Long Kansas city Poems
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Kansas Poem #4
Hey Hoss, slow down there!
No need to go so fast. Besides,
I don’t want to go
to where you’re going, and
I don’t want to be seen
to where you’re heading.
Hey Hoss, please turn this
furious black thing around!
Kindly get me the hell out of here
before it’s too late!
No, I don’t wish to see
this row of blighted Chinese elms and dead leaves.
Nor hear the badly-sung songs
of lost love and wild regret.
And, I refuse to see
the bloody scratches of truth and beauty,
so scrumptiously etched
with long blades on those splattered bricks;
Embedded there for the duration,
like the gum under your table;
Enmeshed there as the garnished gemstones
of the myriad fountains in Kansas City,
Polished with grit, staid tenacity, and
the time-shorn murders in the wheat lands,
underground in the broad basements
of purple smoke and black blood,
of silent stealth movements
under bending eaves, and a watching moon.
No Hoss!, I don’t want to go
to where you’re going.
Sorry, but we seem
ineffably lost and sadly wandering,
like a couple of dusty dudes
groveling for the keys that match nothing.
No, I don’t want to go
down that long Chinese lane. No!
Turn this furious thing around!
Here the people sit on long verandas and
watch the strangers come and go.
They might notice two dudes like us and
wonder what we’re doing there.
Sometimes I can hear
a loud shrieking funeral going by on Highway 50.
And those same people are staring
at the two caskets, and recognizing us inside!
Hey Hoss, slow down there!
No need to go so fast! Besides,
Time is not naïve, and Its retching Uncle
has left many a lover in the shuttered room,
up there on the 2nd floor,
has poured many a shimmering glass,
and licked many a teeming spoon.
Hey Hoss, ever take a morning break
at Hartman’s Café back in the day?
When the Clutters would drive by waving,
from inside their blue chevy impala, heading
to silent Garden City, and
the cold wind blowing unheard there.
If you drive this black furious thing
down that lane there,
you will see it.
It sits like an old cat in the sun,
going nowhere fast from its sealed post,
high upon these expansive wheat plains,
under this dark, brooding, blood-thirsty sun, and
an unforgiving watching moon.
Wednesday Evening
7:10 p.m.
September 16, 2015
Kansas City, Mo
Stephen Becker pen Brian Stoaks
"Flying Freely"
Depression is a deadly disease for even those that are treated
It only takes one night alone for the world around depression to fall apart
If you think that depression is a sign of weakness
Please come into my mind and live for a day
Suicide is often a thought of those who have never truly felt happy
While writing I cry for the secretes inside my mind are enough to die for
So you think the world is peachy and I believe its rocks of lava
Will you remember those who slowly die around you and pretend you didn't know
Love songs bring back memories of days gone by and loves never forgotten
Some songs remind me of those I miss that can only be seen in dreams
Like in the arms of an angel my mom has long since gone
But yet here I cry these tears of pain while her pain no longer exists
So don't ask me if I'm ok for I'm never ok even while smiling
Most comics make others laugh to soothe their pain deeply hidden from you
They beg to laugh with you but inside they're slowly dying
Tonight I am not trying to cry but trying to find a reason to smile
As I live for tomorrow my brain haunts me with visions of the past
Not believing that your sun will always shine on me but burn me like hells fire
No wrecking balls can tear down these walls to free my spirit to fly
I can only shed tears of disasters that have caused this brain to fight for death
So with twelve days from forty four I struggle to find a reason to breathe
I have made videos to be noticed and written poems and stories to be heard
I have helped the stranger find their way home or the sad to find peace within their heart
Still here I sit alone in my mind wishing all this empty space would finally close around me
I ask your forgiveness ahead of time whomever knows me for me
Although my heart may no longer beat for your ears to hear it
Know where ever I may land, heaven or hell, I'm always watching you
I ask that you smile knowing that star above your head is just me flying freely from the pain of being alive
He grew one of them bushy mustaches
like Sam Elliot wears under his nose
Bought him some fancy duds from Cabela's
sure looked spiffy in his Buckaroo clothes
Alligator skin boots and silver spurs
thought he looked like all them real cowboys did
Added chaps and ten gallon Stetson hat
and called himself the Kansas City Kid
He'd got him a Palomino horse that
he didn't have a darn clue how to ride
And a beat up old red Ford pickup truck
with a blue eyed dog to be by his side
He packed up and headed to Montana
from his home in the woods of Missouri
Said he was fixin’ to be a cowboy
and the best anyone would ever see
He rattled that old truck to Montana
it conked out right there in front of the ranch
He said he wanted to learn to cowboy
if the boss seen fit to give him a chance
Well the boss brought him out to the bunkhouse
told all us cowboys that his name was Tim
Said he wants to be a cowboy you see
so show him the ropes and take care of him
I asked him what he knew about branding
could he stick an iron to a cow's rump
He said he would probably be alright
if I'd be kind enough to show him once
Well can you at least ride that horse of yours
to cut out a heifer or throw your rope
That boy looked at me straight into my eyes
gave me a slight grin then shook his head "nope"
Think you might be able to break a bronc
that has spent its whole life out running wild
“Well I was in a real mean sheep bustin’
back in Missouri when I was a child”
What about fixin’ up supper vittles
I might be able to use me a cook
"Pretty sure I can do a decent meal
as long as I have some kinda cookbook"
Well I got me these here bulls need cutting
and a short stretch of fence that you could mend
Can't be that hard to cut a bull he says
if you would just show me how to begin
That was twenty years ago boss hired Tim
cause there was something in him he could see
Tim spent all that time learning to cowboy
and became the best there would ever be
We dragged the slopes to our feet.
