a few poems by california's okie poet

Naming A Poet

Some relatives

Not close enough by love

to really matter

would command

the awkward girl with eyes

that didn't match

pick up your bare feet

don't drag them across the

splintered floor

pick up your floursack dress

and hang it on a rusty nail

until a woman called from

outside the broken window

pick up your name

and write

"Naming A Poet" © Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel.

 Appeared  in Sister Vayda's Song, Hanging Loose Press, 1982 

Academic Career of Orville Kincaid

Back in the old neighborhood

some will remember him if

you prod them. The boy who didn’t

wear socks until he was past thirteen.

All will remember his love of books,

reading while he stood in line for his

family’s welfare butter and flour.

But they lose him for his scholarship

years at Oxford University, trying to

erase who he was. Eating watercress

sandwiches

when he really wanted grits and gravy.

And none of them had read of a man

who walked out of a ten-story window

wearing a velvet robe

with a copy of Yeats in the pocket.

"Academic Career of Orville Kincaid” © Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel.
Appeared in Vito and Zona, Trout Creek Press, 1993.