THE GORKO’S FIRST WHOOPS SELECTION FOR 24-31 August
The West, A Nest And You, Dear: A Prose Poem
Dad came home with a stereo console from the town’s furniture store. In the mid-60s it was a status symbol, even more so for an old farmhouse. Mom shook her head at my sisters and me,
at our squeals of anticipatory music-listening delight. Papa Bear was particularly pleased because the store manager had given some records at no extra cost, just thrown in for free.
Mama Bear no doubt thought ahead practically, to the type of music and the volume at which it would be played when my oldest sisters purchased records suited to their teenage taste. The complimentary records were easy listening or similar and not the type for kids or those in their teens. My parents were perhaps not surprised when their son, an old soul at heart, played one album over and over again:
The West, A Nest And You Dear by Mart Kenny and his Western Gentlemen.
The West, A Nest And You Dear : Mart Kenny and his Western Gentlemen
The song spoke of broader horizons and journeys with vistas and panoramas. In words that evoked a different age and time, a nostalgic trip into the past; of the mid-20th century, the Dirty Thirties, WWII, and its aftermath, when music was in its golden era, at its poetic peak. I longed to return to a past that seemed to me more romantic, more real; to the mood, and to a time when life seemed simpler and kinder. The Rockies beckoned in their majesty, sparkling rivers churned and glittered, as the scratchy words of the old song played on the new stereo console, and left their imprint forever on my heart, mind, and soul.
This poem is from an unpublished manuscript, Walking in the Shadow of Someone’s Soul.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
John RC Potter is an international educator from Canada, living in Istanbul. He has experienced a revolution (Indonesia), air strikes (Israel), earthquakes (Turkey), boredom (UAE), and blinding snow
blizzards (Canada), the last being the subject of his story, ‘Snowbound in the House of God’ (Memoirist). Recent prose publications include ‘Letter from Istanbul’ (The Montreal Review) & ‘A Day in May 1965’ (Erato Magazine); recent poetry publications include ‘From Vaisler Brothers to Tel Aviv’ (New
English Review) & ‘Chiaroscuro’ (Strangers and Karma Magazine). His story, ‘Ruth’s World’ (Fiction on the Web) was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. The author’s gay-themed children’s picture book, The First Adventures of Walli and Magoo, is scheduled for publication. Website: https://johnrcpotterauthor.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnRCPotter
Images generated on Magic Studio, collage by Raddy
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