On the summit, we burnt our clothes
for wood and there shuffled our feet
in the hush of the falling snow.
We had come out of the scuffed grass.
With one look back in unbelief
exhuming the long trek
the silent keen
puffing through blubbery fingers.
We pulled the hoofed trail through
the trapdoor of our unchained links
foisting for new heights.
Beyond the Appalachian Mountains
the hanging fern on pine dripped snow
on moles burrowing in gashed hollows.
We paused. In that doubtful moment
we rued the climb, succumbing to the assault
upon this stilled millennia’s eerie silence.
All that time the swivelling blizzards raged
shifting soil, eroding avalanches.
Below, burgeoning customs
unmaned the silent dignity of bisons.
All bore testimony to a familiar preparation.
And then, suddenly before our eyes
the solemn ground rose with the breeze
the spangled map changing to the quick:
Chicago Pittsburgh Kansas City
wild barnyards dry-coughing, pop-corning garages
horrent timber ribbed the coasting steamboats
the linoleum walls
the mild Indian piqued he was
by the mahogany cubism of our speech.
We wondered if coming so far
only mattered, we would be content
to build a fire, here and now
and unpack our horses.
We saw little need to go on.
One night the summit might open
up and swallow us all or old age
would come upon us like a lonely neighbour
on a pretext to the door.
© T.Wignesan 1964
London, U.K.
[from the collection: tell them i’m gone, 1983; published in Fire Readings (A Collection of Contemporary Writing from the Shakespeare & Company Fire Benefit Readings). Paris-Boston: Frank Books, 1991, pp. 36-37.]
K C DOES NOT MEAN KANSAS CITY TO ME
it as a winsome time
it was a wondrous time
it was a time of woe
because even the universe didn't know
as i'd watch him grow
i didn't know that which i needed to know
or where to go
as i'd watch him grow
praying for benevolence
and meandering through a maze of malevolence
would i
could i
and what about all the mistakes i could make
whilst all the time knowing i was 3/4 a fake
and as for error only God knew
he understood i could make more than a few
i had problems of my own
some apparent, some unknown
he was so tiny
just a fistfull of uncertainty
and what if had been an emergency
we'd share a toy and joy while at play
but with each sun rose another fear plagued day
he was counting on me
while ambiguity was mounting on me
still he seemed to thrive
and where in this small town called life would he arrive
would he turn out to be like me
and thankfully he did not
for i had only one shot
one chance at rearing him
whilst, at times, fearing the grim
never frightened of him but of what could turn out to be
because of helpless me
fearing the outcome
while trying in earnest desperation to remain numb
yet here sit i
with still more fears to defy
sixty-something years later or so
and god still knows i didn't know
yet he turned out to be a gift of grace
with a father who still has more anguish to face
he was destiny's decree
and today he is a father
a man
and a better man than me
or ever could hope to be
he handles responsibility responsibly and with sense
while i teeter on a sienna brown fence
and me sans any defense
yes, he grew up hell bent on being that which i was unable
trying to make the truth out of an often told fable
while somehow he turned out to transcend doing all right
with a past un-tarnished and a future bright
(c) 2012...~free cee!~
THE STORY OF BOXCAR JACK
NOT MANY KNOW OF BOXCAR JACK
WHO LIVES ON A TRAIN GOING WAY BACK
HEARING THE SOUND OF THE CLITITY CLACK
THAT COMES FROM BEAT OF A NORTHBOUND TRACK
WELL BOXCAR WAS A MUSIC MAN
PLAYING HIS GUITAR WHEN HE CAN
STRUMMING OUT A HEARTFELT TUNE
NEVER STOPPING NONE TO SOON
BOXCAR WAS ALSO A LADIES MAN
HAD THEM SPREAD ALL OVER THE LAND
THEY LOVED TO HEAR HIM SING HIS TUNE
THE RASPY VOICE WOULD MAKE THEM SWOON
THEY’D DRESS HIM UP AND FEED HIM WELL
A HOMELESS MAN YOU’D NEVER TELL
A DAY OR TWO HE’D SING HIS SONG
WHEN RESTLESS CAME HE’D THEN BE GONE
HEADED DOWN THAT SOUTHBOUND TRACK
HEARING THE BEAT OF THE CLITITY CLACK
DREAMING UP ANOTHER SONG
OF LOVE GONE RIGHT AND THEN GONE WRONG
I MET BOXCAR WAY DOWN IN MACON
LOOKING SAD AND ALL FORSAKEN
I ASKED HIM WHAT THE PROBLEM WAS
WHY THE TEARS, WHAT WAS THE CAUSE?
