Best Ohio Poems
River Findings
The Ohio winds around hills
and streams down the hollows
passes steel mills, brick yards and scrap yards.
It carries tug boats, pushes barges, and hauls
black coal stripped from the mountainsides.
The Ohio’s littered banks
are home to train yards
filled with graffiti-covered box cars
rusting relics of the Southern Pacific
and the Norfolk and Southern railroads.
Erector set bridges span
the murky river and link Ohio
to “Wild, Wonderful, West Virginia,”
the Weirton Mill,
and Homer Laughlin China Company.
In towns called Powhaton Point,
Shadyside, Bellaire, and East Liverpool,
houses are stacked on hillsides
with an array of slate,
tin and asbestos shingled roofs.
Ball fields and corn fields,
concrete parking lots and shopping malls
are full of busy people
who fail to appreciate
the river’s charity.
There are roads with cryptic names like Goose Run,
Pinch Run, Riddles Run, and Rush Run.
There are towns named Brilliant,
Costonia and Calcutta,
each with their own secrets.
North on Route 7 bars advertise Karaoke
and all you can eat fish fries.
A plethora of car lots and gift shops,
bait stores and gun supplies
dot the countryside with
a never-ending display
of marketing profanity,
but the river rolls on
never compromising her dignity
never surrendering her boundaries.
White-steepled churches
stand like beacons of redemption,
while billboards promote“Hell Fire Fireworks,”
“Gentlemen’s” clubs, sleazy motels
and the “Forbidden Zone Exit.”
Still the river moves along
around the hills and down the hollows
proud and powerful
chanting and rippling with satisfaction
a stalwart testament to her tenacity…
From the Ohio River to the Great Lake Erie.
If they come from Cleveland, or south in Cincinnati,
these talented persons’ works are the ones we should see.
They have written some of this site’s greatest poetry.
They may live in the cities of Canton or Akron;
or perhaps in Columbus, Youngstown, or in Dayton.
They also come from many smaller towns in between.
They’ve written some of the best poetry I have seen.
Many of these folks have graduated from college.
Those that have not still possess incredible knowledge.
To them, poetry is both a science and an art.
Our Ohio members are all naturally smart.
My boat rocks gently under a reddening sun,
is it wrong to wish for a Viking burial,
to ponder a last journey West
into the dying light?
Strangers have always been my friends,
they intuit
the liquid and inflammable nature
of this thing we do.
I could rest my soul here in this skiff
on this one long warm wave of evening;
let the wooded lands and sloping meadows,
the dredged, smoke-stacked barge brimming ports,
the patched up river towns slip on by
under the kindling sails of evening clouds.
I am laid out like a homeless person
bundled up in my rags and tinder,
a shadow in a small boat, drifting.
Night falls to the water
the words of strangers flame high
fire starters and their poems gleaming
as the dark rushes in.
I hitch the boat to a stump of land,
still imagining a Viking funeral,
but also resigned to a tomorrow -
yet another strange place
to play with this fire.
Green Town, Ohio
where memories congregate,
granddads as time machines,
grandmas... magicians.
Two children leaping
in Superman sneakers
as if they are flying,
and smelling the fresh cut grass.
Sparklers and firecrackers
sizzle for dominance,
lighting their path through
the warm summer night.
Holding hands, tentative,
feeling the moment,
you can't put a price
on such innocent bliss.
Jimmy and Emily
out by the old oak tree,
making new memories,
stealing a kiss.
© bickerstaffe - all rights reserved
Author Notes
'...a tribute to Ray Bradbury, born in Waukegan, Illinois Aug 22nd 1920. Green Town was the mythical version of his home town and was featured in his novel, 'Dandelion Wine.' He died June 5th, 2012. ...R.I.P
We form a queue around a small
million-year-old blossom,
are captivated
by dripping peaks
of creeping continuum.
Rainbow striations
in bezels of stillness,
then the power fails.
A pitch black of nothing
quashes carriage and mien.
Minds shrink like dark stars,
then the yellow flicker
of a generator hums us back.
Nervous grins, holiday shorts,
floppy hats.
