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A - D ... Kansas Poems
Alphabetically sectioned by poem title Select Below to View Another Group: |
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Almanac
by Amy Fleury There is a physics to burnt toast and tenderness-- a law proven in a kitchen south of a certain town. Here she scrapes black crumbs in washboard rhythm for the old man choked with bacon grease and egg yolk who sits at her table. Brush of silver whiskers, he leaves, carrying his body like a sack of feed. Baked bread and bleach claim this place where she sits to husk and churn-- each day an adage. In town, her girdle binds as she markets for flour and spools of thread. Weather talks barometric pressure, rain gauge banter. Straw purse clasped, she winds home to the bud and shed, vine and prune. He is there, driving the John Deere in wide circles. And sure as the moon will wax and wane, the old man pats her bottom, sits at her table as she ladles stew. Read More Poems by ► Amy Fleury (PDF) |
An Expatriate Kansan
Rides the Train of Remembering by Tom Reynolds My trip into the vanished past is prodded by springs in my seat, cracked vinyl scraping an elbow, and thirst for water, not truth. This train ain’t bound for glory, just a slow sixty miles down country, through thickets and shorn fields, weaving on unsafe tracks. Today’s train ain’t no showpiece, just an engine and three rusted cars, soot seeping through cracks, till I wonder what I was thinking traveling into Kansas this way, my life there on that Oswego farm surrounded by woods and trees, the slow trickle of a muddy creek, crags below the wooden bridge, a black hawk circling the hedge, the farmhouse beyond the hill, and despite all, enduring love. I should have gone first class |
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As Winter Sneaks Over The Prairie
by Kathryn Browne Strings of waterfowl throw themselves at the sky -- congregations whipped to a frenzied flight. Borne on a bitter wind their urgent calls, like prayers in the night whisper through cracks to pierce the dogs’ dreams. Off the water a great flurry of wings rises shots snap through electric air; flakes of first snow dance with feathers as they fall. |
A Kansan Visits New York City
By Al Ortolani When the neighbor’s dog barks in the rain at the wind in the vines of honeysuckle, you remember the crowd rippling down Mulberry Street into Chinatown. Like leaves on a fence row they interconnect and lace into a rope of green, an occasional blossom lifting from the braid. Previously published in The Little Balkan's Review Read More Poems by ► Al Ortolani (PDF) |
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Bird Song
by Rosemary Parsons Torrez The meadowlark trills a Kansas call Blending its early morning song Hidden - where grasses still stand tall Sun rises quickly - with early dawn Blending its early morning song The plump - breasted robins arrive Sunrises quickly - with early dawn Summer sweeps in - warm and alive The plump - breasted robins arrive Raucous dominate blue jays have joined in Summer sweeps in - warm and alive Twittering always - tiny brown wren Raucous dominate blue jays have joined in Dove coos softly to loving mate Twittering always - tiny brown wren Whippoorwill mourns as the day grows late Dove coos softly to loving mate From the timber - the crow's harsh caw Whippoorwill mourns as the day grows late The meadowlark trills a Kansas call Bluestem Breeze
by Phillip Albert King Waltzing through Kansas bluestem, Sings a somber prairie wind Calling to the Meadowlark, On the thisle in the glen, Russling the cottonwoods, That wander a round the bend, Gliding past clear streams and ponds, Below a twittering wren, Whispering to the rimrock, Far beyond the valley's end, Pausing for just a moment, On the shoulders of my friend, Wrestling with some rusty wire, Of fences he needs to mend. |
Between the Mo & the Kaw
by William Patterson From Atchison's north in darkness bundled from night-cold & not recovered from sleep I am hardly at the wheel sliding past landmarks scarcely visible in early dim old farm oak reminds me to be mindful of path. I bend west in time before making my first full swerve south for half an hour. Then, stopping at a cross- roads in all directions, I bear, finally, east my last straight course before two more bends south again & a river crossing. Some days I meet the sun over the eastern bluff just a mile south of Lawrence, yesterday it rose above the Kaw. Today, I beat it up, my chest pounding from cold, exiting my car, reflecting all the impossible promises a working day. When it is done, I will climb back in for the return: same path: new direction over the same river still going. The sun will close behind me & a light in a small house on a small hill will welcome me home. |
Break-up of my Landscape
by Chandra E.A. Dickson
On a sudden awkward drive away from Wichita to Boulder, you point out that I am Midwestern; a Kansas landscape puzzle without the pieces in the middle that form the interesting part of the picture: the center of the bison’s eye, the wildflowers whose names I do not know, the rocky tips of the Flint Hills. I worry about the longest drought in twenty years, the out-of-control grass fires that crept across the state line from Oklahoma, spreading across the fields into Harvey, Burton …
How the plains of my life would look charred black--
How one grain of wheat feels in my hand and the strength it takes to hike Mt. Sunflower at dawn; to look out and see the crest of the Rockies and know that was as far west as we’d go. Understanding this landscape as home.
by Chandra E.A. Dickson
On a sudden awkward drive away from Wichita to Boulder, you point out that I am Midwestern; a Kansas landscape puzzle without the pieces in the middle that form the interesting part of the picture: the center of the bison’s eye, the wildflowers whose names I do not know, the rocky tips of the Flint Hills. I worry about the longest drought in twenty years, the out-of-control grass fires that crept across the state line from Oklahoma, spreading across the fields into Harvey, Burton …
How the plains of my life would look charred black--
How one grain of wheat feels in my hand and the strength it takes to hike Mt. Sunflower at dawn; to look out and see the crest of the Rockies and know that was as far west as we’d go. Understanding this landscape as home.
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Counting Stars
by Jennifer Ortolani-Tavernaro Summer stretched out on the hood of my car Like a cat during a winter’s nap The warmth comforting Even in the July heat. Out on a dirt road Just me and the boy. We counted stars and talked of constellations The sky held a thousand secrets The World a million possibilities Our hearts kept time with the locust’s song As we spun our way through adolescence In a small Kansas town. |
Cottonwood
by Robert Cory Amid an unspoiled tract of CRP, at the bend of a creek, a solitary stand of cottonwoods thrives. Stubbornly rooted in tranquil, unkempt ground. Those nearest the bank, lean. Most others upright, cast against an autumn sky. Like a scatter of polite applause, the youthful mime the twitch and rustle of the elders. Their first shed leaves adrift. Yellowing, nonplussed shapes savor the flight; their once in a lifetime ride. The fallen form a misshapen mattress for the falling till wind shuttles them elsewhere. The creek bed warehouses the lion’s share. Barren branches part sunlight into oblong wedges. The north faces of their trunks bear winter’s brunt. Enduring brute forces. They resist the siege. Indigenous visitors search for something that matters. Late night calls of a coyote add weight to the dark. The meek, the bold, the vigilant; hunter and hunted; all roam unseen whether stars, moon, sun, cloud, snow, or pricks of freezing rain. As patrons of St. Oestrus instinctively stir, March arrives; bearing a trove of miracles, caprice and swagger. Welcome! ...nascent hues of native flora; the pride of a rain flush creek. Listen! ...to the vernacular of a hundred small voices. Soon all will give thanks for April. Quickening the gait to redemption. |
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The Deserted Farm
by Roderick Townley Who leaned the broken mirror against the barn knew more than he let on about the mis- behavior of moonlight. Years now since men left the fields to the luck of foxes, and left the locks to rust on unhinged doors. Still this last artifice, this final point of order, the glass tilted to survey a weather vane, the tops of sycamores, and doubled heaven hung with chandeliers. (Finalist, Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards) Read More Poems by ► Roderick Townley (PDF) |
