Wrinkly tree trunks appear to survive,
Crinkled like wisdom or waves of the sea,
Bold like a siren of warning to me,
Looking for answers I try to derive,

Somebody's life strewn in pieces like teardrops,
Across the front yard in a terrible scene,
More like a nightmare and less like a dream,
Rubble and dust mixed with shreds near the corn crops,

Nature is careless and mean in an instant,
Eyes closed they tremble from fear.

Wind shock and power destroys with its power bent,
The lives that they tried to build here.

Chaos's improbable choice in the moment,
Lives taken swallowed and sheared.

I’m like midwest weather forecast
I’m stuck in summer
I hate the dead of winter
it rains in the spring
overall
fall is the ******* worst

This is
my
idyllic, broken Midwest.

The magnificent Midwest.
Where ****-heads migrate only to make a living off of welfare checks and a lack of motivation.
Scattered across the land in clusters,
Making up towns of shattered trailers.
Even in the greyness of winter we beat ourselves to death against snowed in windows
Searching for the sun, just like moths to street lights,
or lips to flickering flames
Death is everywhere.

I am the flightless pelican.
I’ve found myself with my mouth full,
my stomach full, and so much still on my plate.
Possessed by an inhuman hunger,
I will gorge upon pure potential.
I will yowl on and on, without sleep.
-
I have sand between my toes.
My shoes are glued to my feet.
Keep on running ‘til the calluses come.
There has to be a point where I stop to sweat,
and I’ll finally get my sigh of relief.
I have one ride left on my bus pass.
-
I have a tendency to ramble
and languish in my own stench.
People tend to forget this at first;
lured in by the false face of a genetic fluke.
They want to know the impression I left,
not the procrastinator; the cud-chewing goat.
-
I can’t sleep being held,
or if I feel someone’s breath in the still.
I start to feel the urge to burrow
into the quiet quilts; patchwork Promised Land.
I cater to the crowd that caters to themselves,
but I’m no Utilitarian. Fox and Lion.
-
I have cousins like brothers,
and I have brothers like strangers.
Stray cats with names
and a copy of The Mahabharata that I stash my money in.
I’m sitting on a sunny pier with my hook in the water;
avoiding conflict with no bait.  
-
Paper cuts from the gold leaf
on the edges of hymn book pages
with burgundy leather covers.
These guilty cuts, bleeding for what seems like hours,
while we steadily forget that anyone was singing.
Alone with our thoughts in the crowd.

Midwestern girl
with the slow slang
come a little closer
watch her do thangs
she'll usually have
two first names
fried chicken is probably her favorite;
that child loves a ****,
don't forget a big old l o o o o n g danga lang
**** those country girls sho' a make ya head swang!!

we were just two more methland residents, dreams floating in our heads.
we were hoping to prove the american dream was not quite really dead.

but times sure change and so do dreams.

i guess.

We're not the next Spielbergs
We're not the next Mansons
we're too Fu^&ed; up for that.

but maybe some of our dreams won't die.
you and I can keep some alive.

We're not the next Clintons
We're not the next Tolstoys
we're not skilled enough for that.

I'll carry the 2.5 kids if you will buy the house.
They will paint the picket fence white and we'll hide
quiet as mice but acting like rabbits.

I'm not Ward and you're not June
but this will work out anyway.

we're not the next Cleavers
we're not the next Bradys
We're at least better than that.

Ghost Relics**

Downtown,
where Main intersects Main
you'll see the last living tissue
of a breathing bazaar.
They weighed down her chest with bricks and girders.
It's a wonder she breathes at all.
-
Wander too far in any direction
and you're sure to see the husks
of once proud and bustling businesses.
Abandoned sanctums of mortar and majesty.
Scars of the Midwest etched as constants in our mind.
Dusty and silent since the cradle.
-
The theaters are bedeviled with dolled up haunts
who just wandered over from Greenwood to catch the matinee.
Management still leaves the lights on for kicks after hours
to throw off their sleep schedules while they wait for the feature to start.
Up all night, sleep all day; they read by neon and slumber under Sol.
Here I am, left lounging in The Devil's Chair. Crickets keep quavering.
-
Underneath the Franklin Street overpass sleeps a family bound by naught.
They watch in dawn's light as the few pedestrian that traverse Cerro Gordo
advert their eyes as some sort of silent symbol of respect for their situation.
It's as if the very stare of a privileged man could drain 'til depleted.
They never ask for anything, they just wade it out and listen to
the cars overhead, the train-clock's trumpet, and the heartbeats in between.
-
Leaks are patched, potholes filled, and yet
we're still loosing blood; becoming beguiled.
So many stray cats in the civilian savanna,
aimlessly seeking names and second chances.
"This premises is under police video surveillance" -
hanging like ornaments from streetlamp poles.
-
Guarding the gates
of a dwindling dominion,
as the armies of Union and Grand
wait in their camps
for the rust to take hold
of her iron veins.