“Poetry is a language that speaks to the heart, and Charles Ghigna uses that tender, heart-piercing language to bring us closer to his Southern soul. A collection as beautiful as it is heartfelt, Southern Bred transports and enchants.”

— PATTI CALLAHAN HENRY

NYT Bestselling author of The Secret Book of Flora Lea

“You don’t so much read these poems as fall into them. It’s like plummeting into someone else’s memories—a great rush of beauty and darkness, joy and weirdness. As soon as you finish one, you want to start over again from the beginning. This book is such a gift.”

— GIN PHILLIPS

Author of Fierce Kingdom and Family Law

“With the gift of poetry, what he calls, “the field and stream of consciousness,” Charles Ghigna has sketched a word portrait—indelible images both lovely and hard—of life in our rural, God-haunted South. In this memoir of verse, Ghigna makes clear, as he has before, that he is one of the finest poets of our time.”

— FRYE GAILLARD

Author of The Southernization of America

“Ghigna’s Southern voice comes through more palpably here than in anything I’ve read in a long while. I am already transported and in love with it. I keep waiting for sweet tea to just magically show up on my table.”

— NIKKI GRIMES

Author of Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir

“I was utterly engrossed while reading Southern Bred, reliving every childhood memory, even though they weren’t my own. I’ll never understand how Charles Ghigna can evoke so much—a prick of tears, a knowing grin, memories of home, questions about life—with so few words. Yet he does it so beautifully.”

— KELLY KAZEK

Author of Southern Handbook

“Southern Bred is a look back and a look forward, complete with honeysuckle and shadows, holy spaces and merciless stains. These poems alternately terrify and comfort, painting a captivating portrait of a boy, a poet, a man—and the indelible impact of the land and family to which one belongs. This collection is one of Charles Ghigna’s best!”

— IRENE LATHAM

Author of Leaving Gee’s Bend

“The poems in this collection move easily between dreams and waking life, situating themselves in that liminal space where insights arise, memories unfold, and time expands. In lucid language charged with meaning, Ghigna carries us along on ventures into the past that resist the sentimental and take us somewhere deeper: to the mysteries of fathers and sons, the suddenness of beauty, the surprise of death, and the holiness of life itself.”

—JENNIFER HORNE

Former Alabama Poet Laureate and author of Odyssey of a Wandering Mind

Copyright © 2025 Charles Ghigna

Cover and internal design © 2025 Central Avenue Marketing Ltd.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Published by Central Avenue Poetry, an imprint of Central Avenue Marketing Ltd.

centralavenuepublishing.com

SOUTHERN BRED

Trade Paper: 978-1-77168-418-7

Ebook: 978-1-77168-419-4

Published in Canada

1. Poetry / American

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

for Debra, always

Contents

I

Southern Bred

1952

Jimmy’s Dad

Paper Planes

The Basement

Fish

Birthday Funeral

Riding to School

Southern Bin

In the Shadow of the Raven

Buck Dancing

Hunting Boys

Ever Green

Oak

Nature Trail

II

Signs

When Howard Became Jesus

Shop Class

Guilt Lifts Me Up

Nocturnal Roll Call

The House on the Cliff by the Sea

Spring Cleaning

Searching for the Field

Going All the Way

Day Dream

The Electrocution Complex

Falling Down Another Birthday Dream

Night Mare

Bull Rider

Over Herd

Brave New Whirl

Skydiving

Keeping Things Holy

Poem as Priest

Poem Hunter

The Balloon Poem

The Porcupine Poem

III

The Bass Fisherman

Pitching Horseshoes

Best Man

Riding Trains

The Bridge

Reunion

Speaking in Tongues

Samuel

Taking Turns

Cleaning Out the Closet

Dragon Death

Early Evening

Little Spaces

SOUTHERN BRED

I

SOUTHERN BRED

In the backyard

of my father’s house

a hen’s warm neck

once filled my pale fist.

Her place on the stump

still wears my shadow

like a stain.

1952

I was six

when they stuck me

inside the scrapbook

with a puppy in my lap.

