Lansing Poems - Poems about Lansing

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...

Continue reading...

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...

Continue reading...

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...

Continue reading...

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...

Continue reading...

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...

Continue reading...

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...

Continue reading...

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...

Continue reading...

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...

Continue reading...

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...

Continue reading...

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...

Continue reading...