Ron Watson is an American Poet, born in 1958 in Little Rock Arkansas and currently making his home in Madisonville, Kentucky.   He claims to have "turned to poetry instead of crime in 1976."   Ron earned his M.A. as well as a B.S.E. in English from Arkansas State University.   After teaching at the community-college level for a few years, he found his "calling" to be in the public schools, explaining that he gets "a kick out of teaching 8th graders to write."   Mr. Watson received an Al Smith Fellowship for Poetry from the Kentucky Arts Council in 1992.

His work has appeared in publications such as The Journal of Kentucky Studies, Kansas Quarterly, The Redneck Review of Literature, South Dakota Review, Wind, Zone 3, and New Mexico Humanities Review.   His chapbooks include My Name Ain't Bud (1991) Pygmy Forest Press, Pagan Faith (1992) Nightshade Press, A Sacred Heart (1994) Redneck Press, and Counting Down The Days (1994) Pudding House Press.

Learn more about Mr. Watson by visiting his website (see links below)--worth a visiting to meet the interesting array of warm and earthy characters introduced in so many of his poems.

You must tell me what they say
In Yugoslavia
When the weather turns this way,
When each green tree's ungentle leaves
Are fiercely dying.
Is there a phrase you have, a word
For what passes through your heart
This time of year?  Can you tell me 
In your own tongue what it means
To wear this season's breeze?
Do you think of home?  Of a lover
You knew too briefly once?  Do you 
Catch yourself in waking dreams?
Do you find yourself full of grief
That cannot speak?  Do you long
To sleep and sleep?

It happens like that here, though 
My English bears no tiding I can name.  
I am left to guess where you are.  
A restless midnight pulls me on and on.  
Two candles stand a vigil by your chair.
It is raining.

Copyright © 1994 Ron Watson

Grave Dance

Multifaceted and complex, you are like quartz
Each angle a new gleam, no mere chick or babe
But a woman, wise to fool's gold
Who seeks gems and rare stones
Who dreams unsettling dreams
Who strings bead by bead
This necklace of never-ending years
Who tithes to motherhood its costly sum
Who aches for love.

And I am a man
A convolution of strands
That having broken now reform
A startled  boy inside
Curious, bewildered, and ultimately
Thrilled to be alive
To be near you speaking softly
To be enamored
To be willing against all odds and common sense
To believe.

The rubble of the world is another matter
More realistic with its demands.
We have our limitations, God help us,
And we do what we can.
But when I think of you, and lately
I have thought of you often, I think
Of spirits assuming flesh
Of union and bodyheat
Of desire undiminished by time
Unchecked by the clockwork of our lives.
To make much of time Marvell wrote,
Admonishing who knows how many generations
So long has he lain
As cold as dust in his grave.

Copyright © 1998 Ron Watson

They pump iron at Fitness Formula, play ball
In unofficial leagues.
Think they know a few moves.
Brad fancies himself a Big Man
Under a make-believe basket in the breakroom.
Half his size, Mike boasts
That he can out-position him and does
Trash-talking around the watercooler:
He drives, he shoots, he scores!
Brad tells him to wake up.
I know I have to scratch my nuts and spit
To hang in this conversation.
I imagine changing the subject:
Ever kiss a man?
That would go over really big.
Brad thinks queers are out to get him.
Like some dude is going to be attracted
To a Skoal-dipping yahoo in a pickup.
He asks what I think about the Cats this year.
Since mid-season, the guys at work
Have been tight-lipped about Kentucky,
Knowing it can be a jinx in roundball religion
To speak too highly too soon.
Like saying, Money in the bank
At the foul line, before your man shoots.
I know Brad is waiting for an answer
So I ease my arm over his shoulder
To pull him close, and I feel his muscles tensing
As if the Lord's game were on the line
With him at the charity stripe: Those Cats
Can play two teams at the same time, Brad,
And win both games. They can't lose.
This season's hay is in the barn.

Copyright © Ron Watson

Links:

• Someplace Else To Be
• biodebris, Ron Watson's website