Last Symphony
Packed my 92-year-old dad
Into the old Lansing-made black Cadillac
To see the Detroit Symphony play at Wharton
We’re dressed up at the red light of Waverly and Saginaw
This vital busy corridor
Once home to Schmidt’s Estes Furniture Leonard’s Appliances
A golf course with sledding hill
Sully’s Drive-In
Now this crossroad is a Plasma Center a closed Rite Aid and a fortressed
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Categories:
lansing, anger, anxiety, betrayal, dad,
Form: Free verse
Dancing With the Plague
A nurse takes time
To hang a DNA rainbow strain
Of Christmas bulbs
Along my gray window ledge
He plugged them in
Bringing a campfire glow of embers
Under my lids
And to the shirking corners
And the inflating machines shushing the room
Below
In the cobblestone valley of downtown
Ballerinas of steam
Spin
From paper-pushed vents in the empty streets
Window shopping on Washington Square
Laces of faces and
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Categories:
lansing, dance, depression, fear, loneliness,
Form: Free verse
Infrastructure Soul
Beneath the city the river fishing is good.
I roam with tackle and pole below those wiggling tapeworms
Wound around the cement underbelly of bridges
Devouring the guts of the city’s glamour
Down here where shadows are long as green moss
And the voices of old black dudes echoes to casts
“Damn motherer, you crossed my line!”
Splash.
To catch catfish on a
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Categories:
lansing, city, fish, fishing, places,
Form: Free verse
Lady Lil from Lansing
internal rhyme
Lil knows skill without frill; she’s talented, sharp and agile.
Lady Lil moves in many grooves and improves with each try.
When she sits, she throws fits, but never quits her rally cry.
Lady is her team’s mascot, quite the right sight - non-fragile.
In gym, she skips, does dips, her hips bouncing like jelly;
Observe, at
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Categories:
lansing, 11th grade, character, jealousy,
Form: Rhyme
Jimmy Page Was Here On July 4th
As the sun sets
A hot wind like this
Does not belong in downtown Lansing
But here it is
Speed-boating down the Grand River grinning and wearing Ray-Bans
My wife and I
We hold down our pouncing bouncing patio table
At the Waterfront Bar and Grill
As if we were airborne soldiers just landed
But still attached and tangled
To our thumping jumping parachutes
Strings of
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Categories:
lansing, happiness, music, nostalgia, peace,
Form: Free verse
Carp Fishing In Michigan
Clutching
The end of my Zebco rod and reel
As the cast of tackle is flung
Like a small knot of costume jewelry
Skimming atop the caramel-colored Grand River
Dragonfly rattling awry
The vibration tingling in the palm of my hand
As if I had cupped an angry bee
Until the swivel hook and sinker
Puckers
The river’s muddy surface
Splash
Swallowed soft and thick
On the river
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Categories:
lansing, devotion, fish, fishing, friend,
Form: Free verse
Not East Lansing Again
NOT EAST LANSING AGAIN ?
For your problem, this is the ideal spot for you
Money? Gambling like Vegas? Chancing?
Health? Surgery like in Mayo Clinic? Boil Lancing?
Relaxation? Want to go dancing?
Entertainment? Watch horses’ Lippizaner type prancing?
Sex? Maybe a little romancing?
Unwind? Watch the sunset view - it’s entrancing
Yes
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Categories:
lansing, dedication,
Form: Monorhyme
Kubla Khan In East Lansing
KUBLA KHAN IN EAST LANSING
Not In East Lansing did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
But oh! that deep chasm which slanted
Down the green hill east of town
Was a savage place! Holy and enchanted
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A smould’ring sofa momently
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Categories:
lansing, parody,
Form: Rhyme
East Lansing Strikes Back
EAST LANSING STRIKES BACK
In winter the buildings drop large dangerous icicles -
Then you’re in the hospital next to the wart-lotion factory
And the retro shopping centre with parking for bicycles
Subsiding into the neighbouring limestone quarry.
People are friendly of course the world over, they say,
But watch out for the burning sofas plummeting
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Categories:
lansing, funny,
Form: Quatrain
But Especially East Lansing
BUT ESPECIALLY EAST LANSING
Cell phone with a woodywoodpecker ringtone;
Russian style of guitar-playing with strummed beats;
Regina-Saskatoon red-eye with “collapsible” seats;
Getting a ticket for 2 minutes in a Lansing no-parking zone.
Disco guys old enough to be your grandfather
With shaved heads and tattoos and a heavy gold chain,
Driving Fiat 500
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Categories:
lansing, slam, old, me, old,
Form: Enclosed Rhyme