Overread at Booth 4: Bits from The Salinghetti Chronicles Vol 345

SC 345

t16

Ralph Stanley – Longing for Home

. . . 

the times were hard through the corn and even now the old man sees them only through the yellowed memories that wear him ricepaper thin, but yes he does still recall the girl through the mist, the girl in the polka dot dress, pink polka dots on white, as she was toward him through the years, still carrying a piping hot bowl of stew oven mitts in hand and a smile on her face, because he’d just told a funny joke as she was walking down from the house, under the shade of the big oak tree . . .

t18

David Dondero – Laying Low in Eli, Nevada

. . . 

do you know what I mean?  I’m talkin’ nude cakes of cash,

she’s a drag splittin’ queen, and I can tell you that she’s all phoney grits and glam,

with a terrible flair for alternate states of mind, and layin off some mind and faroff other countries,

there's nothing left to explode,

from this three part waitress with her sidesplit getting a little narrow.

and there’s a little space of her left, somewhere between the edge of the bed and the wall, just the short crack where the bed is shoved against the wall,

and you can slip down between it, to the carpet far far below,

and you can look for your foreign countries there,

down there with the mice-brown hair and potatochip crumbs

I woke up to the lipstick casino neon light flashing in the bathroom mirror.

MR

2008-0904