Nutty, do you know When I Was On Horseback, the dead soldier's lament?

No, never heard of it. Do you have an author/link?

She's old enough this time. She'll make it the whole way through. She's a big girl.

The thumping starts from around the corner. Bodies larger than hers shift and twist in her way so she leans into her mother's legs - not out of fear, just to keep safe.

She's lifted by strong and calloused hands and placed on a work-broadened shoulder.

Her fingers make braids into handles, and with a turn she can see them now - fringed headdresses, men on stilts, pounding and dancing and singing towards her.

She holds tighter. For balance. She's big now.

"Mummy! Jonkonnu a come!"

No, never heard of it. Do you have an author/link?

It's a traditional song, sung by a dead soldier.

When I was on horseback wasn't I pretty
When I was on horseback wasn't I gay
Wasn't I pretty when I entered Cork City
And met with my downfall on the fourteenth of May.

Six jolly soldiers to carry my coffin
Six jolly soldiers to march by my side
It's six jolly soldiers take a bunch of red roses
Then for to smell them as we go along.

Beat the drum slowly and play the pipes only
Play up the dead-march as we go along
And bring me to Tipperary and lay me down easy
I am a young soldier that never done wrong

(not a 100 words)

scott

He was young. 23? He was working two jobs and going to school. Dreaming of the future. She was maybe not the woman of his dreams, but they loved each other.

So when they found out, they wed. They honeymooned in Hawaii. The little bit of the dream that would be allowed them.

For my part, I tried to implement his changes in the factory. To make it easier for them. More efficient. It was all I could do.

I didn’t go to see him in the hospital. I didn’t feel I had the right. I hated him, really. We were from warring factions in the corporation, and we worked together with a vengeance.

I rode with the company’s president to the funeral. His secretary had a nicer car than I knew was available. But they weren’t going to the burial, so I needed a lift. I went with the warehouse laborers.

I had never seen that many cars in a funeral processional, running the red lights, weaving our way through the city. I wondered if the people who had to wait for us, watching the parade, knew that he had dreams.

gulps

It's supposed to be the biggest 4th of July parade in the country, and it goes past a block from my house. I sit in the shade in the front yard and watch people schlep coolers and chairs and kids and umbrellas over to University Avenue. They glare at me, sitting there in my rocking chair and sipping my iced tea.

I used to watch the parade, but the shade is preferable to the sun on the sidewalk. I can hear the bands just fine, and my favorite part of the parade comes to me.

The warplanes from Hill Air Force Base and the local airport rip the air right above my house. Sometimes I can hear them coming, sometimes it's only the movement against the mountains that warns me as the planes outrace the scream of their engines.

Hubby wanders outside after the last plane. "What was that third one that came over?"

"Let's see, we had the fighters in the Missing Man formation ..."

"F-16s."

"Then the World War II fighter..."

"Something with an Allison engine."

"The third one was a pair of trainers, I think."

"I knew it was multi-engine something."

"Then two biplanes."

"Stearmans."

"And, of course, the B-17."

"I knew that one."

He nods and toddles back inside. I watch the late arrivals stream along the sidewalk trying to catch enough of the parade to make all the effort worth it. I hear the B-17 circling the valley to head back up to Ogden and the base. In how many other countries can warplanes streak low over a city and be greeted by laughter?

Surprisingly, my depictions of murder and mayhem suck. Depressed now. I can't believe I have so much to learn about guns and spatter, but I do.

Damn. First eighty pages of "Matty" edited for pacing - the first third of the book is always the part that needs pacing checks after it's done.

But why do I feel as if I've got nothing done?

That ain't nothin', deb. Keep at it.

So I thought I'd post a pre-drabble-flurry bit. I wanted to say that the drabbles are still wonderful. And I find myself writing with much more ease and much less grumbling these days. Even if I'm still doing squat with anything, it's really good to be writing again.

--- the muse stirs

the muse stirs
she hears the call
a silver voice
drips
promises of relief
like dewdrops from her fingertips

to a dying man
panting in the heat
parched and starving lying
on the cracks of hell
he will not survive
this desert without inspiration

motivation
to arise with aching bones
and troubled head
to pour out the fire and passion
that is boiling in his soul
so that

she may quench it
in her eyes like inkwells
deeper than desperation
and more cool
she laughs
and blinks a velvet eye

and suddenly he sees
that the muse stirs
and he puts pen to paper
and writes

Oh, Liese, how lovely!

(psst, the eighty pages is now 220 pages, but I still have 140 pages to edit and a new piece to write)