Reopening it all now,

my hand touches

the truth of my father

who made me sit still

in that soft moment

when everything became

so neatly black and white.

JIMMY’S DAD

Jimmy’s dad looked like an empty mailbox on a cloudy day.

He wore gray overalls and carried a red bandana

in his hip pocket that hung straight down like a windless flag.

He wore stiff black shoes and carried a metal lunch pail.

“James” sat over his shirt pocket announcing his name to the world.

Little strands of black thread unraveled from it like a spider.

On the way home from school we’d see him sitting

beside the pumps on an empty RC crate

cleaning his fingernails with a pocket knife

or over in the bay working under a car

with only his legs sticking out.

One day a Buick slipped off its jack and crushed him.

That’s when Jimmy stopped coming to school.

PAPER PLANES

After his dad died

Jimmy invited me over

to spend the night

at his house.

On the wall

over his bed

hung a calendar

with a page for every day.

That night

we made paper planes

from the old day pages

of the calendar

just like Jimmy’s dad

had taught him

before he went away

to live upon the dresser

in his little

silver frame house

whose shiny glass

window

became a target

for paper planes

that flew across the room

on folded yesterdays.

THE BASEMENT

Our basement smelled like damp ashes when it rained.

I played down there in the summer by myself.

I pretended I was a prisoner and the basement was my cell.

The furnace was a firing squad.

I wrapped the blindfold over my eyes, tied it tight, leaned back

against the concrete wall, and stretched out my arms in a cross.

I liked the way the wall felt cold and damp against my back.

I shut my eyes, whispered a prayer, and waited.

Sometimes I stayed quiet when Mom called.

FISH

August slipped in through the window

and slept heavy in my bed.

The sheets stuck to me like damp tape.

The old metal fan hummed a lullaby.

I turned my pillow over, propped it up,

and fell asleep reading Jack London.

Three children died beside the frozen lake today:

Charlie, Mick, and me.

It was after Charlie caught a fish through the hole in the ice.

By the time Mick arrived the fish had lost its flops and was frozen.

So was Charlie.

Mick put the fish in his pocket, pulled Charlie by the collar

across the lake like a sled, propped him up against a tree

and sat down beside him.

Little puffs of smoke like cartoon character balloons

floated out of Mick’s mouth with each sigh.

Finally his eyes closed and the puffs stopped.

I walked over to the tree, put the fish in my pocket,

knelt in the snow and kissed them both on the cheek.

Then I sat down beside them and didn’t get up.

BIRTHDAY FUNERAL

Two days before my birthday, my brother died.

They buried him in the Strayhorn Cemetery

under the oak that wore its Spanish moss like a tattered shawl.

It rained the night before and everything was sticky.

We all stood bent and wore gray clothes.

I stood behind Uncle Billy staring into the wool of his coat

thinking about how my brother was going to miss my birthday.

The coat moved and I heard someone crying.

Everyone’s shoes were covered in mud.

When we got back home,

my cake was waiting in the middle of the kitchen table.

People kept coming in and leaving all day.

I sat in the kitchen staring at my cake,

thinking how it would taste even though I wasn’t hungry.

RIDING TO SCHOOL

I sat in the car

watching the corn field

fan from my right eye.

With left eye shut,

I, the moving target,

took aim.

The giant fan spun

like a wheel whose center weight

was the field’s unknown other side.

My father took me to school

because his father would not.

There was no way out.

Inside,

the trigger of a man

pulled tight.

SOUTHERN BIN

A mouse runs from under his board,

stops short, knows me.

The corn in his eyes turns gray.

IN THE SHADOW OF THE RAVEN

A breast of feathers,

purple black,

you swooped by

then circled back.

My shadow cast

upon the ground.

You landed there

without a sound

as if you knew

the morning sun

would show us how

we two are one.

BUCK DANCING

Two eight-point buck

lay beside the frozen lake,

their antlers locked

in a last dance.

It was their rite

to fight for dominance

in this, their final

rutting season,

to die for the doe

they would never know.

