Poetry Inspired by Horace Pippin, by Rose Menyon Heflin

Shell Holes and Observation Balloon, Champagne Sector, by Horace Pippin (USA) 1931

Aftermath

The little French village
Took the German shelling hard.
Once noisily vibrant
With the music of joy and life,
It is now deafening silent 
With death and decay,
The putrid smell 
Of rotting flesh
Wafting on the air.

It is completely still,
Utterly unmoving.
Shell holes gape
Once fertile fields,
With family homes
Totally destroyed.

A lonesome observation balloon 
Surveils the widespread damage.  
Is it friend,
Or is it foe?
Do its occupants 
Weep with sorrow,
Or are they giddy and jubilant
In celebratory victory?

It doesn’t matter now, though;
Their days are, 
Likewise, numbered.

War Notebooks Sketch Three Soldiers on March, by Horace Pippin (USA) ca. 1920

Brothers:  A Tanka Sequence

I.
Off to war they go
These soldiers bonded by fear
And by battle scars
Living with the great unknown
Grim Reaper follows their steps

II.
Still, they laugh and joke
No other way to survive
Than smile watchfully
And put faith in each other
Because warfare knows no gods

III.
Warily hopeful
That they will make it stateside
And see tomorrow
Knowing only time will mend
Broken bones and broken hearts

IV,
They swallow their bile
Constantly moving forward
Ignoring their nerves
Knowing they have each other 
Forever brothers in arms

Holy Mountain I, by Horace Pippin (USA) 1944

Holy Mountain II, by Horace Pippin (USA) 1944

Mountain III, by Horace Pippin (USA) 1945

Extinction:  A Haiku Series

I.
An empty promise
Given without thought or care
Avowed recklessly

II.
Pledged with no remorse
With no foresightful vision
Immune to regret

III.
Bereft of wisdom
Broken with no backwards glance
Unashamedly

IV.
These are the promises
That mankind made to the skies
To the fragile beasts

V. 
Promises left unkept
Upon the Holy Mountain
Debts that we must pay

VI.
No longer trusted
Out of favor and of time
Past due notices come

VII.
Now there is no one
Aside from our greedy selves
Left for us to hurt

VIII.
As we look around 
In miserable anger
And we self-pity

IX.
There are no more beasts
To which we can make promises
Soon we will perish

X.
No sustenance left
To keep us all alive still
In body and soul

XI.
Thus, we made this bed
It is time to lie in it
Deathbed that it is
​

Asleep by Horace Pippin (USA) 1943

For a Dream

She
Is fast 
Asleep now.
Fatigue has won.
After a long day
And a meager supper,
She drifted off quite quickly.
Sharecropping will do that to you.
Cotton and tobacco work is hard -
So very laborious and tiring.
It is a life spent bent over and hunched.
It feels as though she is barely out
Of the shackles that once bound her,
The oppression still heavy
In her limbs, on her back.
This new slavery
Takes a hard toll,
On her mind
Every
Night.


If
She were
Not so tired,
So damn weary,
She would dream a dream -
A dream of true freedom, 
Like her heart and soul craves. 
She would not dream of peeling paint.  
It would be a dream of full bellies,
A dream of dancing, a dream of song,
But she is incapable of that now.
After picking cotton all day long,
After chopping out tobacco,
After cooking and cleaning,
After trying to help
The kids with homework,
She is much too
Exhausted
For a
Dream.   

Harmonizing by Horace Pippin (USA) 1944

In Harmony:  A Haiku Series

I.
On the street corner
Harmonizing vocalists
Pass the time in song

II.
A friendly quartet
Bebopping through the standards
Perfectly in tune

III.
Loved by the neighbors
They gather after working
To blow off some steam

IV.
Singing of lost love
Heartache inconsolable
And freedom’s sweet taste

V.
Even though they know
They are still not truly free
As black citizens

VI.
Because everyday
They feel a boot on their throats
And hurt in their hearts
 
VII.
Centuries of pain
Not even music can heal
That does not stop them

VIII.
People love their sound,
They will do whatever to 
Unburden their friends

IX,
To improve their lives
To ease the great suffering
Of their neighbourhood

​

Man on a Bench, by Horace Pippin (USA) 1946

Man on a Bench:  A Tanka Sequence

I.
He sits silently
In his matching coat and cap
Every day at noon.
From that bench in Central Park,
He looks about pensively.

