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PENOBSCOT NATION MESSAGES – by Candece Tarpley

Posted by Chavisa Woods in Poetry

My Chippewa friend has Penobscot Nation messages
posted on her front door
left there by her lover who lived with her before.
I can’t say I was sorry to see him go
cause he didn’t know how to party
or hang with our jazzy gleeful flow
He would often scream and was kinda mean
thinking we weren’t in the know
his favorite saying being
“I told you damn fools to go!”
At times now she mopes around her little place
cause she says she misses his sexual dance
it being the delicious apex of their stormy romance.
But he had to go back home to help with the horses
on his Dad’s big country ranch
him teaching those beautiful horses
to gallop around and prance
since they’ll become his inheritance.
His Dad’s getting old and can no longer process and hold
that big place all by himself
He doesn’t want to lose it or have it sold
so he called all his children back to him
putting a cramp in their roaming ways
But he had to be realistic and not think like he still has
his strong young carefree days.
I asked my Chippewa friend
if she was gonna visit her lover and
hang out at his ranch
She said no way cause in that lifestyle
she doesn’t stand a chance.
I told her she could learn.
She said urban life is for me
I want to be away from all that farm misery
I need to be free to come and go as I please
not cleaning horse stables and shucking peas!
I was kinda surprised you know
cause if he asked me I sure would go
even though he’d sometimes scream
but maybe in the wilderness
he’d release all his penned up city steam.
My Chippewa friend
still has Penobscot Nation messages
posted on her front door
She claims he ain’t coming back
so she says she ain’t happy like she thought she was before.
But how happy was she
with those messages posted on her door?
Stay away it said
Stay away she belongs to me
as she became a part of his fenced in destiny.
Those Penobscot Nation messages posted on her front door
should be coming down as I told her many times before.
In the past she chose to ignore me
since she said she loved him most definitely
I often wondered how their love could exist
But I need to mind my own business
so she won’t become pissed with me
forcing me to flee her company
Those Penobscot Nation messages are still on her front door
now she says he’s coming back for sure.
I feel happy for her
Maybe he’s changed a little here a little there
I don’t think she cares as long as he comes home
to her apartment above the stair to live
behind those Penobscot Nation messages
still posted on her front door giving all he’s able to give.
I know she’s looking for more of his love and his way
that Penobscot man’s coming back she hopes to stay.

Copyright 2008
Candece Tarpley

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