Three New Poems by tex norman

Porch Stories, Cameron Texas,1957

The porch was a place of stories. Heat drove
us out on the house where we sat in the
darkness and waited. All the lights were off.

The claim was that lights invited June Bugs
and moths but the truth was this: darkness was
a necessary part of these stories.

I sat on the top wooden step. Grown-ups
sat in chairs that creaked and groaned under the
weight of their stories. You couldn’t order

these stories to perform. The best ones were
coaxed. “What was it like when you were little?”
It was like waiting for a bobber to

bob. Who is lured to the narrative hook?
Waiting was part of the fun. The tales that
mean the most are the tales that tell themselves.

These summer porch stories were not
made up, not created, not formulated,
not devised, oh’ no. Our stories are distilled.


The Jigsaw Puzzle

In 1958 I’d broken my leg, was confined to bed
and was working diligently at driving my mother
mad attending to insatiable need for her attention.

The pile of contorted cardboard shapes were given
in the hopes that a puzzle might preoccupy me.
It didn’t. The differences were too subtle for me.

The task was frustrating, exasperating, like job stress.
By not knowing the point, I missed the point. By not
seeing the big picture I couldn’t piece it together.

I thought the goal was to make the pieces fit,
to bring order to chaos, to complete the big picture,
to finish, to conclude, to wrap up, to be done.

I’ve avoided jigsaw puzzles for the past 50 years
but my life has not been puzzle free. I’ve always
looked for the edges of everything, noticing similarities

in color, the shape, the corner pieces, believing that
if I just turn each piece, if I consider it from all sides,
if I believe a fit exists, that order can be imposed on chaos,

then I can actually finish. The goal of puzzles has never
been to complete the picture, or to make all the pieces
fit. The purpose is the process. It is always the

journey and never the arrival. It is always the process
and never the product. The end doesn’t justify the means
if the means is the important part and the end is just the end.

Lies

Sometimes I sit and think of all the lies
I’ve told, of all the legs I’ve pulled, all that
crossed finger fibbing I’ve done, the wool I
have pulled over eyes, including my own.
Some of those lies were white which means polite
and some were intended as chain yanking
fun. Lies are better than straight forward jokes.

I think too of all the lies I’ve believed,
like “the poor are happier than the rich,”
or “god won’t give you more than you can bare.”
or “the way you look doesn’t matter,” or
“tell the truth and you won’t get in trouble,”
or how about: “ the truth will set you free?”

Today we’re blessed with statistical lies
Like “eighty-seven point three percent of
all statistics are made up on the spur
of the moment.” Lies come naturally
to us, we don’t have to be taught to lie.
The truth requires complete understanding
and everything we know is incomplete.

The year, I think, was nineteen fifty six.
My mother went outside to hang laundry
and I was told to watch my brother Tim.
If Tim should cry I was to call my mom.
Tim cried. I called my mom, but by the time
my mother got inside Tim had drifted
back asleep.. My mom was aggravated.
She needed to get the laundry hung and
I had halted this necessary chore.

Tim cried again. I called my mom again.
When she found Tim asleep again she was
angry and threatened to beat the soup out
of me if I dared tell that lie again.

When Tim cried a third time, and I called my
mother a third time and on her way in
when Tim drifted off asleep a third time
I pinched him hard enough to make him scream.
I’ve been a liar ever since that day.