"tulsa" poems
Life can be painless
Provided there is sufficient
Peacefulness
For a dozen or so rituals
To be repeated simply
Endlessly
Your genius does not fail you
It allows you to understand the
Truth of the situation;
Which makes you--at times--
more tragic than ever
And your genius,
like all geniuses
Suffers periodic fits
of monumental
naïveté
Hi-ho
Listen:
Where is Grace
When milk and blood
Are about to be added
To the composition of the
Stinking ping-pong
***** being manufactured
In Grand Rapids?
Schizophrenia
The sound and appearance
Of the word fascinates
It sounds and looks to me
Like a human being
Sneezing in a blizzard of
Soapflakes
This much we know:
You made yourself hideously
Uncomfortable by not narrowing
Your attention to details
Of life that were immediately
Important
And by refusing to believe what
Your neighbors believed
Hi-ho
Let your imagination continue
To be the flywheel on the
Ramshackle machinery of the truth.
But not the ‘awful’ truth
The ‘beauty’ in truth
Because we are a part
Of a system that is very
Restless,
With people tearing around
All the time
Every so often,
somebody stops to put up
A monument
Ours is a country where
Everybody is expected to
Pay his own bills for
Everything,
And one of the most
Expensive things a person
Can do is get sick
Grace:
Because if we stay here
We’ll do one of two things
(or both!)
Build a Commune
Or do like Collin Heise did:
Make the main thing that we
do be this:
Move seventy-eight
Thousand pounds of olives
To Tulsa, Oklahoma
Even if we can’t
Improve the quality of our surroundings
We’ll do our best to make our
Insides beautiful instead
Piebald Roadtrip-writing, baby
Hi-ho
You are the turtle
able to live anywhere
even under water for short periods
With your home on your back
A particular comfort in
Realizing that it so often feels
There is no order in the
World around us
That we must adapt ourselves to
The requirements of
Chaos instead
Remember:
We are healthy
Only to the extent that
Our ideas are
Humane
To you
To me
To ourselves
To We
Jun 17, 2013
Jun 17, 2013 at 9:05 PM UTC
we rejoiced
when the sign on the parking meter said we could park for free.
your kind hand
in clumsy mind,
we strolled.
we were caught between the arts and business district,
so the shops and eateries weren't
sure if they should be cool or classy.
we strolled.
we passed an army of delis now abandoned.
a greek place,
a gelato,
a couple of hotel diners,
we rounded the block,
came back close to our start,
decided on the only restaurant
that was open.
as we were seated,
the already present patrons
stared ceaselessly, with no blinking.
people always stare at us.
i think they have trouble
categorizing us.
we aren't fat.
i don't wear affliction t-shirts,
you don't dress ******
we are caught somewhere
between the summer of '72 and indie rock brats.
our waiter was uneasy,
he had black hair, a beard,
a voice that squeaked and stuttered
as he boasted the organic and local support
the restaurant waved as their prideful flag.
order taken, people still throwing quick glances,
the music was right up our alley.
we took turns saying the names of the bands.
Cake, The Strokes, Spoon (the setlist's favorite), a deep cut from Bowie's Low, and a multitude of indie darlings that i can't remember.
i fell in love with you again.
i guess that makes the fifth or sixth time.
your child's eyes,
warm laughter,
and noble concern for the ****** state of the world.
it was good conversation,
it was good food,
it was a pleasant warm-up
for the remainder of our
getaway weekend.
Jul 27, 2010
Jul 27, 2010 at 10:10 AM UTC
this is a poem about the Tulsa Race Riots
terrorism doesn't compare to self destruction.
disaster between the slaves, and their masters
we're richer, but they're smarter.
black wall street abolished, its name never in vain
although we remember, we'll never understand the pain
with our own eyes, it would leave us blind
by flash bombs, envy, discrimination
and hatred of our own kind.
gunpowder made buildings fly against the street lights
red and green, bombs still singing, ears still ringing,
we might as well be deaf.
