(A bit of fun for Thomas W. Case - I think he lives in Iowa)

Hawkeye pride burns bright in Iowa City,
the place where Tennessee Williams learned to curse.

Iowa City hosts the 4th of July, Iowa speedway race, unique perhaps
because the cars have to stay behind a tractor for the first 199 laps.

How polite are the people in Iowa City? I saw a news report where a man was mugged,
traumatic? Sure, but the man still remembered to say “Thank you” before the perp bugged.

There are over twenty-six churches here, people can be a bit pious and obnoxiously reflective.
There’s a Hawkeye infestation in Iowa City because of the university, classified as ‘moderately selective.’

Geographically, Iowa’s where the rolling plains meet a limestone rise.(1)
Did I mention that the bars close at 2am? A travesty in any serious drinker’s eyes.

Some noted authors came from Iowa City, the locals are proud of that and own it.
Most were playwrights and novelists, luckily, few of them turned out to be  poets.

(1) whatever that is

Macrame for days
cruising in tubes
and fannypacks
on Caddy couches

Ash in Pepsi cans
dogs n mac
and
floral print velour
meant love

A onetwo on
Soda Popinsky
and locust
husks
on the old
walnut tree
were the
****

New Topps
new Jos
new Raisins
air conditioning
and the smell of the
rain

Everytime I push my pen
I am moving mountains
Everytime I touch the keys
I will part the seas
Everytime you do the same
then we are creating
the liberal Science
of poetry

Made a home in
The County of Emmet
The smell of another Lucky Strike
As you’re trucking, state lines in the rear view

You made the trip down
Took you over to the field
To watch them circle the bases
Spring of ’01, the last time I’d see you in health

Made your arrangements
Buried you a block away
78 of Nemaha, right over on 6th street,
The paper read

Time of Day mid-afternoon
The smell of a Texas June
I’m sleeping in a car,
The news is crossing state lines, impedes my innocence

I learned about selfishness and mortality
As the youngest of the grandkids
Just trying to find a spot to sleep in your basement
I never heard your stories about the war

A module once refrain
a verse that peers rehearse
if a sequence in cruise
when caucus fling feet
in a promontory abode
so precipice filters gold
where amass rhetoric
in an ounce of verbosity
as most food entail now
their resplendent attire too
then win it back tonight
and strep face no more
when weather is nice
with unspoken grace.

pasty white ghosts haunt
the corpse blue cornfields of Iowa
whispering wisps of smoke
shimmering shadows of the past
setting the pace for the rat race
that is the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

senators billionaires doctors
frauds liars fools
campaigning for selection in an
archaic and outdated
form of governance

witness the spectacle
the orgastic worship
of solipsistic oligarchs
bloated by their own
sycophantic rhetoric

it's just another form
of all-American
entertainment

each orator's charismatic adage
froths forth from a
throat like a grave
pragmatism throttles hope
as we stoke the fires of
self-indulgence and neglect
the fact that we acquiesced
as another deceiver stole votes

we're choking on placebo pills
every ballot cast is another act of apathy
escapism pleading vainly for a
savior to rescue our sick society but
these hands didn't evolve so we could
collect a representative to lead us
blindly into one fiasco after another

these fingers penned  
humanity's symphonies and
these calloused palms have
toiled for years under an apathetic sun
we learned to make love
using our fingertips and
with these fists
we could chart a new path
but only if we raise them in
defiance

our only chance is leaderless resistance

It was in Rome
You guys got the table(cade,nevin)
So we stood there
Till you asked us if we'd like to join

Sure I said so
awkward first cause you somehow look like Ryan Gosling(no you look better, RG has never been my type)
Blue eyed boy from Iowa
Strangely enough, my bedtime T-shirt says Iowa hawkeyes

We talked bout beer ,Shandy, Greek islands ,Prague,Bristol and Iowa. Why should I know?
then you turned to me
Hey, fun fact, do you know the British first sounds like American?
Why should I know?Why did you say so?
But that was the most intimating thing on the table.

Strangely enough, you only asked my name when you left, and everything was left in Rome.

lips become cherry red when I cry
and chasing cars hurts from my ears
                                                 down to my toes
because it was never wasting time

   I almost killed my jeep battery
(forgot to turn the lights off)
             drinking coffee to Iowa cornfields and a resurrected yearning
maybe I'll leave (I want to)
            --LA, Paris, Austria, Versailles, Rio, Carmel, Amsterdam, Mumbai--
I'm audacious and arrogant--much too proud of
                               my flaws
leaving would be easy: intoxicating
like caffeine
       stars
       fear
       laughing kisses
but staying means home and English and standing out like a sore thumb (a beautiful one) in public
            and the people I deeply love
                                      (and need) I can admit that now
so I'll watch the Capri Sun orange sunset
once again tonight
and try to intoxicate myself with
               cornfields, sassy 8th graders, my beautiful examples of true love, ADD, bashful boy,
                       and pieces of the world
  
                                                        ­              on my body

On white walls washed primrose, candy wrapper leaves crinkle behind the dancing, cloying shadow sweets left by a breeze too quiet to remember.

Look past the prairie, now smoldering cornfield wastes of salted soil sewn from our own brows; the only prerequisite is wide-eyed naïvety to catch a glimpse of the shaky-handed painter's brushstroke of trees on a river aptly named "Skunk."

In the space between closer to and closer than home, cicada songs join an aspen's fluttering percussion to usher in the twilight and whisper good-night while flipping the switch on a childish soapbox.

On white walls washed indigo, the final murmur of a hair-raising breeze ties and pulls the puppeteer's strings on spindly trees in a dance too dark to remember.