​Here are several of my poems, previously published in my Finishing Line Press books. (Follow this link to learn about them and also to order copies.) Copyright © 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Paul E. Stroble. ​

Some of these poems are true to life, others are fictionalized experiences, others are rearranged memories, and still others are largely fiction.  

My thanks always goes to Tom Dukes, who made possible my long-time dream to write and publish poetry. Also to Leah Maines, Christen Kincaid, and everyone at Finishing Line Press. And, most of all, to Beth and Emily. 
____

County Seat
 
Bicycle tires,  
small town birds 
singing in neighbors’ trees.
A car beeps in the distance. 
 
Riding, the boy sees the way
the sidewalks have raised
as neighbors’ trees grew beneath
and pushed upward,
 
and as he pauses from his hot ride
through undulating streets
he likes the coleus and moss rose
that line the walk of 263 Sixth.
 
Beneath the phone poles, 
lined in matched order down Washington Street,
the oak and maple are still 
full green shade. 
 
He pedals to the outskirts
where the expired line crosses 
St. Louis Street, and he stands in blue
to gaze down the bright right of way.
 
At the cemetery, folks
have already decorated: kin needful
of flowers, flags. His grandparents
at the lane’s turn have forget-me-nots.
 
He remembered this as a bored day,
no one around, nothing to do, 
when his home became for him always 
as the shadow of God’s wings. 

(from Little River)
____

Psalm in Snow 
 
Deep snowfall, ten degrees.
Our pastor isn’t sure
whether to cancel church or not.
 
We’re not sure, either, 
no one is, but our neighbor lady 
lives for the House of the Lord.  
 
Snow stacks upon the fields of those 
who have walked through valleys of shadows, 
and Pastor shepherds them. 
 
She perfects her sermon 
on goodness and mercy, watches, prays,
makes a snowman with the youth.
 
Afternoon turns to evening, 
the early moonlight is a voice
that is not heard but heard everywhere,
 
like the calm of the stars, 
the timber of the county, hills
and ravines arrayed more than Solomon.
 
O mortal, have you visited 
the storehouses of snow,
have you loosed the cords of Orion?
 
We make angels in white, loved by the one 
from whom comes the hoar-frost of heaven,
channels of snow, Christ in cold. 
 
Folks and Pastor phone: let’s try to meet. 
You know Miss Audie will come anyway,
and what is snow but still waters?  

(from Small Corner of the Stars)
____
 
Transistor Radio 
 
no music   
no Ferlin Huskey
 
no Patsy or Johnny
or Faron or Buck
 
just whiteness
in the dark 
 
the boy too worried
to sleep till daylight
 
turns on his
transistor radio
 
which he found 
under his folks’ car
 
when they returned
from a day at the zoo
 
and it became 
his, ready with music
 
in the day and
something to do
 
when he awoke
too early, listening
 
for the sign on,
Good morning
 
and welcome
to WMYB,
 
home of 
country hits
 
and all the news,
the day’s first
 
and possibly only
cheerful voice.

(from Dreaming at the Electric Hobo)
____
 
Pumpjacks
 
along the state road
by the timber
 
of family neighbors,
thirty liters of oil 
 
a stroke from 
sandstone pools 
 
of Pennsylvanian 
age along anticlines 
 
of the Illinois Basin 
throughout the county,  
 
but not for us: 
1940 test wells 
 
on Grandpa’s land 
produced nothing, 
 
unintended consequence
of land claims five 
 
generations ago,
rich soil and timber beauty,  
 
good fortune 
thus far for family  
 
plowing, harvesting,
trading in town 
 
and for me, as Thoreau 
would say, beloved lands 
 
wandered, explored
and tapped for words
 
while the oil man
thinks he’s the richer man. 

