Best Iowa Poems

“And I remember Muscatine -still more pleasantly  - for its summer sunset. I have never seen any on either side of the ocean that equaled them.”  Samuel Clemens in his younger years when he worked for Muscatine Journal and before he took the...

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In the early 70’s my husband and our first baby, Angela, moved to Muscatine, Iowa, in the middle of the night, in the summer time.  At 7:00 a.m. the next door neighbor rang the doorbell; she was astounded that the living room was totally...

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Hay! Coming, Going
Bring in Crops before Winter
That is the Last Straw
...

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Nick Cohn
has come up with a theory apparently all his own
all those charts and those graphs
they're really intended to be a source of much needed laughs....

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Iowa autumn day
Children play
Today we have say...

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i have dreams of this
iowa,girls,cornfields,kiss
70's show confess...

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dark masked marauder
devoured sweet corn at night
crows left hungry...

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I see the snow falling again,

Again I must start up ""Old Betsy"" before bed,

Bed brings cold feet and shivers until the
body heat thaws it out,

Out again to start another day,

Day brings kid's hopes of no school,

School radiators pop and moan to warm the
building,

Building up of...

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Mr. Pete Buttigieg
   lost his edge

His early bird victory
   turned to fledge...

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SUDDENLY SOMETHING

Have you ever spent a night in a six by ten foot cell?
Well that’s where my FESTERING fears dwell
And no one with a prescription pad will write for a junkie born and bred
Did you ever wish more earth dwellers would all suddenly be dead

Look,...

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Road noises rise like precautionary tales
Heat shimmering on the roadway ahead
Straight as an arrow from past to future
Seen through tunnels of unharvested grain
Punctuated by power-producing windmills
Turning slowly, nowhere signs of coming rain
Occasionally a railroad crossing suture
Strange dialect of north Fargo in my head
While lone tractor...

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jalapeno peppers
parading their truth proudly
making the fried tortilla laugh

oranges and the brightest azure blues
the sizzle of a skillet
my mouth salivates

strumming of a banjo
bluegrass music and cotton candy
my food hot against its cardboard sleeve

glitzy pink neon lights
smell of hot popcorn
laughter from all over the midway

Iowa state...

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She tiptoes in quietly, pushing out summer.
There is a hush in the corn fields.
Even the crows are silent.
Scratch. Scratch. Everyone is readying themselves.

Full corn moon, autumn’s magic lady.
Bringing marmalade ideas to the farmers and the corn.
Everything needs to be harvested except the pumpkins.
They are still...

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cicada magic
happy chirping on cornstalks
july orchestra...

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We used to label our Iowa garden at the end of the rows with seed packets.
We would plant the row first, sprinkiing the teensy seeds and covering them.
Then we would nail the seed packet to the stake at the end of the row.
Like little soldiers...

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