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Pickens' Plantation

by Coleman Bomar

They bought the Pickens’ plantation

On Tennessee’s sweaty land

And sold the old slave cabin

To a pencil company

Because red anguish writes better than lead

But still tastes the same

The hard wood under the rug was bloodstained

The windows warped by southern air attitude

They added a tv to the living room

Grandkid portraits hung in the kitchen

But the house remembered

Thundering branches of those blue gray boys like bruises upon the grass

And a bloodied whip which dangled from the basement door

About the Author

Coleman Bomar is a poet who currently resides in Middle Tennessee.He is a member of the International English Honor Society, Sigma Tau Delta, and an Isaac Anderson Fellow at Maryville College. His works have been accepted by Impressions Literary Magazine, Eskimo Pie Review, Aphelion Webzine, Heartland Review, Literary Yard, and Anti-Heroin Chic.

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