Contributor: Carl "Papa" Palmer

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Seeing it on the country store shelf
reminds me of Dad.
Horehound candy, a name snickered
at when I got older,
a flavor not really to my liking,
a root beer licorice cough drop taste,
but still, it was candy
and what kid would turn down candy.

Dad would always buy one stick,
snap it in two, hand me my half and
say, "too much sugar'll spoil supper,
plus a penny a piece is ridiculous."

I don't remember the first or last
time he bought me a stick,
I just remember he always did,
a sort of father son rite of passage
when horehound was on the shelf.

So I ask for one of the candies,
pay the ridiculous price of a quarter
and put half the stick in my mouth.
It tastes just like it did back then,
but I don't remember when it ever
caused a tear to fall from my eye.


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Carl "Papa" Palmer of Old Mill Road in Ridgeway, VA now lives in University Place, WA.
He is retired military, retired FAA and now just plain retired without wristwatch, cell phone alarm clock or Face book friend. Carl, Hospice volunteer and president of The Tacoma Writers Club, is a Pushcart Prize and Micro Award nominee.
MOTTO: Long Weekends Forever

Contributor: Carl "Papa" Palmer

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The store bought balsa birdhouse
brought by his grand-girl today
hangs on the same bent rusty nail

hammered in their backyard tree
for the handmade house her
mommy made forty years ago.

Two terra cotta flower pots
one upside down atop the other
held in place with preschool glue.

Remnants saved in a special place,
yellow pencil perch, some shattered
shards of clay displaying initials

etched by his three year old
daughter preserved forever
in this old man’s nest of memories.


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Carl "Papa" Palmer of Old Mill Road in Ridgeway VA now lives in University Place WA. He has a 2015 contest winning poem riding buses somewhere in Seattle. Carl is a Pushcart Prize and Micro Award nominee.

MOTTO: Long Weekends Forever

Contributor: Carl "Papa" Palmer

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She gasps, waves her hand as something
is announced on the radio, motions me
to listen as she turns up the volume.

Being in her country, not at all fluent in
her tongue, no trace of comprehension
as I stare between her and the radio dial.

Turning the sound back down, she repeats
distinctly, slowly the same words I heard,
yet still fail to understand their meaning.

She tunes to an English-speaking station,
I hear the report. Paris is under attack. Our
tears speak a language we both understand.


- - -
Carl "Papa" Palmer of Old Mill Road in Ridgeway VA now lives in University Place WA.
He has a 2015 contest winning poem riding buses somewhere in Seattle. Carl is a Pushcart Prize and Micro Award nominee.