the grass is always greener,
but our skin will never change or fade away
and to live in the past destroys our future
because just when we started to rise from the ashes
we burnt ourselves down again
from opposite sides of the city,
north and south
attract like polar opposites
wasting away green with envy
you can try to forget
because theres new paved concrete
but its still the same street
we owe to the stampede
jealously, destruction, revolution, prosperity
worn out buildings and bricks trapped us
but we're still free
under state laws
but only conditionally
the city sleeps when we do
but stays up late with disdain
days wasted and blown into the air
like concrete and fame
its a shame that
race riots black wall street and greenwood share the same name
it can't stay this way
one day, tulsa you'll change
you'll paint the streets again
faces engrained on
black walls like oil spills
treading new roads
buildings towering above
there are bodies below our feet
but that doesn't mean we're above them
and one day we'll breathe again
we'll write the names back into our history books
their sacrifice on our tongues
remembered, never in vain
like saviors honoring the pain
but never throwing it away
greenwood rising again.
Mar 28, 2013
Mar 28, 2013 at 4:46 AM UTC
Racist in a cab,
deputized,
weaponized,
Heading for the wealth
of the Tulsa Wall Street,
His hateful hands cannot
drown God in an pond,
but they've often
lynched his sons.
Aug 31, 2021
Aug 31, 2021 at 9:38 AM UTC
Quietly she sits waiting,
thinking,considering, powerful
and strong, wise and knowing,
yet gentle as the dawn light
slipping softly over the mountain top,
and she is as beautiful within
as without, still and deep as the
spring of cool clean water.
What brought us together,
the woman - child and the
quiet man from a far away
land is maybe a common
thread woven into the
fabric of time.
She dreamt of me, knew me
and recognized me in an
instant by my words and
she felt my spirit reaching
out for her.
I seek this one thing, though
I don't know what it is and I
spend my time searching for
that one missing piece and
perhaps one day she will
come to me and bring with
her the quiet peace that I seek
with that breath of fresh air. Jon York 2011
Nov 21, 2011
Nov 21, 2011 at 8:38 PM UTC
Out in the back forty
There's a tree and underneath
Is a lonely wooden marker
All it says is "Heath"
Not many really knew him
He just hung around the ranch
I remember when I found him
Hanging from that branch
He never really said much
Kept quiet most the time
Always had a smile
And he had his lucky dime
Heath was slightly slower
Not in step, but in his brain
But, that didn't really matter
For folks loved him all the same
I remember back in school
When Heath was getting teased
The only one defended him
was me...and Heath was pleased
We were bonded from that moment
We were brothers you might say
Where I was, you would find him
Until that fateful day
Folks say that the Johnson boys
Caught him down by Crindle creek
They girls were down there swimming
And they'd gone to have a peek
Heath was down there fishing
Saw the boys and gave a shout
The girls went off a runnin'
And then Heath was set about
The story gets all muddled
Since no one was around
There were six conflicting stories
On how he got hung up off the ground
The truth will be deep buried
Since only four folks know for sure
And three of them aren't telling
And Heath was number four
I rode out after supper
No one knew where Heath was at
I took out for the creek bed
And there I found his hat
From there I took off westward
Toward the tree, to spend the night
I'd head home in the morning
I'd leave at the first light
But, there was where I found him
Hanging, dead from that old tree
From what ever demons ailed him
Heath had been set free
His folks has left for Tulsa
Leaving him back at our ranch
That's where he will stay now
In the ground beneath that branch
I made a simple marker
Painted white with just his name
And even though nobody goes there
I had to let folks know he came
So out on the back forty
By the tree, yep..underneath
Sits a little, simple marker
painted white,....it just says Heath.
Oct 4, 2015
Oct 4, 2015 at 2:01 PM UTC
the muck and the mud dried in my hair.
i climbed through the window that had served
as a painful entrance hours before.
the trek to downtown Tulsa was one I knew well.
the journey was nightly for months, and existence was
brief each time.
the car ride was long and bumpy. i pitied the shocks beneath
me as they screamed with each hit.
they never saw them coming.
my friends crowded the cab and the heat
****** salty sweat from my pores. with every pull from the whiskey
bottle, i traded sanity for spirit.
music floated through the heavy, dense air--
Combat Rock or Bowie's deep cuts.
cigarettes burned holes in our chests and
our bodies ached in maddening delight.
i turned the wheel,
my fingertips surreal.
we pulled in, stepped out, and felt the bass race up our legs.
