Kansaspoets.com
  • Home
    • Site Map
  • Kansas Poets
    • Kansas Poet Laureates >
      • 8 - Traci Brimhall
      • 7 - Huascar Medina
      • 6 - Kevin Rabas
      • 5 - Eric McHenry
      • 4 - Wyatt Townley
      • 3 - C. Mirriam-Goldberg
      • 2 - Denise Low
      • 1 - Jonathan Holden
    • Notable Kansas Poets
    • Ad Astra Project
    • Shoptalk >
      • A. Flurey - Shoptalk
      • G. German - Shoptalk
      • S. Hind - Shoptalk
      • D. Low - Shoptalk
      • S. Meats - Shoptalk
  • Kansas Poems
    • Kansas Poems
    • KS Poems - A, B, C, D
    • KS Poems - E, F, G, H
    • KS Poems - I, J, K, L
    • KS Poems - M, N, O, P, Q
    • KS Poems - R, S, T, U, V
    • KS Poems - W, X, Y, Z
  • Writing Poetry
    • Getting Started
    • Poetry Lesson Plans
  • Links and Groups
I - L ... Kansas Poems
Alphabetically sectioned by poem title
Select Below to View Another Group:
  • A, B, C, D   |   E, F, G, H   |   I, J, K, L   |   M, N, O, P, Q  |   R, S, T, U, V   |   W, X, Y, Z​
  • Learn More About Submitting
I
  • ​In Kansas to Stay -- Beckemeyer, Roy J.
  • In Passing -- Mick, Lee
  • I too am Kansas -- Harris, Saundra
J
K
  • ​Kansas -- Prince, Rushton
  • Kansas August Evening -- Heller, Jamie Lynn
  • Kansas Coastline -- Clontz, Amber
  • Kansas Cottonwood -- White, Debra
  • Kansas Flint Hills -- Stubbs, Russett
  • Kansas in Autumn -- Mayer, Barbara
  • Kansas Omelet -- Hickok, Bill
  • Kansas Rides -- Heller, Jamie Lynn
  • Kansas Wild Flower -- Blackmon, James
  • Keep It Safe -- Pohl, Dan
L
  • Lake -- Spees, Daniel
  • Looking...Seventh Floor -- Miller, Emma
  • Lost Voice -- Powers, Larry 
  • Love Letter to Kansas -- Yenser, Pamela
  • Love Letters...7 -- Hill, DaMaris B.

I

I too am Kansas
      (Inspired by Langston Hughes’ I Too Sing America )
by Saundra Harris
 
I am in the shadows waiting for her glance.
My eyes bright like Langston’s
Wondering as I wander whispering for her
I am the voice of many singing to the stars through difficulties
I am the honey hands of Gordon’s mother
Returning him home to rest
Mother land of Barack
I stand in defiance to wrongs.
I am the dark clouds brewing in the east carrying the tears
I carry her flag – proud but troubled
I remember the fear the rejection still 
I am the Buffalo Soldier returning from II
I am the eyes of Linda Brown tiny in Topeka
Walking to school
I am her native Son born of her cities
My legs run in her green grass with Maurice faster
Than any man
I stand in the shadows waiting for her glance.
I am the endless night skies of the plains.
One day she will see me and say how beautiful I am
And be ashamed
 
I too sing Kansas
In Kansas To Stay
by Roy J. Beckemeyer

 
Up to my shoulders
In Indian Grass,
I find that I, too, have taken root
In this prairie,
Sent shoots feeling their way
Past granules and pebbles
Into blackness,
Into resistance,
Into the iron-hard turf.
 
Now the wind can send me swaying wildly,
The sun can dry and crack my skin,
But, like the prairie grass,
I am anchored,
I am here to stay;
No pulling, no tugging
Can wrest me from this land.
 
Like the Indian Grass, I cling to this earth,
Every bit as urgently,
Every bit as exuberantly,
As I reach for the sky.
In Passing
by Lee Mick
 

Just East of the Miltonvale turn off
Nestled between a narrow strip of old highway 24
And the smooth, gray ribbon of the new two-lane,
Lies a little, well manicured patch
Of native Kansas grass.
 
Positioned one above the other,
Two small, white gravestones.
Their identical appearance
Suggesting a past sharing of the two lives.
A oneness of…
Time? Affiliation? Family?
 
