We used to climb up the round metal fire escape at Columbus School
This was Chariton Iowa, where no one saw or cared
A summer morning was the perfect time to do this
Before the sun heated the tube up, making it unbearable on our bare feet
Categories:
chariton, nostalgia,
Form: Blank verse
I rushed into my friend’s office once not realizing she had a guest.
She said “This is Dr. Pat McClintock.”
Dr. Pat McClintock said “You are a Stone Twin from Chariton Iowa.”
This shocked me.
I was forty-four at the time, living in Missouri.
No one here knew about me being a twin.
Well, maybe one or two, but not a stranger.
I nodded, wondering who this woman was.
“I was your second grade teacher, Miss Meyers.”
Suddenly I remembered her well.
She had drawn a horse for Becky Jones.
When I said I wanted one she said she would make me one.
But the next time we came to school, she was gone.
Right after Christmas break.
She never came back and I never got that drawing.
I remembered her all right….
Categories:
chariton, teacher,
Form: Prose Poetry
Small town hospital in Chariton, Iowa, USA
1952
Dr. Yocum had a recurring dream every night for weeks
God was telling him that he had to buy an incubator.
In 1952
An incubator cost $100,000!
He finally broke down and bought it.
My identical twin and I were born at three pounds each.
We were five weeks early
That incubator saved our lives.
Dr. Yocum’s wife felt invested in us.
She bought us tiny pink going home outfits with matching hats and booties.
We were in the hospital for two months!
Our mother's blood would not clot, so we almost lost her.
She was in the hospital a month or two longer than us.
We went home to grandma and grandpa with seven aunts and uncles
They fought over who was going to carry us around.
Mom told us we were TERRIBLY spoiled by the time she got us.
Written 5-20-2022
Poetry Contest: Divine Intervention
Sponsor: Chantelle Anne Cooke
Categories:
chariton, god, spiritual,
Form: Free verse
Chariton Iowa 1960
We were in a 1953 Chevy with our Daddies
Brothers
We all three got tossed out into a ditch
when the car caught fire
then we got grabbed up and they ran with us
When the car exploded we had a new problem
The field was dry
Categories:
chariton, car, fire, nostalgia,
Form: Free verse
Christian Church Chariton Iowa Thanksgiving Sunday 1962
I saw Jesus step out of a stained glass window
He put his finger to his lips when He recognized I saw Him.
I watched Him float from the window to the top of the church
I waited for the congregation to gasp
No one did
I have never forgotten it
Categories:
chariton, jesus,
Form: Free verse
Limited to one change in my past.
Tricky idea
There are so many mistakes I would like to correct.
Wait! Here is the one that started me on my life of crime.
The day I yelled NO in a mean, loud way to my teacher.
And she made me sit in the alcove for an hour wearing a dunce cap
So all the kids could make fun of me.
1958. Chariton, Iowa, Columbus School.
I would go back and bomb that school
So no one would laugh at me.
No. wait. Maybe I would go back and just try my damnest not to yell no
to my first grade teacher.
I doubt if that would work though, because I remember trying not to do it.
Wait!
I would go back to November 22nd, 1963
Columbus School , when I came back from lunch at home
And some big kid yelled from the top floor
“Hey, the President was shot!”
and I yelled back “The president of what?”
I would like a redo of that moment.
Then I would feel smarter somehow.
Categories:
chariton, memory, nostalgia,
Form: Prose Poetry
If I as allowed to go back in time to do one re-do,
Limited to one change in my past.
Which one would I choose?
There are so many mistakes I would like to correct.
Wait! Here is the one that started me on my life of crime.
The day I yelled NO in a mean, loud way to my teacher.
And she made me sit in the alcove for an hour wearing a dunce cap
So all the kids could make fun of me.
1958. Chariton, Iowa, Columbus School.
I would go back and bomb that school
So no one would laugh at me.
No. wait. Maybe I would go back and just try my damnest not to yell no
to my first grade teacher.