3 minutes in the building and we were all covered in glitter
and shining on the inside.
Jun 14, 2011
Jun 14, 2011 at 7:21 PM UTC
shoulders squared
putter lined up against
the pink gum ball at my
miniature feet
i know my father is watching
and i know he will swing me around in his arms
regardless if i get a hole in one,
and say, 'i'm proud of you, kathy b'
that loop-de-loop was a real *****
i remember the car rides home
fleetwood mac on the freeway
every time i asked you where we were going
you'd tell me, "to the moon"
hold my hand,
and with you
we went celestial
and in a couple years,
i'll advance and swing clubs against the wind
i begged you to teach me, begging
"how do you get that ball to fly so high"
i'd crane my neck against the sky
even with me on your shoulders,
our love flew so high
and i was terrified of you dropping me
i never played to impress you
i played because it was a part of you
sweetly polished, leather golf shoes
you smelled like grass,
and sunday
and thick tulsa wind
so you and i played every weekend
in aunt melissa's backyard,
i stared at my compromise
when i was thrown off the backseat of the cart
my twisted tiny fingers
dangling
pit pattering against rubber
it smelled like gasoline
and i couldn't stop thinking about
your sweet leather, newly polished shoes
we didn't play golf anymore after that
i stared death in the face, and so do you
because we hold hands in a different ways
you're on my shoulders now
because your occipital is faulty
and you can barely see
i'm hoping one day,
you'll teach me how to hurl pink gum *****
through the wind, so effortlessly
i hope one day you'll teach me
to pick out the perfect christmas tree,
and i hope you tells me you're proud of me,
kathy b
a perfect chicken soup recipe
the cure for all broken memories
Sep 2, 2014
Sep 2, 2014 at 5:58 PM UTC
February 26, 2015 12:43pm
Last night I felt the moon drop it's light on me.
Swinging upside down, I saw the world from a new perspective.
Tall towers illuminating the highway horizon,
I remembered why I breathe.
Stars and ****** stories on swingsets
pushed warmth into a February evening.
Why have I stayed locked up in my room?
Hopes come high with revolutions of the moon.
The nights are dipped in ink
drawing life inside of me.
Lurking in the Tulsa twilight,
tangled dreams at seventeen.
–newportsmooths h.g.
Feb 28, 2015
Feb 28, 2015 at 1:12 AM UTC
Tulsa, OK named and claimed it
then prophetically proclaimed it:
Ken and Gloria invested
slick, convincing, uncontested
Pretty-boy preachers wowed the flock
making Christ the laughing stock
their best lives yielding heresies
out-phariseeing Pharisees
as if their western cowboy drawls
could bless impulsive bank withdrawals.
Unique to the US of A
where truth is prophesied away
and churches spring like tares and breed
while tele-preachers intercede
for breakthroughs, blessings, Mammon’s gold
their folly long ago foretold
in frenzied tones, the healing tongue
counts dollars where Paul counted dung.
I’m sure they all believe it’s true…
they know it justifies fleecing you.
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 7:57 PM UTC
Down on Tulsa Oklahoma,
A problem starts to rise.
The birdwatchers try to solve it
Thinking they'd stop demise.
She sits there in her throne in capsule
Gazing down on the blue.
She starts to notice quite a ruckus
And it affects her too.
"Oh god, please! Major, are you there?"
She doesn't hear a sound.
"Please at least give us some message,"
The watchers gather 'round.
Now over onto Jupiter,
The girls runs out of air.
A once-joyed planet below her
Has not one person stare.
She checks the speedometer
Traveling at great speeds.
Surprised before air ran out,
The red planet still bleeds.
