THE REUNION

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The Reunion

Fallen Woman

Tale of Two Cities

Fiftieth Reunion

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The Reunion

“An odyssey of error”

—Jim Carroll

“The Cosmopolitan Sense,”

Fear of Dreaming

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I was so nervous getting off—

The plane there in Wichita

I took a taxi to a motel—

Resting up from the flight home

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My homecoming nerves—

Were so jangled and jinxed

I swore I wasn’t going back—

But I couldn’t help myself

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Our fiftieth high school reunion—

Would be our Last Hurrah

For me it would be my very—

Last Swish down Memory Lane

Fallen Woman

I remember it so very well—

As if it were simply yesterday

That day in the Eighth Grade—

Becoming a Fallen Woman

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It was like a William Inge movie—

“Come Back Little Sheba”

It was like Inge’s “Bus Stop”—

With Oozing Marilyn Monroe

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Like “Bus Riley’s Back in Town”—

With Ann-Margret the Slut

It was like William Holden—

And Cliff Robertson in “Picnic”

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It was like Natalie Wood going—

Down on Warren Beatty in

That potboiler small-town—

“Splendor in the Grass”

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It was like coming back home—

In “Come Back Little Sheba”

And stepping in a shitty—

Cow-patty in the front yard

Tale of Two Cities

It was the Best and—

The fuckin Worst of Times

Word got around fast—

About my Shameful Fall

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Falling from Hetero Grace—

To Homosexual Disgrace

I was ashamed of myself—

But I couldn’t help it either

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My hometown was the Tale—

Of Two Separate Cities

One was Straight and—

Full of Red State Fanatics

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Stoic resigned Republicans—

Denizens of the Fly-Over State

The Other a Forbidden City—

Hidden down in the Gutter with me

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I was like Harry Lime playing

The Third Man down in the Sewers

Beneath Vienna after the War—

Ratting around underground       

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I fell in love with Ronnie bad—

I wanted to be his Ten Inches

He was my Seventh Grade Guy—

My Kansas Valentino Bad Boy

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My Elvis the Pelvis hoodlum—

With his sleek Greasy Ducktail

He smoked dope and drank—

Johnny Walker back in 1957

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He fast-tracked me down onto—

My knees faster than anything

My ears were his handlebars—

His Harley Hog was Heaven

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I did a quick Sunday School—

Reverse of Religious Priorities

Following him home from—

Blowjob Junior High School

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To his dumpy shack down—

South of the Santa Fe tracks

Got down on my hands & knees—

Worshipping him all night long

 

Fiftieth Reunion

There I was in the local—

No Tell Motel west of town

Out past Tyson’s and the—

Old Iowa Beef Processing Plant

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The Auschwitz Stench—

Still lingering there in town

The Awful Smell of Money—

The worst smell in the world

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The Somali Slave Laborers—

And the Mexican Wetbacks

Were pretty much gone—

Along with the Tyson Economy

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Little Athens of the Midwest—

Was bankrupt and kaput

Phil Fleming was dead—

That whole gang was gone

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Kenny Calhoun & Jeff Hawes—

Their Big Business dreams gone

The Baby Boomers simply one—

Big Bad Disappointment

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Playing golf at the Country Club—

At the dilapidated Golf Course

The New Frontier, the Great Society—

And now the New Great Depression

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Emporia a dried-up desiccated—

Ghost Town with a dead Main Street

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A dried-up Cottonwood River—

And a dried-up Neosho River too

The old outdated water mains—

Bursting from the Depression heat

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Soon the Dust Bowls blowing in—

From Oklahoma once again

Commercial Street now a grand—

Historic Relic of the Kansas Past

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No more Santa Fe Railroad—

No more Santa Fe Railroad Station

No more College of Emporia—

Kenyon Hall now a Retirement Home

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I was born across the street—

There at the Newman’s Hospital

Born on one side of Twelfth Avenue—

Died on the other side of the Street…