This was the hunting season

I searched through the cold

for the buck that would make me a man.

This was the season I found

by the lake my future frozen

for a moment in the snow.

HUNTING BOYS

It happens every year

from autumn to spring—

a dozen or so are lost,

good ole boys every one:

boys from Butler County,

Bibb, Clarke, and Cullman,

boys from Bullock and Clay,

boys who stay up late

every November evening

rubbing oil and dreams

into the steel of old guns,

boys who leave warm homes

to walk cold woods, forever.

EVER GREEN

Down, down, down again I go

into the hollows of the deep green forest,

into the untrodden damp green forest

where my soiled boot soles know

how cool green mornings can be,

how soily sweet the mud,

how slippery fresh each step,

step, step beneath the Ever Tree.

OAK

Like the steady face

of the flying squirrel,

I sail through the parting air

of falling leaves

and land at last

on the forest floor.

I scamper here and there

searching for the perfect acorn,

that little balm of time

that holds the tree of life

within its tiny seed,

that tempting core

I want so much to find,

that missing piece of me

I want so much to be.

NATURE TRAIL

These old steps

made from cut

railroad ties

lead me down

past the stump bench

to the stream

that flows

from the top

of the hill

and winds

past dogwood

poplar and pine

where I pause

to listen

to the wind

in the trees

to the babble

of the brook

to the owl

whose questions

go unanswered

to the hawk

who calls me out

to the dark

that calls me

home.

II

SIGNS

I am the back of the attic mirror.

From my side I see only out.

The change of seasons I once wore

leaves no reflection on me.

I wear my silver fleck in pieces

like the holey No Hunting sign

aired by the bully’s bullets.

The wind whistles through, not at, me.

A parade of angry faces drives by

searching for the one with the reckless gun.

But they will not find me in this town

for I am attic bound.

My lead hides in the grass miles away.

My shell rusts in the weeds by the road.

I am attic faced in shadows.

I search through the dark for a sign.

WHEN HOWARD BECAME JESUS

No one in the huddle laughed

when Howard said he was Jesus,

that if we did not believe him

we were all sinners doomed to hell.

The next play was a hand-off to Howard.

Everyone, even our team, piled on,

grabbing for Howard, for the ball,

for the chance to cling to something solid.

When our boyhood heap had finally become still,

a pointed shadow drew our eyes way down the field

and there against the goal post leaned Howard,

the warm ball in his arms like a baby,

his eyes round and deep like the barrels of a gun.

Walking home, everyone was silent but Howard.

He said he had wanted to tell us about it before,

but was not sure we were ready to listen,

not sure we were ready to believe.

He said for the last year and a half

as he lay each night on his back,

his arms stretched out in a cross,

his feet so neatly together,

he was sure he had been chosen to lead us

in the path of righteousness for his namesake.

He said it was not luck that he had aced every test,

that the bookcase and birdhouse he built in shop class

won ribbons at the county fair.

He said that was just his way of being Jesus,

that we must learn to trust his perfect ways

and regard his saintly airs with adulation.

But we walked on in silence, each new step

so tight and full of fear we could not breathe,

could not break away and run on home alone.

At his house we stopped and watched him enter,

his eyes releasing us at last behind the door.

That night beside our beds we fell to prayer

and prayed that all that afternoon was just a dream,

that we would wake up in the morning and find Howard

in the huddle telling lies just like before.

SHOP CLASS

Like a row of little rubber ghosts,

the four pale Trojans stood stretched over

the bulbous wooden handles of the old lathe tools,

the wide shop class windows framing it all

in the warm glaze of the early autumn afternoon.

Howard held his breath beside me at the workbench,

his eyes nailing down the floor at our feet.

Most of us took shop for an easy grade.

With Howard it was different.

Howard liked the wood.

He liked the way the grain pulled his fingers

up and down each length of board.

He liked the fresh smell of the sawdust

as the whirling lathe breathed the wood

upon his hands, upon his handmade apron.

His lamps were the envy of us all,

standing straighter and brighter than the ones

made by the masterful hands of Mr. Tribble.

