Dark Roast: A Collection of Poems of Nostalgia and Reflection

By Edward M. George

Dark Roast is the fourth collection of poetry from Ed George, of Prattville, Alabama, focusing on nostalgia and reflection. He is an attorney and education management consultant who likes to try his hand at songwriting, poetry, and painting when he's not playing softball or tennis.

• Language: English
• Publisher: NewSouth Books
• Release date: Jan 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781603064408

Edward M. George

EDWARD M. GEORGE is an attorney in Montgomery, Alabama. He is also a writer, musician, and music producer, and in his spare time plays softball.

Book preview

Dark Roast

A Collection of Poems of Nostalgia and Reflection

Edward M. George

NEWSOUTH BOOKS

Montgomery

Also by Ed George

Midnight Coffee

Espresso Evenings

Cosmic Latte

NewSouth Books

105 S. Court Street

Montgomery, AL 36104

Copyright © 2016 by Edward M. George. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by NewSouth Books, a division of NewSouth, Inc., Montgomery, Alabama.

ISBN: 978-1-60306-439-2

eBook ISBN: 978-1-60306-440-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016947641

Visit www.newsouthbooks.com

For Sherry

and everyone who offered

kind words about

my prior collections.

The days of our lives are threescore and

ten; and if by reason of strength they be

fourscore years; yet it is their strength

labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off,

and we fly away.

Psalms 90:10

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Also by Ed George

Copyright

Dedication

Epigram

Introduction

Dark Roast

Let Me Have Back Those Days

Midnight Coffee

Shades of Black and White and Gray

Jefferson and Union

The Chinaberry Tree

Crazy Old Women

The Rendezvous

Baby Blue Cadillac

The Ice Man

Randy Died Alone Last Week

Dogs I Never Had

Rocket to the Moon

Photo of a Young Woman on a Back Porch

Picture of an Old Man on a Brick Street

The End of the Rainbow

Evelyn

Rocking Chairs

Grandma’s House

For Pop and Me

Me and Lady Chatterley

Something Precious

Jailhouse Tattoo

The Blizzard

A Southern Boy in Boston

Near the Charles

Espresso Evenings

Acid in the Park—1968

Thank You, Johnny Mathis

In the Quarter

Young Love

The Lone Ranger

Midnight on the Delta

Execution at Parchman

Confluences

Hillbilly Heaven

The Lowering of Ears

Chalk Dust

Grandpa’s Guitar

Rock of Ages

To Study God

Close Encounter at Walmart

Miss Liberty

Death of the Twins

Country Graveyard

Unknown Rebel Soldier No. 12

Turpentine and Turkish Cigarettes

Remembering Ella

Christmas Without Mary

Journey

Doors

About the Author

Introduction

Until recently I had always been a person who focused on the present and the future, without much thought about the past. But now that I’ve turned seventy, more and more things that I see or hear, or even smell, take me back to something that happened years ago, and it’s usually something pleasant that my mind recalls through a soft focus lens. I think that’s what people call nostalgia, which I once heard Alabama writer Rick Bragg describe as memories wrapped up in a pretty package with a bow on top.

In keeping with my present frame of mind, I decided to put together a collection of poems, mostly from earlier publications of mine but also including a number that I have written lately. This collection includes poems of nostalgia as well as poems of other types of reflection in which people my