I’d like you all to meet a fellow,
wise and witty, warm and mellow.
The story opens with the scene
of how he finally “came clean.”
Now, he’s not one to self-promote
but once I’d read the verse he wrote
in service of poetic art,
it struck a longing in my heart.
I hollered till my throat was sore:
“Please gimme, gimme, gimme more!”
So sometimes when he’d write to me
he’d dole one out reluctantly.
One day a note from him arrived
that almost left me sore deprived
throughout the week until I chanced
to turn it over, where enhanced
by simple words without fanfare
a splendid poem rested there.
I said, “Hey Buddy, what a feat,
but next time don’t be so discreet.”
Well sure enough, as time went by,
my uncle ceased to be so shy.
Next time the designated spot
was marked with arrows he had shot
across the paper’s forward face
as in humility and grace
he’d fashioned letters bold and wide:
“THEY BE A POME ON T’OTHER SIDE! —–>>>”
ooo000ooo
Written in tribute to my Uncle Buddy in the mid-1990s, when I learned to my surprise that some of the best poets of our time were related to me. I’m so glad I pestered them for their stories and poems before they died.
Selected Poems by M.E. “Buddy” Upchurch
Hal Upchurch Chronicles
My dad and his little brother, having been raised to never toot their own horns, wrote for love. It was in corresponding with them through pre-Internet years that I subsequently discovered the joy of connecting with likeminded poets online.
1995 Mary Boren
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