(from Little River)
____

Haircut at Elmer’s 

As clippers buzzed, 
I saw my face 

in the mirror that faced 
the mirror behind us

and the back of my head,
and my face, and my head, 

and on and on, so that
I dreamed of infinity 

in our small town, map spot 
within a mass of dots, 

in a state, a nation, a continent, 
the globe, the rush of planets 

around the sun that was a speck
among galaxy billions, 

distances of space and time, 
from the Triangulum Galaxy 

to the window facing 
our town’s only stop light, 

and me in the barbershop    
air rich with colognes, my eye

on the penny candy globe
as clippers buzzed, a child in mirrors 

for whom the very (trimmed) 
hairs on my head were numbered.  

(from Small Corner of the Stars)
____

Vicky  

Good god, what is that? I thought when I saw
your eyelash curler on the floor beside the toilet.

I studied your apartment, 
all the girl stuff I never saw before 

because I’ve no sisters, and I was young then.
I saw the box of tampons, which I did know about,

and the hairbrush full of your wavy hair, 
and flowery soaps. You were a mess,  

but I liked that about you, 
and from your bedroom window

I could see our park where we played as neighbor kids,
the hills we ran, the swing set, 

the merry-go-round where you sent me round and round  
until I was so dizzy.  

(from Small Corner of the Stars)
____

She’s Barefooted  

And it feels great, believe you me: 
straight jeans brushing tanned ankles, 
heels making gentle, jarring thuds 
upon the kitchen floor, except today 
she’s running errands, as this joy 
of home is suitably expressed 
out and about.  

She can tell you how good it feels
after work when she can change back
into bare feet and comfortable clothes.   
She can tell you that home sidewalks 
feel just like a safe back porch, 
that she knows each crack and seam, 
that she knows very well to trot 
across hot summer streets 
as she follows strolling toes 
to the utility office to pay bills,
then the library, with its carpet's
smooth low nap, and then 
to the drug store, with its smooth tiles, 
but not the shoe shop, lest 
someone think she’s merely 
starting from scratch. 

Picture a silly spirit who believes 
that adults, too, can set forth 
with defenseless feet with dreams
of a fun-filled day, at least sometimes, 
on a whim, for the sake of mischievous
memory, feet free in remembrance
of beach as she stands committed 
to being cheerful in a store line, 
with feet that can run but cannot hide. 
Picture barefoot saints, otherwise 
well robed, who know the way 
to gain sacred peace and joy
as she makes her way home  
for the rest of the day's tasks.  

Think of swinging in Rachel Park  
with her kiddo, who’ll never forget 
her summers before school starts, 
the bus shop, the gathered parents. 
You’ll be fine! Love you! Think 
of wading in cool air beyond summer’s end, 
when she dons a sweater, tends mums 
in the evening, chats with neighbors, 
laughs, swears she’s warm enough.  

(from Dreaming at the Electric Hobo. First published in Tipton Poetry Journal)
____

Beer Cans
 
My buddies collected beer cans,
stacked them into headboard pyramids. 
I knocked one down by accident 
and was derided as foolish for weeks.  
 
You ever see a yellow can?  
barked Bobby to the group 
as we hiked Randolph Street. Each boy 
spit on the ground every few yards.  
I mean just a plain yellow. He claimed 
he found one at the snapping turtle pond 
fed by James Creek south of my house. 
 
I looked and looked, 
but only found the usual: Falstaff, Bud, 
and Miller, Pabst Blue Ribbon.... 
Just as well, because my grandma 
would have called it a sin, as playing cards
were sin, and mowing your lawn 
on a Sunday. Beer was off the sin scale. 
 
It’s a wonder that going for a long walk 
on a Sunday afternoon wasn’t sin 
as I strolled James Creek and scanned
the grass beneath the honey locust trees 
for cans, tossed from vehicles,
dropped by fourteen year olds who swore 
they were inside at a friends’ house watching TV. 

(from Dreaming at the Electric Hobo)
____

Produce Stand 
 
Cousin Cal is a good storyteller,
but he’s asleep inside that 
stucco, canopied gas station
next to his farm along old 37. 
 