But today it was not the wood

that weighed upon our minds.

It was not the need to build an easy A.

Today it was the row of rubbers

that held us tight and stiff

in our dusty room of silence.

Howard, too, knew it was me who pulled the prank,

knew it was me who slipped into class before the bell

to do the dare, to decorate the sacred dais

of Mr. Tribble’s trusty, ancient tools.

It was finally Howard’s turn to talk,

to wear the stern shadow that came to stand

one by one over our bowed heads,

the Inquisition of one who came to each of us

to ask if we had committed the cardinal sin.

Howard, my best friend, raised his eyes, looked at me, lied,

and whispered, “Yes.”

GUILT LIFTS ME UP

Guilt tiptoes

down the hall,

turns right

into the bedroom

of my dreams.

I pull the blanket

over my head,

but Guilt finds me,

lifts me up

to the ceiling,

through the ceiling

to the night sky

past the treetops

into the canopy of stars

that shine their way

to the other side

of my nightmare

that begs the morning light

to come break through

this gray curtain of Guilt.

NOCTURNAL ROLL CALL

In the evening

when the shadows have all crawled

so far across my room they become my room,

something calls names in the night.

It comes from the garden,

from inside the roses,

from out of the earth

through its cool roots,

from out of that place

where the cicada sings.

The sound shakes the house,

my room, this bed,

the red in my shut eyes.

But it is not the locust

or his cry that frightens me.

It is not the rose

that grips the ground with every tick.

It is the sound I do not hear

that haunts my nights.

It calls all names in this dark room,

but never mine.

THE HOUSE ON THE CLIFF BY THE SEA

I come Ishmael to you from the midnight sea.

The gray fog clings, a pasted beard, to my cheeks.

It grows wild from my chin around the world.

You raise the lantern

higher to your face

and stare into the dark at a dream.

The window holds you

like a portrait hung against the sky.

I come bringing morning in my beard.

SPRING CLEANING

First signs of life

and we stand in a bed of weeds

pulling up wild vines in the sun.

The honeysuckle holds

tight to the house,

bracing itself against the red brick,

but we have come for it all,

we have come to clear the way,

marching side by side into spring,

into this season that pulls us out

of ourselves and lets us hold life

in our hands by the roots.

SEARCHING FOR THE FIELD

Sunday, and we drive past the last building

to where its shadow no longer touches the car.

We stare at the broken line until it becomes earth

and listen to the crickets when we stop.

We join them in their singing, filling

our lungs with pine and magnolia.

We lie down in a bed of clover

and watch the moon on its way to morning.

We sleep until the sun warms our dreams,

until the firm hand of a kindhearted farmer

helps us back to our feet, until the trust

of his grip sends us on our way back home

to the buildings, to the shadows,

to the broken yellow line

that sent us searching for this field.

GOING ALL THE WAY

It is an afternoon in mid July

when we finally do the dare,

run full-tilt across the field,

close our eyes, leap into the sky—

and we are up and over the shadows,

above the weight of summer’s heat,

flying like we’ve always dreamed of doing,

arms stretched out into wings,

hair blown back in waves of silk,

rising and falling and rising again,

freer than we have ever been,

wishing we could bring back to earth

what we have known in dreams,

in all those times like this

before we learned to trust our eyes.

DAY DREAM

Childhood,

and again

I am outside

on a hilltop

staring up

at the clouds

searching past the cumulus

to the long-tail dragons

and silver sailing ships

that have come to take me away

to this rare dream

of dreaming.

THE ELECTROCUTION COMP LEX

I dream I am sitting in a white room

staring at a two-way mirror

wondering who is

watching on the other side

of the silvered glass.

I see my face floating up

like a farewell balloon,

like a Munch portrait

with no hands.

Steel bandana in place,

copper bracelets at my wrists,

I lock my final stare upon the wall

until the wall becomes a window,

until the window becomes a room,

until the room becomes a room without walls.

