembered as an individual of understanding and wisdom.
©2019elizabethannjohnsonmurphree
Misery’s Problems…
Misery has sent many souls to Hell. Those there have condemned themselves; a mournful cry comes from their place of unrest. They cry for what they wanted in life and did not get, they could not be satisfied with what they had, misery prevailed. They have helped destroy the earth.
In the beginning there was cold, unceasing and relentless rain, there seem to be a mutation of the earth as the decades went forward with minds unchanged. Days were heavy with hail, turbid waters mixed with cold winds and snow, a blazing fiery had a tight hold on the waters that covered the earth, and still many humans could not see the doom and darkness.
Their souls are rotting, the soil of the earth is foul, above them the ravens swarm in and out of an acid sky, beast roams fallow grounds. Each of those in misery fell to the ground gathering handfuls of soil casting it into the hollows of the earth. They now know that gluttonous greed will bring rancid air and their belly’s growl like the beast of the night with hunger.
There are many who tried to save Earth, they toiled in the dead ground and prayed for blessings, they watch the writhing shadows of desolation, it was too late. Everyone hungry, cold, uncomforted, everyone will die for the mistakes of few. The waters both salty and fresh began to dry, cracks became vast and deep. The land was soft and filled with bugs and worms. The air clogged their lungs they cried and they prayed, it was too late. Those who did not believe that one day we would destroy the Earth now became sinful spirits living irrevocable doom.
There are those that believed that the earth was being destroyed, there are those who tried to find a resolve for these worldwide conditions. To those that did not believe the earth was dying, living in great pain. Warnings from the sinners were no more than strange words, there is no way that we can reach perfection on earth, and it is too late. It is not too late to resolve misery’s problems, we must cease our downward path and heal mother Earth.
©2019elizabethannjohnsonmurphree
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Elizabeth Ann Johnson-Murphree’s
Freedom’s Family – 10X12 Watercolor
So, from the book Bird by Bird and in the words of Anne Lamott, I have completed the “Shitty First Draft” of The Chickasaw (Working Title). My knowledge of the history of my family spans five generations. Fosee “Hawk” Overton, born into the Western Alabama Chickasaw Tribe in 1821 and his wife Sipsee Cotton Wood Tree of the same tribe; Sipsee was born the same year as Hawk. These are my great-great grandmother and great-great-grandfather; they were both on the Trail of Tears. My great-grandmother Sipsee and Hawk’ daughter and only child told their story many times before she passed away, and the only thing she ask of me was too simply “Always Remember.”
The Chickasaw has been ten-years in the making, research, notes, hours of pulling everything together, outlines, storyboards, mega index cards later; I have my very own “Shitty First Drift”. The margins are filled with possible changes and words wearing a yellow coat of highlights’. This is where I call cutting out the garbage phase and moving on to something that may actually make sense. Enjoy your weekend everyone, I will be cutting out garbage!
©elizabethannjohnsonmurphree
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Rhythm Rhyme Thoughts 