BOXCAR TOLD ME IT WAS LOVE
A GODDESS BORN FROM UP ABOVE
A GIRL SO SWEET AND SLIGHTLY SILLY
WHOSE MOTHER CALLED HER LITTLE MILLIE
BUT MOMMA TOLD HER HE WAS WRONG.
HE DIDN’T SING THE PROPER SONG
NO JOB HAD HE OR DOLLAR BILLS
TO KEEP HER WARM FROM WINTER CHILLS
SO BOXCAR’S ON A WESTBOUND TRACK
TO HEAR THE BEAT OF THE CLITITY CLACK
A BEER OR TWO HE WASHES DOWN
AND THEN THERE CAME THAT SIMPLE FROWN
AND AFTER SEVERAL HUNDRED MILES
THE FROWN TURNED INTO HAPPY SMILES
AND SONGS HE WROTE IN PASSING TIME
OF LOVE THAT HAD NO ENDING RHYME
HE ENDED UP IN KANSAS CITY
LIVING WITH A GIRL SO PRETTY
DANCING IN A SATIN GOWN
SHE LOVED IT WHEN HE CAME TO TOWN
HE NAMED HER IN A SPECIAL TUNE
HE WROTE FOR HER THAT NIGHT IN JUNE
HE TOLD HER THAT HE’D SOON BE BACK
AND THEN HE LEFT FOR THE ENDLESS TRACK
AND NOW YOU KNOW OF BOXCAR JACK
WHO LOVED THE SOUND OF THE CLITITY CLACK
WHO LOVED THE GIRLS AND LIKED TO CROON
ON A TRAIN SOMEWHERE BELOW THE MOON
First Annual Poetry Soup Convention shall be held on June 21st at Stonehenge
For Nina’s convenience and to entice Jan, Melani, Brandy, Heidi and Anne-Lise.
M.L., Rhona, Brian, Joseph, and Emile will build the fire, and bring magic.
Jennifer, Michelle, Aditi, Carolyn, Lu and Panagiota will laugh into the night.
Victor, Demetrios, Andrew, Gershon and Chris will build their own cabins.
Mahtab, Brenda and Jim will help construct them, but will refuse any credit.
Directors Line, Eve, Connie, P.S, Ann and Irene will be assigning bunk mates.
Sarah, Sherry and Anisha will create food using M.L.’s epulaeryus for recipes.
Andrea, Gregory, and Kim will be teaching "how to win" poetry workshops.
Peter, Vera and Freddie will bringing along cockatoos to entertain us at night.
Tom will be down the hill re-enacting war stories with a bunch of the fellows.
Maureen will be teaching senyrus. Beata will be holding Bible sessions.
Nette will be coordinating with Susan, Robert, and Teppo to recreate the moon.
Sandra and Maurice will be sneaking onto computers to do their own thing.
Jack and James will arrive without James’ special pal, who is at Mar-a-Largo.
Bobby and Wren will make banners. Everyone will be hugging Line for the idea.
Constance, Sherry and M.L. will bring their cats, who will go from lap to lap.
Charles and Carol will be rich by the end of the night from their cut of the money from Chantelle and Tania's workshops. Arturo will be Grand Marshall.
Winged Warrior, Pixie Dust and Silent One will reveal they have regular names.
We will have so much fun, we will have to do it again next year in Kansas City.
Where Caren can put up all the tents. She does not sleep anyway.