I stopped only once amongst my hurried passings,
To try and answer the questions that overcome me
Each time the two come into view.
But with the darkening evening hour
The detail that had worn soft upon the little, white, stone faces
Escaped the straining of my tired eyes.
 
Eventually I will set aside the time
To try again... to discover
Truth behind the stones.
Until then I will be content
To smile
Upon the mind’s manifestation…
 
Two small prairie daughters
Of identical blonde curls and white cotton dresses,
Who pause their endless game of tag
To wave with delight
As I pass by
In constant self-serving haste

J

K

Kansas Coastline
by Amber Clontz
 
For me there is no ocean.
Sea shells are remains of Box turtles
Cottonwood leaves are my plankton
The whales I know are called buffalo
 
Cicadas imitate the tide’s heaving roar
Mermaids plow dust beaches
Land locked prairies reminisce,
the day the sea drained and sunflowers grew.

Kansas Cottonwood
by Debra White

 
There’s something sacred about the way she’s dying
The old cottonwood in our backyard—dying in sections,
   one limb at a time.
And now nearly half of her is dried, leafless,
   bark peeling off leaving her naked skin
   to be eaten by insects and pecked at by woodpeckers.
Yet it’s the death in her that keeps the rest of her living…
   and giving
   shade to us and refuge for squirrels and birds who want to hide.
But branch by branch, she’s letting go until one spring
She’ll decide to not wake up from hibernation.
Then, birds will weep
   and so will I.
​
Kansas August Evening
by Jamie Lynn Heller

 
Open my window, Mommy
she said
I want to hear the
cicada lullaby
Kansas Omelet
by Bill Hickok

 
 The drab diminutive cowbird
 hops like a rabbit behind
 her bovine friend.
 Makes gourmet meals of
 what’s left on the ground.
 Her moxie does not stop there
 In spring she drops her eggs
 with mercenary zeal
 into the nest of strangers.
 Meadowlark becomes motherlark;
 killdeer, mommy dear;
 the prairie sparrows and grouse--
 all oblivious surrogates
 for these street-smart cruisers.
 Gone the nursery and teenage
 tyranny.  These master sleuths
 of the midland flats have
 feathers of their kind and
 brains that gleam
 with the scent of a fox. 
​
Kansas in Autumn
by Barbara Mayer 

    
Cerulean skies surround
the Kansas plains like an azure
ocean sweeping across the horizon.
Faint wisps of white marble
the aqua expanse. Shafts of sunlight
bathe shriveled cornstalks
and withered sunflowers, creating
an autumn landscape resplendent
with rusts, ambers and olive greens.
The flat contour of Kansas may lack
the boldness of mountain peaks
and majesty of ancient oaks,
but when its fertile fields touch the
cobalt firmament, serenity envelops
my soul and I feel touched by grace. 
​Keep It Safe
by Dan Pohl

 
All Ad Astra folk should
Share, of course, what they
Know of sleepy small towns
Hidden in state, cut away from the
Arteries of blacktop highways
And tell about red-dirt streets
That spill into Kansas farmlands,
Un-choked prairies, filled with
Wind moved milkweed
Trilling Meadowlarks, and
Lip numbing Snake Root.
 
From tractors, we see them
Handicapped, out-of-state
Travelers who stop and stand
And stare into the open plains
As into a crystal ball to divine
The mystic secrets of the place
            For a moment, they attempt
            To look for that which we
Have eaten over years
Absorbed by willing skin
 
They pressure the moment with little time
To stay, overnight maybe, and they feel they
Must rush to the other side, to what
They think is a better state, the next
Diversion, so they squint hard for the
Answer, hard enough to stamp lines
Onto the outside corners of their eyes

Kansas Rides
by Jamie Lynn Heller

I gripped the under curve of metal
lining the bed of his farm battered truck
to keep from getting
tossed out
and lost in the prairie sea.
The hot wind in my hair
carried the breath of the land in bloom and
hours later in bed my pillow would
absorbed the scent
to keep me company.
I could see the bald curve of his head
through the back window,
the tip of a toothpick pricked his silhouette,
one hand on the wheel,
his left arm, from shirt sleeve to watch band,
a long time partner of the sun’s.
It didn’t matter where he went
or what chore waited,
I went along and
rode the fields.
​
Kansas Flint Hills
by Russett Stubbs 