FALLING DOWN ANOTHER BIRTHDAY DREAM

Inside this old wooden house of me

someone falls backwards down my stairs,

not as in an August nightmare

or a drive-in movie,

but backwards

down the steps I’ve yet to take.

Sometimes the faller is a friend

whose face is broad and smiling,

a fishing rod in one hand, waving with the other;

sometimes the faller is a woman in shorts,

her hands full of lipsticks and mirrors;

sometimes the faller is my father,

his strong hand reaching for the banister,

his sharp voice calling for help

with the wake-up shout

that sent me to school on time;

sometimes the faller is a priest

whose fall is muted and slow-motioned

as though under water behind a wall of glass;

and sometimes the faller is me,

older, younger, innocent and brave,

falling backwards

on purpose,

with purpose.

NIGHT MARE

Inside this horse I ride

there is no horse.

She saddles me to her

because she thinks she is.

Silent, softer than cream,

we canter on midnight.

Doorway shadows of locked shops

lure us, become each

new night’s mare.

Dark windows mark our way

with windy strips of velour

as we press on and on

through the city,

chasing our dreams

into morning.

BULL RIDER

I grip the leather

with my left hand

and hammer my fist

with my fist.

The sweat of my palm

soaks through the leather glove

into the patient,

waiting rein.

The beast below

bucks in his stall,

reminds me

he is not as tame

as his brothers and sisters

who stand in line

waiting to become

the glove, hat, wallet,

dinner, belt, boots

of this stranger

who holds in his hand

a piece of the final meld.

OVER HERD

This time it will be different.

This time I will not follow

my bovine brothers

one by one down the ramp,

head first through the chute

into the slaughterhouse,

into the waiting slug of night.

This time I will rouse the herd,

I will rise from my dung

drenched funeral boards,

I will sway from side to side

in my heavy wave of defiance,

I will dance my rite to life,

I will rock and roll this cattle car

right off its clacking tracks.

BRAVE NEW WHIRL

I drift in a nether world

between now and then

where time is a river

that drowns the night,

where memory purls easy over ice

and rocks my lies to sleep,

where slices of truth, ripe as morning,

sit on the salty edge

of this brave new whirl.

SKYDIVING

First step

and I swallow

the dry, delicious fear

of walking on air.

Body bent back

into a bow,

I fall into the arms

of the screaming wind,

my heart beating taps

in my ears.

Pop,

and an angel wing

pulls me from the thunder

of a hundredmile-

an-hour dream.

I sit perched,

a runaway cloud

of contentment,

a fearless eagle feather

lost in the drift

of an early afternoon.

Knees bent, I pull

the taut reins of reality,

ready-set myself

for one final little lift,

one last tiptoe of air

before my flying feet

must run their

earthbound way

back home.

KEEPING THINGS HOLY

for Mark Strand

In a church

I am the absence

of church.

This is

always

the case.

Wherever I am

I am

what is missing.

When I walk

I part

the sacred air

and always

the blessed air

moves in

to fill

the spaces

where my body’s been.

We all

have reasons

for moving.

I move

to keep things

holy.

POEM AS PRIEST

Like the good Catholic boy

who tells his all

to the patient priest,

I pour my soul

into my poem,

confess my passions,

my private fears

that flow like lamb’s blood

upon this pure white page

that passes sentence

after sentence

upon my sins

and turns my

penance

into prayer.

POEM HUNTER

With pen for gun

I enter the field

and stream

of consciousness.

THE BALLOON POEM

I search

for another

balloon to fill,

one puff

after another

after another

until all

my hot air

is out,

until my tongue

tastes of talc

and rubber,

until another idea

comes red and swollen

and ready to burst.

THE PORCUPINE POEM

A porcupine can raise its quills, turn around,

and run backwards into its prey.

Just when I think

I am done with it,

my poem turns on me,

charges back for more,

pricks me with its

finer points,

reminds me

things are not

what they seem,

that the past is not past

until it turns and shows

its sharp, uncompromising side.

