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W - Z ... Kansas Poems
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Wamego
by Lori Stratton In my town, the people plant pansies and petunias and sit on porch swings during warm summer evenings, fanning themselves with church bulletins. In my town, a neighbor’s pain requires the bringing of gelatin salads, the green kind with pineapple and Cool-Whip. Soft mothers take browned children to the park and let them run barefoot through the sand by the merry-go-round. In my town, people buy popcorn in paper sacks at high school football games and leave bowls of milk for stray cats and go to the parade on the Fourth of July. After hanging their flag by the door, they pause at the end of the block to wave at their neighbors. In my town, the people plant pansies and petunias, and marigolds and order subscriptions of the weekly newspaper to give as gifts to their children who have moved away. World News, August 6th, 2006
by Laura Washburn Drought covers the Kansas newspaper with columns dull as dust. You say: It’s Sunday—the birds need water, and fill the bath. We are full. Paying attention to the world, our eyes droop. We are like mouth- breathers in bad air, barely gasping enough. We are like the croaker fish calling their only song from melting drugstore ice. Read More Poems by ► Laura Washburn (PDF) |
Wizardry
for Dorothy Coulter Hall by Gloria Vando These people don’t know your voice is the color of Venice at dusk. No one has taught them to listen. Here in this taco joint, while you sing an aria to an old friend whose ruby-sequined espadrilles reflect the shimmer of your song, they joke and shout commands for hot sauce and tequila. When I comfort you, you shrug and say, “I think I was given a voice so someday when I’m old and dotty I can entertain the folks in the nursing home.” Somehow, it is fitting you should end up in a Kansas townhouse over what was once a farm, tornados raging back and forth over the tomatoes and corn, razing the living, raising the dead. All passion in the land. Though never did you dream your career would spin itself out in the eye of silence. Still, in this Kansas suburb your voice radiates like a prairie fire, the sounds vital, pure, consoling, as they spread from Mozart to Oz to us. Originally published in: Shadows & Supposes 2002, Arte Público Press, University of Houston Read More Poems by ► Gloria Vando (PDF) |