 
Winters, dark and lonely. 
Springs, burnt blacken grass. 
Summers, lush and green. 
Falls, rust and brass. 
Horizons, miniature mountains. 
Sunrise, Sunsets, bold storms. 
Lovely,  Kansas Flint Hills. 
Wondrous, yearly norm.
Kansas Wild Flowers
​             
(how I met my wife)
by James Blackmon
 

Looking across this Kansas field
covered with full-bloom-flowers
on a hot humid day
I wonder...
is she real--this woman
in the distance?
 
Her beauty--
more wonderful
than all the wildflowers between us--
puts me in doubt.
 
Her stillness...
as solid as an anchored-ship
on calm waters.
 
She does not pluck flowers from their stems--
no,
she just stands there 
facing me...
piercing the thick, humid, fragrance of this field
with her look.
Kansas
by Rushton Prince

 
Have you seen in rolling nimbus cross the plains
or looked heavenward as dark sky is fractured
by gesticulating light? Have you felt the blast of the Rockies 800 miles east
or the thunderous pound on your chest from sky creased?
 
Have you heard the horns of the Calvary
or the songs of the Arapaho, Comanche, Kansa, Kiowa, Osage and Pawnee
on the prairie breeze? Have you found yourself under the watchful eye of a Jayhawk
or chased by Wild Cats and Wheat Shocks?
 
Have you received a warm wave from a stranger on a back road
or an elder in a chair on a white paint flecked porch? Have you seen sunflowers forever
or a farmer’s arm over his boy’s shoulder
at sunset walking home for dinner?
 
Have you seen the wood people adorning Wichita
or felt the ancestor's presence at a Powwow? Have you seen the sky boil, rotate
suddenly descend in fury; beautiful, captivating, foreboding, destructive
and sparing in twisting motion?
 
Have you experienced the hospitality of the people of Howard
or felt the birth pains of the Civil War in Lawrence and her sister
Pottawatomie? Have you heard the Wagon Masters “Hoa!”
on an autumn day in Morse, where the Santa Fe and California trails cross?
  
These surface on waves to ride crests of the prairie sea
coaxed by the undercurrents of Kansas.

L

Lake
by Daniel Spees
 
It was precisely in the center of summer
the time to escape in swimming. . .
            my girlfriend's cousin had a cabin
            up in Reading, right by a lake,
            so with blankets and towels
            in a cardboard box
 
we rode weekends to this shack on the shore
where there was a porch, cots and a kerosene
            lamp, all the clumsy necessaries
            distasteful to parents--
            an outhouse listing left,
            hammock between pines, cistern,
            matches, clothespins, sandals. . .
 
The loneliest lake in the county,
my girlfriend's fat cousin said
            among the lapping, whispering,
            chuckling noises of the insects,
            water and trees, and my girlfriend
            would laugh about it until dark. 
 
The loneliest lake maybe in Kansas,
she'd murmur in my ear beside me
            on the creaking canvas.  At ten o'clock
            the water went black except for splashes
            of moonlight.  Her thighs were like
            cool slick lotion on my sunburned hide,
 
like memory, like lake sounds interrupting
logic as I lecture my kids.
 
Read More Poems by ► Daniel Spees (PDF)
Looking From Seventh Floor
By Emma Miller
 
It is night and Wichita is all lights--
Bright white mercury vapors,
Yellow high-pressure sodiums,
Blinking neons,
Ambers and reds.
 
Headlights move along the Canal route.
Street with steady traffic flow must be Kellogg.
That thick aggregate of lights
Could be downtown Wichita
Where they drag Douglas.
 
A flashing red light just now appeared.
Where did it come from?
Someone else is asking that question
As he waits---
What will happen?
 
It is night and Wichita is all lights--
Steady stalwart sentinels  
On guard through the night.
I watch from my window.
Beautiful sight 
Lost Voice
by Larry Powers
 
Wave upon wave the herds wandered
across vast plains, endless prairies,
stretching out, reaching to the horizon.
The earth trembled beneath hooves;
the noise of their bellowing echoed,
thousands of voices blended as one.