III

THE BASS FISHERMAN

in memory of my father

He was the silent type, the mute scholar

reading the sky instead of his books,

wasting no words above the still waters,

searching instead for shades of detail,

for the sharp, deep shadows of silver,

for the subtle moves that only seers see.

He was the careful type, the peaceful brave

wrapping his weapon with string, down

and prayer, warming his sight with colors

of sunset, waiting for sunrise to show him

the way, watching the depth of each cloud

that floated on the lake of his eyes.

He was the simple type, the timeless boy

flipping and testing his first flying rod,

urging it on past limits of hand and arm

to the other side of vision and dreams,

using all of that first moment to cast

the perfect balance of boy and boat.

He was the cautious type, the prize bass

with the broken hook still in his mouth,

staring up at the lake’s final surface of man,

following the drag of the feather’s taunt,

waiting, waiting, learning at last

the only reward of patience, is patience.

PITCHING HORS ESHOES

in memory of my father

They came from their homes,

Black Labels sweating in their palms,

to test their skill, their luck,

their moment in the sun

against the one

who made the horseshoes ring;

men whose only play was here

in this side yard Sunday ritual

where summer flew on the weight

and promise of each pitch,

where winter seemed a stranger

in the eyes of the smiling young fathers

who came to stake their claim

against the one they called The Ringer,

the one who tosses still within my dreams.

BEST MAN

in memory of my father

Flown in round and grinning, holding out

the stronger hand in every stranger’s shake,

kissing all the women on the hand.

To me he was more than just a father.

Perhaps it was the way he wore his tuxedo

or the way it turned his temples silverfox.

His cheeks were full and glowing,

smiling for me and my bride through it all,

through the starchy reminder of last year’s

two attacks on his heart, going home to one more,

to the dreaded grip of an early retirement,

breathing Catholic hard beside me

in that Southern Baptist church,

wading through the thick smiles to the car,

to the small airport at the end of the dream.

Home, remembering it all before dawn,

enjoying in sleep the proud son image again,

almost touching my shoulder for luck.

Rising, staring past the shouting clock

set the night before by some brutal hand of habit.

RIDING TRAINS

A boy is trapped inside

my skin holds its color

like the face of the watch

Father kept in his pocket

played the same tune

no matter the place

the time we rode

the train without speaking

all the way to Washington

and back we talked

about the knot

in my Cub Scout

handkerchief

and what I would

think about riding trains

when I grew up.

THE BRIDGE

There is no water,

no deep ravine,

but there are footsteps

on my bridge.

I hear them at night

crossing slowly

like weary soldiers

home from a final battle,

like the footsteps

of my father

who came each night

to see I was asleep,

like the footsteps of my son

who stands in the dark

calling for water

in my dreams.

REUNION

It happens in airports.

Glancing up from your phone,

you see them embrace,

see them hold on to each other

as though their lives

depended upon it,

as though the whisper

of each other’s name

could keep them alive.

But this time it is you

who flew north

to the snowy funeral

of your namesake,

you who hugs this

stranger of ten years,

you who calls her sister

in a voice that sounds

foreign to you, to her,

to the people

looking up

from their phones.

SPEAKING IN TONGUES

for Andrew Hudgins

Like their fathers before them,

our fathers said nothing of love;

yours with the kicking bull

whose tail got out of hand,

mine with the pet pullet

whose proud neck stained my fist.

That was the way of our fathers.

No one told them of such things.

No one gave them the trinity of words.

We hold the tongues

of our fathers, still; a silence

we will not hold against our sons.

SAMUEL

I place old boards, a used tire

and a broken umbrella beside the road

for Samuel who comes in his pickup

before the county cleanup truck arrives.

But it is the mother, sister

beast, bird who feeds us,

rarely the father, brother.

Samuel waves at the house, smiles

into the early sun,

his gold tooth gleaming.

On the porch a tired Katy

licks the last of her litter,

leans back on her side,

waits to be suckled.

Across the road in a quiet pasture

Possum nurses her calf

while here in the kitchen

I break tradition again

and shovel a spoonful of grits

into my stubborn son.

TAKING TURNS

Father died.

Mother died.

