The HyperTexts

Robert Funderburk

Southern Legitimacy Statement: I was born by coal oil lamplight in a tin-roofed farmhouse six miles outside Liberty, Mississippi. I list logging, plowing a mule, picking cotton and working in a country store in my resume. Learned to swim in an Amite River swimming hole–no lessons. My uncle went to school with Jerry Clower. My mother’s parents ran a dairy farm near Liberty. My Papaw Funderburk was State Overseer for the Mississippi Churches of God from 1935 to 1947. My cousin, Brother Caston, was sheriff in Liberty for many years. Another cousin, Carl Bates, from Liberty was President of the Southern Baptist Convention in the seventies. Graduated from LSU (“went in dumb and come out dumb too.”) Ssgt in USAFR 1965-1971. Retired parole officer.



Fragile

She was but an errant breeze
That stirs the garb of dust
Born by reckless winds
Birthing love and lust

An image in a quiet pool
Flawless, filled with such
Promise, easily shattered by
The slightest breath or touch



That Starry Friday
 
Beneath a purple dome
Pierced with lights
I gazed at your eyes
More eloquent than
The tongue's glib mutterings
A wayward wind
Blew through my soul
Scraping sorrow's ancient leaves
Across tumbled stone

I could only imagine
What lay beneath
The dew-soft glimmering
Of your breast
A wall, stone and mortared strong
Or a music box
Filled with burnished memories
And crystal fears
Bereft of time's consoling song



From this Desert

A cloudless day holds no promise,
all earth etched in perishable clarity.
Night gives a glimpse of eternity,
that steadfast land beyond the stars.
Rain, my rarest friend here,
turns back demands of day,
whispers peace with its cool, grey breath.
You are the clouds, the night.
You are the rain.



Wives of Nightfall

We are the
Wives of nightfall
Maidens of the dark

Our lips smooth as oil
Our voices feather-soft
Speaking words of lust
Robed in garments of
Love

Our prey who return
Night upon night
Seem somehow less human
Their bodies shrinking
Their eyes unseeing
Clouded by storms of
Sin

Some seek us as targets
For regret, failure, loneliness
And their hands become fists
Maces that free them briefly
From their desperate, empty
Lives

Our words are recordings
That mean nothing
We control volume and tone 

No one knows us
All is hidden behind
Sequins and pearls
The lace and empty, desperate
Smiles



Pilgrim at Ponte du Hoc

White Cliffs of Heaven, rising from the sea...
That's how I saw them from the ship
Before we sloughed through the waves
In the Higgins Boat, rank with the smell
Of vomit and fear; before the gate dropped
And German lead snuffed out lives like so many fragile lamps.

Before we slogged through rose-colored surf
And up a littered beach to the tenored clanking
Of jacketed rounds playing the tank traps
And before I saw all hope leave that first young face
Bracketed by the iron sights of my Garrand
As disbelief at his own mortality sparked in his eyes
And we became brothers in the fragile brevity of human flesh...
As the butt stock thumped against my shoulder
Something cold and seductive brushed against my soul.

The roar of battle was that of some beast from Revelation
Turned loose on the world, spewing smoke and fire.
Stumbling forward into madness and up those heights
I found myself amid the carnage and settling calm at the top.

I expect the view had once been for lovers in moonlight
Or sunlit children, their laughter ringing against the sound of the sea.
Now the wreckage and random butchery of war held sway.
Landing craft burned and smoldered against the leaden sea.
Bodies, once containing the image of God,
Rocked gently in the surf, their uniforms torn and stained,
Or lay among tank traps, or closer to those white cliffs
They did not reach.

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