_____
Black snow on pavement
Dog paws sopping and muddy
The first signs of spring
___________ _________
/ohio ohio ohio) (ohio ohio/
!ohio ohio ohio( ohio ohio/
/ohio ohio ohio# ohio //
!ohio ohio ohio# ohio//
/ohio ohio ohio) ohio/
(ohio ohio ohio ohio) (
-ohio ohio-
...inspired by 'Dandelion Wine'
by Ray Bradbury
Green Town, Ohio,
where memories congregate,
sneakers and time machines,
grandmas and goodies;
leaping tall buildings
and smelling the fresh cut grass,
junebugs and crickets compete
as the best; sparklers and firecrackers
fizzle for dominance,
lighting our path through
the warm summer nights;
holding hands, tentative,
feeling the moment,
you can't put a price
on such innocent bliss;
Jimmy and Emily
out by the old oak fence,
sharing those memories
sealed with a kiss.
proud of their district
the voting lines never crossed
red,white and blue state
Mid-Ohio Valley Poetry E-Zine was officially published on May 6, 2013 at www.ezinespace.com. Those interested in accessing the ezine need to have permission from the owner Marvin D. Schrebe. Subscriptions to the e-zine are ten dollars per year. Send a check or money order to Marvin D. Schrebe, 1208 Latrobe Street, Parkersburg WV 26101-4522.
...inspired by 'Dandelion Wine'
by Ray Bradbury
Green Town, Ohio,
where memories congregate,
sneakers and time machines,
grandmas and cookies;
leaping tall buildings
and smelling the fresh cut grass,
junebugs and crickets compete
as the best; sparklers and firecrackers
fizzle for dominance,
lighting our path through
the warm summer nights;
holding hands, tentative,
feeling the moment,
you can't put a price
on such innocent bliss;
Jimmy and Emily
out by the old oak fence,
sharing those memories,
stealing a kiss.
Ever heard of the beautiful Ohio?
The writer in me wants you to know -
River life has its anecdotes
My granny, a German immigrant,
mastered that river in dinghy boats
to attend a Lutheran church.
I've crossed its waves on a raft that floats.
The writer in me wants you to know -
My father conquered the Ohio
on a ferryboat two times a day.
Except... when April rains closed the floodwall.
Then his carpool drove seventy miles one way
to cross on the next nearest bridge
in not-so-nearby Owensville Bay.
The Ohio River changes its flow.
The writer in me wants you to know.
My grandpa walked it in the depth of winter's freeze;
my grandkids explore its fossils in summer's drought.
Swimming it upstream is not an easy breeze
but its muddy shores hold childhood treasure.
It's where we teens met with our main squeeze.
August 14, 2021
Sponsor Constance La France
Contest Name Your Favorite Rhyme Poem in August 2021
White icing spread atop cut-out trees,
Shrubs melt,
expose green cutout cookie snowflakes,
Blue skies shove away clouds,
reveal warm glossy blanketed fields,
Sunshine toasts the breeze a golden crisp.
Gazing out the picture window,
I watch as God bakes another day of Ohio January.
Green Town, Ohio
where memories congregate,
granddads as time machines,
grandmas... magicians.
Two of them leaping
in Superman sneakers
as if they are flying,
smelling the fresh cut grass.
Sparklers and firecrackers
sizzle for dominance,
lighting their path through
the warm summer night.
Holding hands, tentative,
feeling the moment,
you can't put a price
on such innocent bliss.
Jimmy and Emily
out by the old oak tree,
making new memories,
stealing a kiss.
© bickerstaffe - all rights reserved
Author Notes
'...a tribute to Ray Bradbury, born in Waukegan, Illinois Aug 22nd 1920. Green Town was the mythical version of his home town and was featured in his novel, 'Dandelion Wine.' He died June 5th, 2012. ...R.I.P
newport, ohio
two bars for the thirsty
one catholic church
for the sinners to be forgiven
one gas station
so us country folk
don't run out of gas
one big country concert
in july up the road
one 75 year old man
who runs a quiet
slaughter house
a quaint little town
on a busy state route