Tromping through valleys, o’er hilltops,
en masse, moving slowly, methodically,
single bodies crowding, indistinguishable,
into the huddled legions of rolling fur.
Clouds of dust and swarms of flies
followed them into ancestral grounds.

They roamed freely, proud and unfettered,
preyed upon by the skillful Plains Indians,
who sought only a source of sustenance:
meals to appease their hungry bellies
and furs for warmth against winter freeze,
thankful hunters, taking only for need.

Then the intruders came, pleasure hunters,
torturing, slaughtering wave upon wave
for the mere joy of sport, the thrill kill.
Skinners, for pay, ripped away precious fur
leaving pile upon pile of bleached bones
and decaying flesh, the smell of death.

Putrid landfills, naked corpses rotting,
bones scattered across ancestral lands,
until they returned back to the dust.
Gone, the once great herds are no more,
the sound of the bellowing, the trembling
diminished and fragmented, a lost voice.

Now, but a few of these great buffalo remain
of what once formed the huddled legions,
a remnant, protected on reserves, fettered.
Hired mercenaries, ruthless marauders,
leaving bones of ancestors piled in heaps,
brought the herd to the edge of extinction.
​Love Letter to Kansas
by Pamela McMaster Yenser

 
I have always wanted to recite love
letters written clear as the unfettered
Salmon of the West on the sandy-shored
Snake or the swift and shadowy St. Joe--
so unlike those thick rivers of our youth
that muddied the gowns of baptismal whites
and darkened the slick canoes lovers rent
for love’s languishments.
 
Our brown bodies
listened too, to love’s insistent tune,
strung high up as the songs cicadas
hum in dreams left hanging on the bark
of river cottonwoods, their insides emptied
out by ants and blown through yards and yards
of backyard laundry lines, barbed wire claws
hooked on bright underwear, mostly mine
as I recall, more elegant than yours, more light.
 
It’s summer now and now I’m thinking
all the time along riverlines, how
the fragrant brown riverbath of the past
eddies out of the deep ecstatic blue
pool that draws my lightening fly line--
now a whip, now an S on paperwhite sky,
now passing (psst-psst) downstream as I am
one with the fly in her fuzzy coat,
lustrous—that is, until we two are snagged.
 
I know this is not what is meant by
catch and release, but look how I’ve tried:
to channel my rivers of fear,
to thread hope through the smallest eye,
to tie the knots that will not come untied.
I want to get this right, to extend my hand
just so far, to cast myself upstream.
 
If your fish aren’t biting, I tell myself,
it must love itself I’m fighting, that you yourself
must be released, like letters let go. But wait,
I think, isn’t that only halfway true--
the way home is like a river running through
the great dead sea of childhood. The way
I want you. The way I turn you loose. 
  
Originally Published in Touchstone (September 2003)
Love Letters from Kansas to Oz: Poems about a Poet, 7
by DaMaris B. Hill

 
you
some, thing's angel
the home in each of my poems
rumors blister
like pinchy rosaries
 
heaven is not above
but closer
reclining in the rim of your smile
i am a witness
never blinked
when i looked away
 
i want to sip light
give me music of your veins
the electric lasso of your gaze
tugging after laughter
with your fingers
knead me  
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
    • Site Map
  • Kansas Poets
    • Kansas Poet Laureates >
      • 8 - Traci Brimhall
      • 7 - Huascar Medina
      • 6 - Kevin Rabas
      • 5 - Eric McHenry
      • 4 - Wyatt Townley
      • 3 - C. Mirriam-Goldberg
      • 2 - Denise Low
      • 1 - Jonathan Holden
    • Notable Kansas Poets
    • Ad Astra Project
    • Shoptalk >
      • A. Flurey - Shoptalk
      • G. German - Shoptalk
      • S. Hind - Shoptalk
      • D. Low - Shoptalk
      • S. Meats - Shoptalk
  • Kansas Poems
    • Kansas Poems
    • KS Poems - A, B, C, D
    • KS Poems - E, F, G, H
    • KS Poems - I, J, K, L
    • KS Poems - M, N, O, P, Q
    • KS Poems - R, S, T, U, V
    • KS Poems - W, X, Y, Z
  • Writing Poetry
    • Getting Started
    • Poetry Lesson Plans
  • Links and Groups