Sep 3, 2014
Sep 3, 2014 at 9:00 PM UTC
I've been telling stories for years
Grand tales of sordid escapades
From many a reckless night
Even the fiction has kernels of truth
At the exact nature
A starting point
To weave your senses
Into a colorful tapestry
I've shared with you how I
Watched my mother cover
Up black eyes for
Thirteen years
I told you the truth
Of how I bore witness
To my best friend
Succumb to his sickness
In the cramped bathroom of a bus
Outside Tulsa,Oklahoma
You reveled in my ecstatic joy
As I painstakingly detailed my
Spiritual Awakening through the
Birth of my first child I've
Cried and bled and sweat
And laughed and died
A thousand times and
Chronicled it all
In lyric and harmonious melody
I've exhaled my life
Thousands of times
Across cavernous arenas
I can't move if you don't move me
I think to myself as
I watch the horde of
Zombie radiation blue eyes
From all you tourists
Twinkle back at me
Mar 7, 2015
Mar 7, 2015 at 3:46 PM UTC
At the Indigo getting into it with an Indigo,
in Tulsa or at least en route after one more round in LA,
stuntin’ in The Land of Abundance all real no frontin’,
can get anything I want except getaway,
and this all feels totally cliche,
spending time but got no time to waste,
already at redline trying not to flatline,
catching up to made up deadlines and keeping pace,
trying to lose the stress without losing my mind,
trying to win the hearts and convince the minds,
trying to do everything without having to try,
only do and do not do you like you buy,
welcome to America,
consumerism on steroids,
where we empty our pockets to fill up our closets,
empty hearts with souls for sale anything to fill the void,
everything that was ever made sacred was destroyed,
now we’ve got black artists on the radio making white noise,
where are our idols how are we supposed to look up to anyone,
but sometimes I feel like there’s no escape and I have no choice,
so I buy in in order to not be left out,
get the girl get the clothes get the hotel room,
but really I don’t feel like any of this is mine,
plus I’ve got a place to be so I should go soon,
so long farewell,
I bid you my Love good day,
but before I go let’s go one more round,
for Old Time’s sake before I make my escape out of LA,
at the Indigo getting into it with an Indigo,
in Tulsa or at least en route after one more round in LA,
stuntin’ in The Land of Abundance all real no frontin’,
can get anything I want except getaway…
∆ LaLux ∆
Feb 23, 2019
Feb 23, 2019 at 9:49 PM UTC
Huck Finn is dead.
Some say
he died alone
in an apartment in Tulsa
during a Swamp People
marathon
body discovered
three days later
after neighborly complaints,
face somewhat gnawed
by his trusty cat.
Some say
he died in Montana,
struck mute by space,
rigid with terror,
dreaming of The River,
beside a trout stream,
eaten by a jealous grizzly
with a taste
for southern cuisine
and fame.
Some say
he died in Arizona
rattlesnake struck
and shrieking
beneath
a pellucid sky
seeking
to glean current events
and unlikely meanings
from ancient petroglyphs.
It does not matter
where or how;
only that
Huck Finn is dead,
and with him
the lights of the territories
gone black.
~mce
Jul 1, 2015
Jul 1, 2015 at 8:15 PM UTC
Hom-ouses
1. Allentown, Pennsylvania. A cream-colored home with reddened shutters. Age 0 to 1. Only known from photographs, the street blew up one decade later during a gas leak. The neighborhood was evacuated. No one died, but you’ll never see your first home, except for your first eyes, ever again.
2. Tulsa, Oklahoma. Age 2-3. A one-floor home with a cement tornado shelter—something straight out of the Wizard of Oz or Twister—in the backyard, right beneath the clothesline, your great grandmother, Juanita, still used to break chickens’ necks rather than wash your toddler clothes.
3. Green Bay, Wisconsin. Age 4-6. A two-floor suburban home, built at the top of a hill which iced over frequently in the blizzards. Your brother jumped from the tears, and played with your husky dog, before picking flowers for the first and only bus driver you’d ever have.
4. Atlanta & Alpharetta, Georgia. Age 7-9. You were a minority, and you lived in a brick house, built atop a mound of red-brick clay. You made your first friends—a catholic, a reader, and two black girls. None of them were allowed to see one another, so you had to choose which. You hated girl scouts—but your dad had an addiction for discounted cookies and calendars.
