KENYON HEIGHTS

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Kenyon Heights

Miss Havisham

Athens of the Midwest

The Hood Mansion

First Christian Church

Six and Commercial

Looking Back / Looking Forward

Bookstore Book Signing

Mary White Up in the Attic

The Clairvoyante Muse

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Kenyon Heights 

Director David Lean —

Opens “Great Expectations”

With Pip and Magwitch

In the spooky cemetery

Photos of the old decaying —

Decadent Kenyon Hall

Reminding me of that classic

Adaptation of Charles Dickens

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Mad Miss Havisham —

Played by Martha Hunt

Wandering around in her

Old falling-apart Mansion

And now the old Ruins —

Portrayed as Kenyon Hall

Up there on the C of E campus

Overlooking all of Emporia

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Remodeled as Kenyon Heights —

My apartment facing west

There’s Maplewood Cemetery

With Mary White and the rest

Alex Guinness the Fop —

Jean Simmons as Estella

And the young charming

Justin Bieber as cute Pip

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Miss Havisham

If I’d stayed in Emporia —

I would’ve ended up like

Poor deranged Miss Havisham

Meandering in her mansion

Stood up by her suitors —

Unrequited love my companion

Rotting away like her crumbling

Old wedding cake of dreams

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Born across Twelfth —

Delivered by  Dr. Eckdall

Plopped down outta the sky

Like a demure little cow-patty

Like pathetic poor little Pip —

Little orphan lost in time

How in the world had I like

Ended up in Emporia?

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My adopted mother —

Born in the Willow Home

For Unwed Mothers back

There in Kansas City

She grew up like me —

Even went to EHS and

Played the flute in Orville

Parker’s Band back then

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Athens of the Midwest

Stoic, stark Kansas —

Full of American Gothic

Haunting my Pip boyhood

Bildungsroman back then

How in the world did —

A small Midwestern town

End up being called the

Athens of The Midwest?

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Surely whoever coined —

Such a presumptuous phrase

Had to be deluded with

Delusions of Grandeur?

But it’s so very true —

Both KSTC and C of E

Bastions of Higher Learning

Existed there in Emporia

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There on Neosho I lived —

Next to the C of E football

Coach, Mr. Schaeffer who

Also taught Kansas geology

And how here I am —

Ensconced on the 3^rd Floor

Looking out Kenyon Heights

West to Maplewood Cemetery

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The Hood Mansion

Looking back in time —

Mr. Mosher the strange

Kinky County Historian

My kind mentor back then

Down there in the depths —

The art deco Civic Auditorium

Basement full of relics and

Old mementos of the Past

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He had a gimpy —

Retarded son who stood

At street corners waiting

For the light to change

If you stared at him —

He’d get angry at you

And bark at you like a

Junkyard watchdog

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I used to live by —

The Gothic Hood Mansion

Named after the famous

Civil War hero Major Hood

Miss Marion Howard —

Our classy Spanish teacher

From EHS lived there on

State Street & Eighth Avenue

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First Christian Church

Many of the landmarks —

Were lost to the ravages

Of the wrecking ball and

Greedy real estate creeps

Others like Kenyon Hall —

Saved in the nick of time

Like the Granada Theater

The venerable Film Palace

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The First Christian Church —

A unique triple-doomed

Byzantine edifice where I went

To Sunday School & Baptism

I still have lucid dreams —

Every inch still lurking in my

Gothic imagination, even the

Weird smell of strange incense

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Even though torn down now —

There was this unearthly

Dream world where it still

Existed on Exchange Street

And the ghostly dead —

Still lived there too and

Were surprised when I

Happened to show up

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Sixth and Commercial

It may sound strange —

Something out of a weird

Ripley’s Believe It or Not

But let me tell you a Story

My young Pip imagination —

Dreamed of “Great Expectations”

And saw Emporia in a completely

Different light after that then

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It sounds perplexing but —

After reading Charles Dickens

I had this strange déjà vu thing

About Sixth and Commercial

Sixth and Commercial —

Suddenly became an archetypal

Center for local American Goth

A weird Topocosmic Crossroads

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How else to describe it —

Old photos especially show it

The layout of the little town

Was seemingly preordained

Precisely positioned —

Between the Sunken Garden

And Soden’s Grove with the

Santa Fe tracks in between

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Looking Back / Looking Forward

Time had a habit —

Of simply standing still

Now and then outta the

Fly Over State Blue

A strange memento —

A small Seattle totem pole

Figurine of my grandparents

There on Constitution Street

Walter Larken had visited —

With Jenny his relatives

Way up there in Seattle in

The Great Pacific Northwest

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Little did I know —

The totem pole prefigured

Even predicted me being up

Here all those years later

Time has a way of like —

Being here all at once

Past, Present and Future

Totemic and timeless

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Perhaps part of being —

Who we are depends

On such a skewed, crazy

Detour of many Tenses?

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Bookstore Book Signing

I had this other strange dream —

Emporia at the Town Crier Bookstore

Book signing with some other authors

There on Commercial Street

We were all definitely dead —

But certainly didn’t know it

Chatting and schmoozing away

As if nothing was unordinary

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Then the scene changed to the —

Front porch of “Red Rocks” there

On Exchange where the mansion

Of William Allen White stood

Each of us got to be —

Poet Laureate for the Afternoon

Maybe an hour or so or even

Just a lovely little moment

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“Surely not me”—

I said demurely sipping my

Tea spiked with a little bit

Of Johnny Walker for a buzz

I was reading this long—

So-so naughty ditty about a

Crazy Lady there up in the Attic

By the name of Mary White

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Mary White Up in the Attic

Yes, it was a rather risqué —

Rambling biographical Poem

About what really happened to

William Allen White’s daughter

Her tragic riding accident —

Hadn’t ended up in her demise

It was all covered-up because

It was a Big Scandal, you know

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Poor Mary White had bashed —

Her head against a tree branch

And had turned into a blithering

Crazy Child Idiot, so very tragic

William Allen White was ashamed —

How could Theodore Roosevelt,

Calvin Coolidge and Nixon be his

Very important guests with that?

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That Crazy Lady up in the Attic—

Screaming away like a Banshee

It simply had to be hushed-up

His mad daughter simply Nuts!!!

Mad Mary would get out though—

She’d be the Talk of the Town!!!

Which inspired our little porch chats

And Clairvoyante Séance Readings

The Clairvoyante Muse

“Quiet folks,” the Mayor said —

“She’s going into a Trance again.

Pretty soon she’ll start reading

The Beads and Crystal Ball!!!”

And then Mary White was —

Levitating on the rickety porch

Such a nice fine Emporia evening

The cicadas singing a sad refrain

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Mary White gave her Readings—

Her Emporia Gazette Predictions

And Precognitions published in

The New York Times Crosswords

Hushed crowds gathered—

Beneath the calm shady Elms

The Santa Fe Doodlebug whistling

Its sad refrains down the tracks