Their ashes in me

burn.

The wind blew.

I spread a few

from the golden

urn.

I stood and sighed.

A crow cried

its echo

in return.

The sky turned blue

then I knew

the earth would take

its turn.

CLEANING OUT THE CLOSET

Sometimes I wish my past

were the corner of my closet,

a soft, familiar place

where I could stretch out

and lie down on all my worn-out shoes,

a place where I could step back in

and tell all my baseball buddies

I’m sorry for lying and nodding yes

when we told stories

about going all the way,

a place where I could retake

all my college tests,

a place where I could recapture

my promise of pitching for the Pirates,

a place where I could rewrite

all my published poems,

a place where I could keep my parents

as young as their wedding pictures,

a place where I could tell them

I love them, tell my sisters I love them,

tell them I wish they had a place

in the corner of their closets like mine

where we could go together

to say and do all the things

our distance never let us do,

a private place where all our regrets

hang like old suits in the dark,

a place where we could put them on again,

one by one, and never wear them out,

and never wear them out.

DRAGON DEATH

Old Dragon Death,

Old Dragon Death,

I beseech you

to take me on,

to raise your wicked head

once more and blow

your fiery breath

into my hearth,

into the heart that you have

already slain in the name

of my beloved family.

How dare you rage against

all I love and leave me alone.

How dare you carry my father

into the fire of World War II,

return him home a hollow shell

of the young hero he once was,

burning his dreams to ashes,

gnawing away his leg

forty years later,

leaving him a sad invalid

to sit in a stuffed chair and stare

out the window in fear

wondering where on earth

you are hiding,

where you will be rising next,

watching the evening news

for signs of your daily scourge.

How dare you rumble

into his living room

three years later

and take the rest of him away,

his ashes spilling

from the corners of your mouth

onto the mountain he loved.

How dare you drag your monster tail

across my mother’s eyes,

leaving her alone

in the house to stare at the walls

of medals and memories,

returning nine years later

before the dawn of Mother’s Day

to suck the sweet life

from the woman who taught me

to love, to dream, to see through

the shadows to the light

that shines from within,

to smile in the face of the deadly dragon,

to slay him with my sword of life,

to chop him into pieces

with the passion

of all I have known,

of all I have cherished and lost

to the deadly dragon

who always returns.

I am finished with this warning.

I am finished with these words

I waste on you.

I am ready.

Now come for me,

you son of a bitch,

come for me.

EARLY EVENING

inspired by the painting “Boys in a Dory, 1873” by Winslow Homer

We are rowing our way

across this small, stretched

canvas of time

into the shadows

of a watercolored world

where we float as in a dream,

soft and serene,

beyond the touch of our master’s hand

into the final stroke of everlasting light.

LITTLE SPACES

Little spaces.

Tiny traces.

That’s what

I look for.

Shady spots.

Small clay pots.

Garden walls

without a door.

Hiding places

with no faces

where the world

cannot find me.

In my tree house

like a free mouse—

that’s where I most

want to be.

Charles Ghigna is a poet, and children’s author, and nationally syndicated feature writer. He is the author of more than 5,000 poems and one hundred books for children and adults ranging from the 1990 Pulitzer Prize nominee Returning to Earth to the popular children’s book The Father Goose Treasury of Poetry for Children. His books have been published by Disney, Random House, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster and others. His poems for adults have been published in Harper’s, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, The Saturday Evening Post and The Wall Street Journal. His poems for children appear in Highlights for Children, Cricket, Ranger Rick, Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill, Spider, Ladybug, Babybug, Caterpillar, Children’s Digest and The School Magazine.

Ghigna served as poet-in-residence at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, instructor of creative writing at Samford University, and has received fellowship grants and various awards and recognitions from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Mary Roberts Rinehart Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Library of Congress. A popular speaker at schools, colleges, conferences, and libraries, Ghigna has spoken at the American Library in Paris, the American International Schools in the Americas in South America and Alaska, and at other events throughout the U.S. and overseas. For more information please visit CharlesGhigna.com