PLAINS
THE PLAINS
Plains—
Prairie smooth
Like an endless sea
Curved—
Horizon-less
Rippled by pain
Tears—
Prairie women
Out in Nowhere
Grapes of sorrow—
Evening’s sad wine
Ripe for weeping
PRAIRIE LAUREATE
A recent story—
The Emporia Gazette
About this poet
Not exactly an—
Esteemed professor from the
Halls of Academe
More like a humble—
Son of the Kansas Prairie
Prairie Laureate
Writing poetry—
In the Z-Bar Ranch mansion
About Stephen Jones
POET IN RESIDENCE
And so I lived there—
As well as Emporia
My Kansas hometown
But in Chase County—
Another reality
Existed out there
Many other states—
Have poets in residence
Each state different
The Z-Bar limestone—
Mansion so far out there
Waiting for a voice
THE FLYOVER STATE
For so many years—
The lack of any kind of
Tall Grass poetry
Cowboys, Indians—
And the Santa Fe Railroad
That was about it
Readers seemed to want—
A prairie perspective on
The Fly Over State
But how to write it—
Something brief like a postcard
From out of Nowhere?
LOUISA JONES
Louisa Jones was an—
Alabama Southern Belle
Tres Antebellum
She abhorred the West—
The grim stark lonely prairie
And who can blame her?
Did she ever write—
Her Z-Bar Ranch memoirs back
Then about Kansas?
That’s the real reason—
Jones sold his Z-Bar estate
A Cattleman’s Dream
HEAT-MOON
Heat-Moon a writer—
Haunted by Chase County
Rewrote the Prairie
His argument was—
A Native American
Great Plains perspective
He thought White People—
Lack any kind of local
Plains Mythology
Santa Fe Railroad—
Commercial Street & the
Flint Hills Mall was it
WICHITA VORTEX
Kansas needs more than—
Ginsberg’s “Wichita Vortex”
By City Lights Press
Jets high overhead—
People don’t look way down there
But what about us?
I was born down here—
Plopped like a cow-patty by
My young parents
Walnut Elementary—
Then Lowther & EHS
Then KSTC
PRAIRIE POETRY
Sometimes I simply—
Ask myself what a Prairie
Poet writes about?
A bildungsroman—
An Emporia memoir
Postcards from Kansas?
Wish you were here—
And all the usual stuff
About growing up?
Maybe some haikus—
Messages about back then
Some Basho quickies?
Esteemed professor from the
Halls of Academe
More like a humble—
Son of the Kansas Prairie
Prairie Laureate
Writing poetry—
In the Z-Bar Ranch mansion
About Stephen Jones
POET IN RESIDENCE
And so I lived there—
As well as Emporia
My Kansas hometown
But in Chase County—
Another reality
Existed out there
Many other states—
Have poets in residence
Each state different
The Z-Bar limestone—
Mansion so far out there
Waiting for a voice
THE FLYOVER STATE
For so many years—
The lack of any kind of
Tall Grass poetry
Cowboys, Indians—
And the Santa Fe Railroad
That was about it
Readers seemed to want—
A prairie perspective on
The Fly Over State
But how to write it—
Something brief like a postcard
From out of Nowhere?
LOUISA JONES
Louisa Jones was an—
Alabama Southern Belle
Tres Antebellum
She abhorred the West—
The grim stark lonely prairie
And who can blame her?
Did she ever write—
Her Z-Bar Ranch memoirs back
Then about Kansas?
That’s the real reason—
Jones sold his Z-Bar estate
A Cattleman’s Dream
HEAT-MOON
Heat-Moon a writer—
Haunted by Chase County
Rewrote the Prairie
His argument was—
A Native American
Great Plains perspective
He thought White People—
Lack any kind of local
Plains Mythology
Santa Fe Railroad—
Commercial Street & the
Flint Hills Mall was it
WICHITA VORTEX
Kansas needs more than—
Ginsberg’s “Wichita Vortex”
By City Lights Press
Jets high overhead—
People don’t look way down there
But what about us?
I was born down here—
Plopped like a cow-patty by
My young parents
Walnut Elementary—
Then Lowther & EHS
Then KSTC
PRAIRIE POETRY
Sometimes I simply—
Ask myself what a Prairie
Poet writes about?
A bildungsroman—
An Emporia memoir
Postcards from Kansas?
Wish you were here—
And all the usual stuff
About growing up?
Maybe some haikus—
Messages about back then
Some Basho quickies?
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