L'aura del Campo

Dead poets ... 2 poems: Park City, KS and Texola, OK.

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          SUMMER: 10 Rahmat (3 July)          

Think rain !

Weather where I am: 84º and looking at sizzle.
Weather in Sabetha, Kansas: 73º and thunderstorms.
Weather in Lisbon, Portugal: 75º and still celebrating.

Well ... went to a restaurant and had chicken lo mein for $3.16. Been a while since I've eaten out by myself. Had a coffee at Classic Gourmet. Quiet on a Sunday without the students in town. Scott's cool though and one of the few Americans who can talk World Cup football.

I was telling him about poems I wrote for my friend Hubbard Collinsworth and Amber Fraley based on funny things they said. Amber publishes a local monthly paper. She walked in as soon as we got done talking. Here are the poetic sketches:

Walking to Texas

The Old Boar follows the slant of flat
red roads, leans into blistering wind.
Where the barditch looms, fields end.

The hedgerow points to Texas.

He smells bone dust of his father,
hears his grandmother pump the dry well.
Texola measures itself in criss-crosses.

He's bound for Texas.

Cotton bolls in the soft red dirt;
Horned toads live in its cracks;
Barditches stretch beyond the sky's edge.

He leans into wind from Texas. [163.216]


For Amber who will not publish this

She hails from Park Shitty,
the city of murder,
bind, torture and kill.
A hole where blue winds from Wichita
deposit white trash.
What cash cannot buy,
they will sell.

She hails from the hail
and the thundersnow's belly,
where prairie once ruled,
now people roam silly
and the whores whoop and whoa,
"Hey Billy!"

And she publishes tômes,
in this old college city
and she prints out sad stories,
and occasional ditties,
but never a poem of her childhood pretty,
the inedible forgettable
Park Shitty. [163.217]

With all due respect to Park City, Kansas, this is a link to their website:

http://www.parkcityks.com/index.asp

Dennis Rader, the BTK strangler was from Park City. They caught him after nearly 30 years. This is a link for the curious:

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/special_packages/btk/

IMAGES

Classic Gourmet:

Couches and chairs; a snail in a circular 'cage', motionless, silent; a wood table to write/rite on; the the t.v. on silent; odd abstracts in green/black/red (not African, not Kansan); a potted palm; a cooler for juice; Mexican in my coffeecup w/cream.

Don't you love DEAD poets! They're ... so ... dead! If teachers can beat up on them, perhaps we could all write them a letter of condolence (not for being dead, but for not being able to kick back!)

Like: Dear Billy, sorry my teacher thinks you're a smuck. I got detention for saying that Romeo truly got f .... and she sent me to the corner! Could you jinx his next prostrate exam? Your loyal friend, Jack (Horner).

Who would you write to? Billy-boy is soooooo easy. How about Anne Sexton? "Hey girl .. did you really have to go and do it?" Or Sylvia Plath? "Look, babe, if we were looking at you now just think of the wrinkles ..." Anna Akhmatova: "Hey, Anya, the walls came tumbling down! Did you'all party hearty?" Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop: "How's the fishing?"

Who would you write to and what would you say?

Temp now? 98º It's cooler under the graves!