EMPORIA GHOST TOWN

“tense, musty,

unignorable silence”

—Philip Larkin,

CHURCH GOING

___________

Olpe, Allen, Americus—

There’s nothing going on

In these towns anymore

More ghost towns—

Bite the dust, all that’s

Left is some fading memories

_________

Even that doesn’t last long—

Then maybe a collection of

Old photos and snapshots

Memorabilia of a gone—

Midwestern Era that some

Of us may still remember

__________

Now it’s happening—

To Emporia, Kansas that

Lovely Athens of the Midwest

Once it had two colleges—

Now it barely has one with

Degrees worth shit anymore

___________

So what if you’ve got a—

Business Degree or even an

Esteemed Harvard MBA?

This New Great Depression—

Without any FDR Savior is

On the Event Horizon of Hell

____________

Lots of Downtown Emporia—

Boarded-up and bankrupt

WalMart & Flint Hill Mall rules

There’s always the adorable—

Hostess Twinkies though to

Lift one’s dour stoic spirits

WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE

“someone would

know: I don’t”

—Philip Larkin,

CHURCH GOING

___________________

Midwestern minions—

On the move looking for

A new ELMER GANTRY

Flocking to the sacred

Red Rocks Temple there

On shady Exchange St

_________

Tea and crumpets—

Maybe even a nice petite

Soul-searching Reading

Recounting the Life—

Of pretty tres precocious

Mary White of Emporia

____________

The attic is haunted—

Supposedly by the ghost of

The great GAZETTE Editor

Mounting the Lectern—

Clearing his throat and

Then hectoring the Mob

_________

Bombastic Editorials—

Worthy of Teddy Roosevelt

Calvin Coolidge & the rest

I sign the book and—

Donate ten bucks toward

The Future of Emporia

A GAZETTE EDITORIAL

“the place was not

worth stopping for”

—Philip Larkin,

CHURCH GOING

_____________

And yet stop I did—

In fact I often do, ending

Up usually this same way

Wondering what I’m seeing—

What there is to look at this

Falling completely out of use

___________

What shall they turn it into—

Keeping the town chronically

For a local quaint showpiece?

Letting the town rot & decay—

Avoiding it like some unlucky

Place haunted by old ghosts?

__________

Obituaries full of dead people—

Roberts-Blue beloved ones

Buried out there at Maplewood?

Superstition like belief—

Outmoded and dying like some

Riddle that was never solved?

_________

Smooth flat mowable cemetery—

Tombstones but what remains

When even disbelief has gone?

Weeds, gravelly path, old tombs—

Their purpose more obscure as

The years creep by like snails?

KENYON HEIGHTS

“Bored, uninformed,

knowing the ghostly silt”

—Philip Larkin,

CHURCH GOING

________________

Here I am retired—

In a lovely apartment

In the new Kenyon Heights

The swanky remodeled—

C of E Administration Bldg

For aging Emporia retirees

____________

I was born across the street—

At Newman’s on West Twelfth

Via Roberta Eckdall’s grandfather

As Richard Doxtator said—

We’re all dying at different rates

Such an astute EHS philosopher

_________

Yes, I’m rotting ever so slowly—

The view from my west windows

Overlooks Maplewood Cemetery

I’m sort of like C of E it seems—

My purpose gets more & more

Obscure like the Carnegie Library

MAPLEWOOD CEMETERY

“It pleases me to

stand in silence here”

—Philip Larkin,

CHURCH GOING

____________

Reeble’s Monument Business—

Must have made a mint over the

Years with all the funeral homes

Grinding away at all the granite—

Tombstones to enshrine fading

Memories of the Dearly Beloved

________

Margaret Reeble butch bull dyke—

Stomping in & out of Reeble’s South

Glaring at schmaltzy bagboy me

I was deadly afraid of her—

And so was everybody else there

In that ancient Grocery Store Tomb

____________

Ship’s Lounge across the street—

My tall lanky skuzzy stepfather who

Had more than a few tall cool ones

His rundown Mechanics Shop there—

Across the street on Commercial with

His dirty greasy awful finger nails

EMPORIA KANSAS

“A serious house on

serious earth in whose bent

air all my compulsions lie”

—Philip Larkin,

CHURCH GOING

______________

Down by the tracks in a little town—

Plopped down like a cow-turd there

Along the sad lonely Santa Fe tracks

What more can I say that the—

Diva Bette Davis hasn’t already said

Like I fastened my seatbelts, honey

_________

Small towns fuck you up—

The same with your mom and dad

They may not mean to, but they do

You end up with their faults—

And add some extra bad karma just

To torment you & keep you busy

______________

Small towns are fucked up—

They get even more drunken-mean

With naïve chicken like you and me

A serious little fucking town—

Serious stoic Red State Republican

With its plans mapped out for you

GANG BANGING IN KANSAS

“Man hands on misery to man.

Get out as early as you can”

—Philip Larkin,

THIS BE VERSE

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Heteronormativity deepens—

Like mud and sludge down the

Mississippi River to the Gulf

Past the bad boy Big Easy—

But in Emporia it’s with the

Flooded Neosho & Cottonwood

__________

It’s lucky I didn’t come out—

Back then in the Reagan Era

When Just Say No was Password

Then came Clinton’s mantra—

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell but that

Didn’t do any fucking good at all

______

Need I go on, my dears, with—

The usual deadly Plague Roll Call

Did ACT-UP really do any good

And then there was the lovely—

SF Gay Baghdad by the Bay with

Milk and Moscone slaughtered dead

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The tender Tentacles of Death—

Even reached down to innocent

Wizard of Oz Kansas in Emporia

My favorite gay flamboyant—

Flaming Cheerleader a la pom-poms

Jimmy Stevens suddenly died