Cigar Store Indian

My father grabbed a blanket

in cooler night weather and sat

wrapped in a Hudson Bay smoking

on the screened-in porch

I curled up next to this being

who could smell approaching rain

and took shelter in his silence -

well-pleased to be his papoose

A song from my show

COSTUMES - the musical

Oct 21-23, 2010
*

Lily sings the song to her great aunt, Jasmine Bradley, a woman known for having once sewn the most frightening costumes the town had ever seen. Forty years later, Lily and her friend Tom hope Aunt Jazz still has those costumes in a steamer trunk in her attic.

I Need A Costume

I need a costume for Hallowe'en night
Nothing I have in my closet is right
Nothing will do that I already own
I need a costume that you have sewn

A costume that's creepy, peculiar and quite

Mysterious, ghastly or strange

One I can wear to the party tonight

To scare all my friends for a change

I need a costume for Hallowe'en night

Nothing I have in my closet is right

Nothing will do that I already own

I need a costume that you have sewn

A costume that's spooky and chilling or quite

In ghoulish high fashion or cool

One I can wear to the party tonight
So nobody thinks me a fool

No silly kid costumes now that I'm grown

I need a costume that you have sewn

All my old costumes are fitting too tight

I need a new one this Hallowe'en night

*

Copyright 2004 by Stephanie Colburn

Autumn

A yellow leaf
floated downward
from the summer sky -
a scout
before the storm.

I wrote my poem in 1974.

In a comic strip in today's (October 8, 2010) TULSA WORLD, "Red & Rover" are sitting under a tree watching a leaf fall. Red says, "Look, an advance scout." Rover muses, "Advance scout??" Hidden beneath a pile of leaves, Red says, "Yep."

I clicked the photo in October 1996 in Humbird, Wisconsin.

FIRST MATE
Out of Retirement

His life in my sock drawer had become all too predictable. The morning I found him face down, shedding little fuzz-ball tears on my favorite turquoise socks, I knew it was time he and I shared another adventure. It had been almost four years since our trip out in the Northwest. A few days later we hit the road, driving east from Tulsa along I-44 toward Joplin and beyond. It was a beautiful sunshiny spring morning, the gas tank was full, First Mate stood tall in his cup holder, and I sang at the top of my lungs, "Zippity doo dah, zippity aye, my oh my, what a wonderful day," as we rolled along. More songs, then in a moment of silence, voices! Before we reached Joplin, an entire new play unfolded inside my head: characters, dialogue, names, places, motivations, plot twists, and the ending. I explained all this to First Mate, about my fourteen dead-end drafts crumpled up and thrown away in Tulsa, about my decision to let go of the short play contest this year, and, well, he got so excited, he jumped clear out of his cup holder and nearly slipped into that greasy crevice between the passenger seat and console. I caught him by his tippy toes just in time for us to gawk at a stunning display of redbuds in bloom.

To be continued . . .

For background information, please read post dated 10-1-09.