Best Iowan Poems

"In a land full of corn, you've got to just laugh a little."

The gravel flies out from beneath,
The hicks smile with half their teeth.
The corn...

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I will have my steak gruesomely rare.
Eating mine with Heinz 57 flare.
I am from I-O-WAY
I do not play.
I can eat a cow, a horse and...

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Recalling        Laughing          Reading      ...

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David Morris

1840-1914

I was indeed a rich man!

A lucky man, a family man,

A man firmly ensconced in the faith

Of the Nazarene.

It is written my friends

That to...

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THE SULLIVANS, 1942
by
JOHN M. ARRIBAS




It was a cold  blustery day in Waterloo
An Iowan winter with not much to do
A silent military mission was underway
Three...

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Azure waves roll,
across golden fields,
Where he lies waiting,
for the Heartland-
Heavens,to blanket him
with bliss.

Floating down a river 
of quite bronze earth
Guided by hands,
of Iowan seraphim.

He dreams...

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A woman who works shucking corn
Tells jokes that are Iowan born
Just lend her an ear
And you're bound to hear
How colonels can milk a French horn...

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mercurial me
Gemini 
painter
cartoonist 
poet
from the mid west USA
Iowan
a rapidly transplanted nomad
My husband moved me thirty-seven times
I attended eighteen colleges before I received a B.A.
masters degree...

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American Pie surely proves 
that Don Mclean was deeply moved
by death in an Iowan snow
of three great artists in a show
by everything that was so...

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Another Senseless Killing...

IOWA CITY, Iowa
     (killingly, jarringly inexplicable,
     horribly, gruesomely, and forlornly),
     the...

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I heard there were horns on an Iowan fox.
This went around the circle of kids wearing socks.
In front of a time piece that had out...

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He’s somebody’s grandpa I bet, we all said.
He had wandered into our family reunion around nine.
Grandma rolled her eyes and set him in front of...

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I once lived in an Iowan county called Appanoose.
Yes, there were women and babies, called the little Papoose.
We drank lemonade, coffee, tea, and some carrot...

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Those little holes in Cheerios
boast a flavor all their own,
distinctly Iowan, distinctly unique,
Nothingness here is not outshone,
in nourishment or things antique....

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I’ve got a girl in Kalamazoo,
sing Miller, Swing Miller, Ding Miller doo…
Moonlight cocktail anyone?
Glenn’s orchestra is on the run.
come on down. Let’s have some fun!
boogie...

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