Iowa Poems - Poems about Iowa

She poo-pooed her constituent quickly with, “Well, we all are going to die” like a queen talking down to the peasants from her castle way up in the sky She expressed no concern for the voter or her plight should she lose Medicaid with an arrogant wave she dismissed her and revealed that they all had been played So the people who...

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Snow, snow, drifting down on little towns and farms, Snow, snow glistens on the oaks’ and maples’ arms. River, river from the north, with thaw of ice it flows, Mighty Mississippi, past my little hometown goes. Blooms, blooms, pretty blooms, and lilacs scent the air. Blooms, blooms paint the land beneath a rainbow fair. Hills, hills, soft and rolling, low and...

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You cannot take the country out of a corn-fed Iowa girl You cannot pull the straw out of her teeth You cannot take the “yahs” and replace them with “yeses”. You can try to pull her off the tractor, but she will not come easy. You can try to get her to stop eating fresh sweet corn But I would...

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(A bit of fun for Thomas W. Case - I think he lives in Iowa) Hawkeye pride burns bright in Iowa City, the place where Tennessee Williams learned to curse. Iowa City hosts the 4th of July, Iowa speedway race, unique perhaps because the cars have to stay behind a tractor for the first 199 laps. How polite are the...

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WINTER IN AN IOWA CORNFIELD Why start nattering about lucky tracks Neath a tarnished night of a waning storm? Haystacks in a disciplined platoon wait With hooded coats, caves of hibernation, Standing in formation with watchfulness. Six columns and six rows of perfection Thirty-six baled soldiers in transition Marching forward in a biting snow storm, Blindly floundering in a final surge. A good resistance fighter...

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“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 pen name, Mark Twain A sentimental feeling comes over me when...

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Weird tourists from Iowa took readily to New York City Taking photos of the sights, thinking they were witty. Aren’t they cows? Someone asked on Fifth Avenue. One is, the other is a bull, said his cousin, Boo. The cow and the bull turned and one gave a loud moo. Pretty soon they were chasing a frightened Boo. That’s why I...

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In the state of Iowa girls basketball is the biggest sport. Bigger than golf, football, baseball or any other that you’d sort. We are basketball players before we settle down, an Amazon wife said. And sometimes a player afterwards, said her son, Leland Lee Ted. His mama scoffs at his reply, she beats him at horse after school. Never letting...

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I grew up in a small rural Iowa town my parents were spawn of farmers we had “farms” out in the country we did not live on them but we planted them our summers were spent hoeing, weeding, raking. a child I teach stopped me. “There is a hoe in this story?” Loud laughter. They know about hoes apparently. I have to...

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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 we saw peas packets, carrot packets, radish packets. Lettuice packets, potato...

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It is a cold morning in Iowa Not bitter like January knife wind days But cool enough for a jacket I wish I had brought one out here Silence is everywhere Which makes the day seem colder I think of my red sweater and my pink jacket But then the hens begin to cluck My cold is nothing compared to their hunger They...

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Interstate 80 Des Moines Iowa January of 1981 I was driving a new red Mustang with T-tops I felt sizzling hot Everyone ahead of me was inching along What is wrong with all these OLD people? I raced around them I had never heard of black ice And now I was its victim. My Mustang flew off Interstate 80 I was upside down, ready...

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Anyone not in a pick-up truck at least better have a hound. If you don’t have a hound, you’d better be carrying a shotgun. It is ho-down hills days, and we are meeting for our annual barbeque. Most of the trucks have been out mudding; they are caked. We award the Mudding King his corndog sandwich with baked beans. Corn...

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Before it is posted on Facebook and everyone knows I peed in an Iowa cornfield at the beginning of some rows. It was an absolute necessity under direst of circumstance My brother took the picture showing my unique little dance. And, no, I don’t make a habit of that sort of unseemly activity But when “you gotta go, you gotta...

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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 loads rolled hay bales FIRST PLACE WINNER Brian Strand's "Your Choice" Poetry...

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