FEATURING
PRIS CAMPBELL
Plymouth
We see them everywhere from our boat,
these men and women dressed up
in Pilgrim clothes, as if Plymouth
is the new Brigadoon reincarnated daily
around a fake rock.
Had I been a real Pilgrim
I would’ve run off with a handsome
Medicine Man, slept on rabbit fur,
visited with Pocahontas.
I would’ve warned my Medicine man
husband about the carnage already
brewing in the ships riding here
on the easterly winds. I would’ve
asked him to cast spells upon all
the birds in the forest so
their songs would bring peace
to land-greedy white men with guns
and Indians painting themselves
black and orange beside sparkling war fires.
Village and woods would be filled
with children of all colors,
beads clattering around their necks,
bellies filled with porridge.
I try to smoke the peace pipe with my lover,
one quarter Indian, himself,
but I never ran off with the Medicine Man
and the birds never sang their magic.
He slashes my throat with a word
and I bleed onto the deck until our boat
is drenched with the color of sunset.
Among other journals and anthologies, Pris Campbell’s poetry has appeared in Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, Boxcar Poetry Review, Wild Goose Review and The Dead Mule. She has recently been featured poet in From East to West, In the Fray, and Empowerment4Women. She was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2008. Her three chapbooks are Abrasions (Rank Stranger Press), Interchangeable Goddesses, with Tammy Trendle (Rose of Sharon Press) and Hesitant Commitments, which was part of Lummox Press’s Little Red Book series (www.lummoxpress.com). She is currently working on a series of sea poems and Paul Newman poems. Her second chapbook is sold out, but a few copies of Abrasions are still available through the author (campris@bellsouth.net). Formerly a Clinical Psychologist, Pris has been sidelined by CFIDS since 1990. Raised in the deep south, she has lived in the Midwest, Hawaii, and Boston. Following a six month trip down the coast in her 22 foot sailboat, she settled in the greater West Palm Beach, Florida, with her husband, a crazy dog and a cat who sits on her poetry drafts.
Nice adventurous poem. Great job!
WooHoo! You bedazzler you!
Thanks for commenting, both of you!
Great write Pris!
A TRUE AND REAL PLEASURE !
Wow, Pris…WOW!
Hi Sweetie,
Yes, I think if the Native American had realized what was to come, they would have tried to turn those boats around with any magic they could have conjured. huh….. I used to write poetry about my thoughts on the subject…..at the time my husband a Native American and he used to be so ashamed of his heritage…..that is the worst thing that the white man did, was take away the native pride. I was going to write a book about what happened when they symptomatically removed children from their homes and sent them to Arizona for “Americanizing.” His Grandmother was one of them.
This poem brought it all back, 14 years of living with an Indian. I looked into and behind the words you wrote, spent sometime there, remembering, feeling and thinking.
Your poem was a true pleasure! I always go away from your poems thinking and feeling.
Thank you all so much. I just found these comments. Nea, yes, I’m sure you can relate.
Pris,
Would that we could only re-write history and erase the horrors of a reality of our own making.
Why can’t mankind be what we claim to be? Why does everything have to turn to greed, consumption, and conquest? Even in personal relationships, why does there have to be a winner?
Your poems always show me truth but inspires hope at the same time that one day homo-sapiens will mature beyond the savage hunter and become a species that deserves to live on this planet.
Philip