Written 3-8-2019
Contest: First Annual Poetry Soup Convention
Sponsor: Line Gauthier
My ideas are in hiding
Afraid of the secret police
For they are in Kansas City
My poems are not wanting to goosestep
I hear glass breaking
It does not wake me up at first
But when it does I am in Minneapolis
And my poem is standing on a man’s neck
I am screaming for it to get off
He is yelling that he cannot breathe.
Terror infiltrates me as I realize I am paralyzed.
I can hear my heartbeat; double-time now.
My ideas are in a fetal position, lying under benches.
Visualizing concentration camps
Oh, excuse ME! Internment camps.
Mexican children being torn from their mother’s arms.
Crying and wailing. Cages. Dirty rotten government men.
My poems are turning themselves into stories.
I am no help. I am paralyzed. Cannot stop the thoughts though.
Swastikas are swirling around which is not comfortable.
Now the Klan! Are you kidding?
I am being marched out by chicken shi.....white hooders.
My writing is holding its breath, lying in wait
Thinking I will return. I may never be the same.
This new development has me buckling at my knees.
Someone cracks me across them with a whip.
Someone speaks Russian at me.
Craph! I barely know English.
That’s a good one my muse says, making a note.
I try to wake up, but there is someone sitting on my neck.
I cannot breathe.
I struggle,
I scream
Nothing comes out.
My worst nightmare, and of course it is three a.m.
The time I always have to go to the bathroom.
Something big is sitting on my neck and my head.
I give up, not caring about anything except breathing now.
It’s the Covid 19, my muse says. We are obsessed with it
I am so irritated, for it might not be my muse.
It might be another personality; I have plenty of them.
I sit quietly, waiting for the urge to write to pass.
Unfortunately, it never does.
My ideas are in hiding
Afraid of the secret police
For they are in Kansas City
My poems are not wanting to goosestep
I hear glass breaking
It does not wake me up at first
But when it does I am in Portland
And my poem is standing on a man’s neck
I am screaming for it to get off
He is yelling that he cannot breathe.
Terror infiltrates me as I realize I am paralyzed.
I can hear my heartbeat; double-time now.
My ideas are in a fetal position, lying under benches.
Visualizing concentration camps
Oh, excuse ME! Internment camps.
Children being torn from their mother’s arms.
Crying and wailing. Cages. Dirty rotten government men.
My poems are turning themselves into stories.
I am no help. I am paralyzed. Cannot stop the thoughts though.
Swastikas are swirling around which is not comfortable.
Now the Klan! Are you kidding?
I am being marched out by chicken white hooders.
My writing is holding its breath, lying in wait
Thinking I will return. I may never be the same.
This new development has me buckling at my knees.
Someone cracks me across them with a whip.
Someone speaks German at me.
Crapppp! I barely know English.
That’s a good one my muse says, making a note.
I try to wake up, but there is someone sitting on my neck.
I cannot breathe.
I struggle,
I scream
Nothing comes out.
My worst nightmare, and of course it is three a.m.
The time I always have to go to the bathroom.
Something big is sitting on my neck and my head.
I give up, not caring about anything except breathing now.
It’s the Covid 19, my muse says. We are obsessed with it
I am so irritated, for it might not be my muse.
It might be another personality; I have plenty of them.
I sit quietly, waiting for the urge to write to pass.
Unfortunately, it never does.
Take on board this as a potential movie script
that will never get made
Of a traveling advertising salesman visiting Kansas City named Chris
Who endeared himself to the young lady hotel bar-keeper called Laura he was staying at
Fast forward to day 2 after chatting casual musings
between tender and customer
And an initial friendship struck up
This is where the conversation went
So where are you from Chris
I'm from Liverpool Laura
Oh where the Beatles are from ?
Yip the very same one
So how long are you still here for ?
Only another 2 day's i leave Saturday
My shift finishes tomorrow at 6pm
If your not doing anything and you want i'll show you around the city if you want ?
That's very kind of you Laura thank you
but i'm sure you have something better to do than show me around
Honestly i don't mind and you seem like a nice person
Ok then cheers
So what would you like to do or see then ?
We'll the least i can do is take you out for dinner
Where is the best place to get a steak here ?
And the rest i'll leave up to you it's your home town after all
The next day during dinner
I have to say great choice this
steak is unbelievable
So what is your story Laura ?
What do you mean ?
Well you know a bit about me
But how come a nice young girl like you is
out spending your friday night with me ?
Well if you really want to know i have just
been diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor
and i have been given 6 month's to live
So i am trying to spend my remaining time left
doing things i would never normally do
So here i am ,
Sorry
Wow
That i was not expecting
I don't quite know exactly what to say or do with that