Jim “Jazzbo” Chandler: Five Poems
Southern Legitimacy Statement:
I heared tell of some moron passin' around the word that Jazzbo Chandler might not be pure bred Southern...ignernt sumbitch claimed he was born north of the Tennessee--Kentucky line and jest claimed to be a man of the True South.
Boy, 'at got my damn blood boilin'! I was hotter than Granny was when she caught Grandpa out in the barn commiseratin' with some of the livestock in a manner that was again the law, I reckon. Grandpa claimed both snaps on his Dee-Cee bibs failed at the same time and he was astandin' on the five-gallon bucket 'cause he didn't wanna get cow manure all over his new clod stompers.
I don't reckon Granny believe 'at too much, 'cause she went up aside his head with a single-tree and brained him. He got outta the hospital a couple days ago after about six month, but I reckon they's somethin' still wrong with him . . . he said he's some German scientist named Brownsher Bosch and he owned the Ford Company. Hell, Grandpa ain't got a bucket to piss in nor a winder to throw it out of, not since his boy, Uncle Claude, went to sleep with his crack pipe and burnt down the house.
As the poetry editor of this here profane and vulgar magerzine tole me, us Rank Stranger stick together. Hell yeah we do; I'm buyin' me one of them damn plastic squeeze bottle syrup thangs, hell with them Karo bottles! They always mess up on me and I look like a sight with them pieces of biscuit stuff all over my overalls.
I'm a good Southern boy, though. I always let them pore kids what ain't got no food lick off the stickins. They shore like me.
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