from Mike Panasuk:
You know that I've had the distinct pleasure of producing a few CDs for Don Helms, 
who played steel guitar for the original Hank Williams.  Don suffered a stroke in January, 
has been up and down ever since, and may never pick that legendary guitar again.  
So if you have some empty space available on you magnificent site, please try to fit 
the attached poem in somewhere.  And if you do, you might also want to ask the Outlaw Poet, 
David Pointer to include something he wrote about Don as well.  It will be a fitting theme for Music City.
Next Final Destination

by mICHAEL bERNARD pANASUK

A friend was in the hospital-
Had a stroke a month ago.
paralyzed his left side,
slurred his speech,
crumpled his hand.
He was afraid then,
and terrorized today.
He accidentally
over medicated himself:
Took a couple double doses of Cumadin.
(someone said, ‘blood thinner
is really rat poison.’)
It nearly killed him,
brought him to Death’s
sliding glass door-
We dragged him
across the living room floor
the first time he came home
from the hospital.
I almost had a stroke.
Now he’s in Intensive Care,
surrounded by Technology-
million dollar machines
that help us live longer.
He looked pale and gaunt,
emaciated, defeated, deflated.
I said: “Hey, Don.”
His 78 year old eyes
barely opened, fluttered;
he muttered something.
I didn’t catch it.
He couldn’t catch his breath.
At that moment,
I felt helpless,
then guilty
for making it about me.
“A few more days
and I woulda died,”
he cried,
with all the strength
of an infant.
The Machines beeped and buzzed:
Interesting numbers
popped up on the monitor.
They added up to 627.
Don groaned:
“I ache all over.
It hurts real bad.
I ain’t never felt
worse than this
my whole life.”
Deja vu helplessness.
“Don”, I asked,
“is there anything
I can do?”
Knowing full well,
I’m not capable of much.
He said: “Yeah,
make me all better.”
“You mean,
good as you were before?”
I asked.
“No”, he almost laughed;
“I need to be better than that.”
Right then and there
I knew he’d get well.
And he did!
He’s coming home today
after a brief stay
in that miserable place
we all visit
on our way
to our next
final destination.

© 2005 MB PANASUK

tHE nASHVILLE cATS cONTINUE to celebrate steel guitar:
 a David Pointer  Don Helms poem

Don 
Helm's 

hard
sad
legendary
pedal
steel licks
laid a
fabulous
foundation
under Hank
Williams Sr.'s
feet, so, the
average country
music fan would
have a broken
home to come
home to during
each show.

David Pointer

off to Walla Walla I am [4/12/5] but ready to continue 
the steel guitar theme, altho my old poem which follows
only has a steel guitar not in the middle of the street. I say
that counts too. Reed, Dan P., Curtis--I'm still waitng 
for posts from Nashville boys.

FOLK FROM NEW YORK AT SIMON THE SHORT OPTOMETRIST'S SHOP
 IN NASHVILLE

[The Nashville Banner, rest its soul, ran, in the late 80's, a story of some fans of the great dancer Nureyev who had made a pilgrimage to our guitar town to see him dance, after his retirement, on a program with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra. I can't forget that story--that it was considered newsworthy that these guys reported finding "some charming people" here.]

Why were they there when I was
trying to buy reading glasses?

Down to see Nureyev the night he danced
with the Nashville symphony - Good mix -
great dancer in decline with pretty good
orchestra wanting a go at greatness - to be hoped
they stabilized a higher mix together -
I don't know I didn't go but

in Simon the Short Optometrist's
Shop I see them and

their bearing, their clothing
are attractive enough I eavesdrop
on their conversation - they are saying

"Look there are
no petal steel guitars in the middle
of the street - the policemen
don't carry banjos, and that man
has shoes on his feet." They laugh
admiration reverberant exchanges.

Well it came to pass some
Nashville people in the shop
lined up to tell the strangers
how much they each hated country music.
They tried to outdo each other and it wasn't fair
for the first one who talked
because by the time the last one
got thru the first one didn't seem
to hate country music bad enough, so he tried
for another audience but they turned to me
like it was my time. For some reason I thought the poor fellow
was thinking how to tell his wife his bad luck
so at least he might get her tender consolation

because one thing he and his wife had in common was
the bad luck that nobody thought them
to be as sophisticated as they really were,
but, he was thinking - poor fellow somehow I knew
he was thinking it probably wouldn't
work since she only got horny when someone
thought she was sophisticated and
he didn't count,

but like I say the folk
from New York turned to me and they said
if I would swear I didn't like "the whiney stuff"
they would consider me
"a charming person." I said, "Well
the offer is so generous I think I will think about it
while I try on some more reading glasses."

Southerners like me don't like confrontation
unless we can get it to ricochet home.
What I wanted to say
was let's play Identify the Quotation
just so I could say If You Don't Like Hank
Williams You Can Kiss My Ass out loud to them

but you know me, I just kept trying
reading glasses on, and when I looked around
back over at the visitors, behold all
of a sudden they are bumpkins. They look
like escapees from the HeeHaw set
out on McGavock pike.
Same expensive clothes on
as before but just as my grandfather never looked
more like a carpenter than with his
Sunday suit on,
a naiveté so un-
assignably inured in them they looked
like the aborigines of Hickbilly Holler
and the gestures of their every eyebrow
pathetic parodies of the urban.
So I study

this wonder
as long as I want to then I turn
and ask Simon how much the glasses are
because I like them and he says

"ten thousand dollars."
"Why are they that much" I ask him and
Simon says
"we can only mock sincerely that which
we fear correctly that we are; or
to put it another way, by what we
mock we choose what we directly become,

"and these glasses, by
a patented process, reveal this, tho
it is dark to the rest of the world."

"Well" I say "where
are your plain reading glasses? I don't see
how anybody can afford to wear these."

Klyd Watkins

Loved your poem about the New York folks in the optometrist's office!!
Kick Reed into gear. I would love to read more of his work.  Laurel 

The lurker luketh no longer--Moira B. speak to me:

I've been gone for a couple weeks and was happy to find good stuff waiting on TTG.
Klyd, your poem about New York folks was so profound in a humorous way!!  
I've never been to New York, but have been in like situations elsewhere.  
One verse stood out for me: "we can only mock sincerely that which/
we fear correctly that we are; or/to put it another way, by what we/mock 
we choose what we directly become" Reed's poem shows us his personality.  
I prefer revelatory poetry based on reality, and Reed captured the essence
 of a shy person's life. One particular passage stood out for me:
"Not much else would spring to hand when our wishes/ outrun our needs. 
We wouldn't want to miss the great pleasure/of going looking, 
of being reunited with things we thought were lost."
 I hope to see more Nashville fellas' work soon.  And tell us about Walla Walla, Klyd.  
What fun it must have been!  Moira B.

Still addressing Klyd, I noticed in your poem, , "Folk From New York at Simon the Short Optometrist Shop," the way you (or the speaker in the poem) is trying on a pair of glasses when he thinks he can read the mind of the sophisticated male who didn't "seem to hate country music badly enough." And you let that be revealed later, with the revelation of the other pair of glasses he was trying on, the ones that show us immediately becoming what we mock. Then, in his saying he doesn't see "how anyone could afford to wear those," he is acknowledging that he has himself just mocked, in a sophisticated way, the sophisticated mockers and so has turned himself into one of them. It is not only the ten thousand dollars that makes those particular glasses too expensive, for "anyone."

Jan F. F.