II.
What is on his mind?
Is he just people watching?
Thinking of lost love?
Pondering the universe?
What stories could he tell us?

III.
We will never know,
Never hear his opinions,
Never feel his pain,
’Cause for the very first time,
Today the bench was empty.

Domino Players, by Horace Pippin (USA) 1943

Quilting:  A Tanka Sequence

I.
Grandmother watches on,
Her needle and thread moving, 
Quilting up a storm.
Dominoes are for the young, 
But her interest is still there.  

II.  
Very well-practiced,
She does not need eyes to sew.
Her remembered youth
And her competitiveness
Are memories, sweet and warm.

III.
She watches silently,
Never offering advice,
Though they be unwise
And their strategies be flawed. 
They have to learn for themselves.

IV.
So, she rocks away,
Her work spilling to the floor,
Lost in revelry,
Just trying to stay busy
As the night darkens the sky.

V.
At her advanced age,
She feels keenly that these times,
Precious as they are,
Are no longer guaranteed.
She feels it deep in her bones.

VI.
It makes her enjoy
This time they spend together.
When she goes at last, 
She hopes they remember her,
So she quilts a legacy - 

VII.
One to give the warmth 
That she never could show them,
Being so distant,
Having lived so much trauma,
And having felt so much pain.

VIII.
She hopes that the quilt
Will remind them they were loved -
Which she rarely felt
Until they all came along
With their good souls and bright laughs.

IX.
So, she watches closely,
With her heart in every stitch.
Family game night
Takes on a whole new meaning
When you know it will end soon.  

John Brown Going to His Hanging, by Horace Pippin (USA) 1942

She Simply Could Not Watch

She simply could not watch.

While everyone else
Clamored excitedly
And gossiped in loud whispers,
The crowd teeming 
With frenzied commotion,
She turned away,
Wrapping her tattered shaw
Tightly around herself,
The lines of her weathered face
Exaggerated
As she pursed her dry lips thinly
In harsh judgement,
Not of the condemned,
But of the condemning - 
Of those weak people,
Those arrogant fools
Playing god
And those feeble-minded masses
Wishing that they could.

As the horse-drawn wagon 
Neared the courthouse,
The stranger’s life 
Flashed before her eyes.
She saw a screaming birth
And an innocent childhood,
A first love
And all those lost along the way,
Sobbing parents,
Successes and failures.  
For a split second,
She wondered if he saw it, too.
Because while she, indeed, saw it all,
She simply could not bring herself 
To see his end.

No, that she simply could not watch.

Rose Menyon Heflin

Rose Menyon Heflin is a poet and artist from Wisconsin who enjoys nature and travel.  Although currently busy cyanotyping and photographing plants and cranes, she enjoys working in a variety of media.  Among other venues, her poetry has recently been published or is forthcoming in 50 Haikus, Ariel Chart, Asahi Haikuist Network, Bramble, The Closed Eye Open, The Daily Drunk, Deep South Magazine, Dreich Magazine, Eastern Structures, The Ekphrastic Review, Haikuniverse, The Light Ekphrastic, Littoral Magazine, Please See Me, Plum Tree Tavern, THE POET, Poetry and Covid, Red Alder Review, Red Eft Review, Sparked Literary Magazine, The Texas Poetry Calendar, Three Line Poetry, Trouvaille Review, Visual Verse, The Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar, and The Writers Club.  Her poetry recently won a Merit Award from Arts for All Wisconsin.