5. Kansas. Age 10-21. You’ve lived in four different parts, but it’s close enough to return to the house your grandfather died in (by smacking his head on the toilet) or the house your mother died in one year later (by a drug overdose) or the house your husky dog died by (drowning in the lake) or any other house someone died in, even the most recent. At least you published a book and got a cat.
....
I read this at the University of Kansas during their Undergraduate Reading Series. Read more about this event here:
http://shannonathompson.com/2013/02/11/my-undergraduate-reading/
Oct 30, 2014
Oct 30, 2014 at 11:46 AM UTC
Still hexed, unemployed, another daylong bout
between too much silence and too much noise,
a sweetness opens the hymnal: sing, rejoice.
And I'm an American male child, born in 1990.
Summon me a moment, Effexor one-fifty,
instant nostalgia, a natural reaction.
Polly Anna, hailing from Tulsa, has a key.
She's in my robe, dancing on the balcony.
And we're not drinking
as much as we used to be, yet talking
baby names by three.
And I can feel it, a future good memory
unfolding in real time. Her dark shape,
growing darker, shadows from bedroom
to bathroom and back again.
Oh, the profane things we whisper
to get ourselves out of character,
unguarded, empty-headed, free.
The notes of trained movement,
of calibrated ****** phrase, harmonize.
The walls, the lamp, the bedside table,
the mattress, the blankets—the room entire
converges.
My name takes on two more syllables.
Her name becomes soundless.
Hold time. Bend, baby. Boundless.
Apr 10, 2018
Apr 10, 2018 at 6:15 AM UTC
I've read with one half of one eye
my whole life. I'm 81 now. I was diagnosed
when I was 27 by a renown ophthamologist
in Tulsa to have congenital monocular vision.
He said, "Tod, I'm surprised you can read a
book, let alone get through college." But I
did graduate from Columbia College, Columbia
University. and before that, from Phillips
Andover Academy. How did I do this?
I spent twice as much time reading
as my classmates. I did well at both schools.
To boot, I was one of 15 elected by my 700
classmates to lead Commencement Procession.
Mar 18, 2025
Mar 18, 2025 at 5:07 AM UTC
those folks hired white help,
maybe a Mex to tend to the yards
but they let old lady Latty wash
their soiled sheets, bath towels
and undergarments
they sent out their fine clothes
for that new process called dry cleaning,
a magic Latty would never fathom--how
you gonna clean anything without water
steaming, lye and labor of love
but Latty knew those folks
whose shit-stained drawers
she was scrubbing had more secrets
than money, and she knew to keep
lips God gave her closed
for nobody need know about
the joy juice that was on the sheets
when the man of the house was
gone, and the towels covered
with the seed part of that
weren't none of Latty's business
what sins were seeping under the
cracks of those fine wood doors, or
what other rich as Croesus gents were
walking softly on the polished floors
Latty was off Mondays, but
not on the Sabbath, for it was
often the eve of that holy day
when the most soiling was done
and that didn't bother her none
for Sundays the folks was mostly
gone to church, and whatever sinning
was to be had took its rest like the Lord did,
unless sitting in a pew with a man
you never loved counts as such
Tulsa, 1908
May 19, 2017
May 19, 2017 at 8:25 PM UTC
Dreaming Bob Wills
Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys performed
my life in a six song set in Tulsa
in late forty-seven. Only a dream but they swung
through San Antonio Rose and Don't Be Ashamed of Your Age,
Tiny, Kelso, Smokey, Johnny and Herb playing it
***** ***** Tommy crooning
my ups and downs and Bob,
who put a fine point
on an uneven performance
with his running commentary of high “ahh ha's”.
Oct 3, 2016
Oct 3, 2016 at 7:27 AM UTC
In Tulsa, a prior bed-wetter
Grew up to be a big debtor.
He gambled in college
And friends all acknowledge
His fame as 'the Sooner, the Bettor.'
Dec 3, 2016
Dec 3, 2016 at 3:46 PM UTC