I doubt if that would work though, because I remember trying not to do it.
Wait!
I would go back to November 22nd, 1963
Columbus School , when I came back from lunch at home
And some big kid yelled from the top floor
“Hey, the President was shot!”
and I yelled back “The president of what?”
I would like a redo of that moment.
Then I would feel smarter somehow.
Categories:
chariton, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form: Free verse
Basil Huckleberry was an unassuming boy.
We called him boy even though he was in his fifties.
He rode a bicycle around offering rides to everybody
Touched is what grandma called him
He had a low mental IQ I was told
This was before anyone knew about an Emotional IQ
His was off the charts – he loved everyone he met
And he met everyone
Basil spent all day riding that bike around Chariton, Iowa.
When he saw you he would click the bell six or eight times
Unless there was a baby on the block then he would just yell
We all knew his voice; some ran from it. Others stayed to visit.
Basil was pure in one thing – he wanted people to like him.
He wanted everyone to be happy. He lived on pop bottle money.
He could get paid two cents a bottle. Many people saved them for him.
My own mother used to call him over when she had a twelve pack.
He would be beyond grateful for this huge twenty-four cent gift
I remember thinking it was silly how excited this made him.
He never said a bad thing about another person.
Asked if we had prayed for them. Emotional IQ at genius level.
Categories:
chariton, character,
Form: Lyric
Loose Knit
by Michael R. Burch
She blesses the needle,
fetches fine red stitches,
criss-crossing, embroidering dreams
in the delicate fabric.
And if her hand jerks and twitches in puppet-like fits,
she tells herself
reality is not as threadbare as it seems ...
that a little more darning may gather loose seams.
She weaves an unraveling tapestry
of fatigue and remorse and pain; ...
only the nervously pecking needle
pricks her to motion, again and again.
Published by The Chariton Review, Penumbra, Black Bear Review, Triplopia
Categories:
chariton, addiction,
Form: Free verse
The Forge
by Michael R. Burch
To at last be indestructible, a poem
must first glow, almost flammable, upon
a thing inert, as gray, as dull as stone,
then bend this way and that, and slowly cool
at arms-length, something irreducible
drawn out with caution, toughened in a pool
of water so contrary just a hiss
escapes it—water instantly a mist.
It writhes, a thing of senseless shapelessness ...
And then the driven hammer falls and falls.
The horses prick their ears in nearby stalls.
A soldier on his cot leans back and smiles.
A sound of ancient import, with the ring
of honest labor, sings of fashioning.
Originally published by The Chariton Review
Categories:
chariton, writing,
Form: Sonnet
Discrimination
by Michael R. Burch
The meter I had sought to find, perplexed,
was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose.
I found it in sheet music, in long rows
of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks
of long-forgotten volumes undisturbed
half-centuries by archivists, unscanned.
I read their fading numbers, frowned, perturbed—
why should such tattered artistry be banned?
I heard the sleigh bells’ jingles, vampish ads,
the supermodels’ babble, Seuss’s books
extolled in major movies, blurbs for abs ...
A few poor thinnish journals crammed in nooks
are all I’ve found this late to sell to those
who’d classify free verse "expensive prose."
Originally published by The Chariton Review
Categories:
chariton, poetry,
Form: Sonnet
My favorite junkyard is in Chariton, Iowa.
A rusty old tow truck at the top of the hill
Painted to look exactly like Mater in the Cartoon.
When I approach the junkyard, I do with anticipation
And there he is. Sitting on the hill with his big eyed
cartoon smile, same goofy teeth.
It makes the rest of the junkyard seem happy
Which is fantastic if you can overlook all of the
beautiful cars and trucks that were once loved
But are now rusting away in depressive sadness.
There he is! I think miles before I arrive.
I am not sure what I will feel if the cartoon Mater
ever disappears. Today, at this second, I do not have to worry.
There is the goofy smile.
Assuring me that everything in the junk yard is okay.
Categories:
chariton, america,
Form: Free verse