On a Sunday drive, please stop by for corn, beans, 
melon, tomatoes, carrots, even peanuts
in the shell if Cal gets the notion.  
Eat them right there, as he does, 
and toss the shells on the concrete
where his wheelchair crushes them 
and they blow away. 
 
It’s okay to wake him
as he sits large, for he dozes to his country hits. 
But you might not want to, because what a picture
of peace he is, and his breathing is deep,
so be honest with your purchases 
and leave your money in the coffee can
 
but remember to come back another time
for he has stories for you, 
the town and people as they once were,
the children he loves who live elsewhere, 
what he feels as he waves at cars 
going east and coming west. 

(from Little River)
____

Land of Lincoln 

I’ve been thinking again
about Lincoln, his profile 

on Heritage Trail signs; 
on plates for cars and pickups

along all my childhood’s two-lanes. 
Music behind the farmhouse, 

yards of fireflies beneath 
crab apples branches; 
 
the lunch crowd at Lucy’s, 
motels, garages, parks. 

Springfield on old Route 66, 
Corn Dogs on the west,

grain elevators 
along the Sixth Circuit.

Shall we trim the honeysuckle 
from the old picnic area 

on 51 and have our KFC 
in the tangled bank?  

Railroad lanes lonely and worn, 
and drug store postcards   

four score and ten. Is it 
too much to say that wildflowers

and stones themselves cry out
with malice toward none? 

Abe and Jesus vie for which 
we Illinois folk heard first, 

saving souls or saving the Union, 
crossing the Jordan or the Sangamon. 

(from Walking Lorton Bluff)
____

Gillespie Auto Repair 

When Larry sang “La donna è mobile”
as he fixed your engine knock,  

and banged the wheels into place
in time with “Vedi! Le fosche notturne,” 

you want to linger in that gray waiting room
and listen more. For was there ever a tenor 

who so moved you with “Vesti la giubba”
when the part you needed wasn’t in stock,

or with “Vainement, ma bien-aimée” or 
“Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön”? 

And he sang “Celesta Aida” when 
he thought of his love (whose name

was really Agnes), and “Nessun Dorma”
when he and the guys worked late   

because so many vehicles in our little town
had broken down. Where else would you

want to go for Saturday Met matinees?
He even kept a turntable in the service area,

and LPs that somehow stayed smooth
and clean in the heat and the grease.

And what a joy when his dream came true! 
For as he warmed our hearts in church

for so many years, and moved our souls 
when we stopped or gas and repairs,

Great Tenor Arias by Larry Gillespie
was that cherished addition 

to our record collections,  
free as a blessing with an oil change, lube.  

(from Dreaming at the Electric Hobo)
____

Falls of the Ohio 

At Jeffersonville, if any 
of those fossil-hunting school kids
in my care steps too close to the edge… 

a channel cut in stone won’t stop current, 
after all, even if we can’t watch steamboats
rushing chutes in the high water, 

or see freight hauled by coach
from Shippingport to the city docks, 
or view Corn Island where Clark set his feet. 

Steep heights, woods razed
for venerable cabins down river
toward that fierce baptism of boats. 

In 1815, my people began from Portsmouth,
became Buckeyes for years on their way
West, with firm hope toward Illinois. 

But waylaid at Louisville, wife and brother died
in a season of low water, children gathered--
one stayed behind with good people--

as the rest trudged on, the trade of a gun
for family corn, another child 
and Grandma lost at Shawneetown. 

What do you say then about God, 
who cares for the bison, the waters, 
the Devonian shells alike with man? 

Below the Falls, there were 
grapevines in pioneer bottoms, 
parakeets in the sycamore,    

cane-breaks and their ambling bears. 
Today, we rock songs down 64, 
faster than any steamboat  

as diesel lines rumble on the K&I, 
and the Clark still carries old 31. 
Before we cut roads, we cut canals. 

(first published in Pegasus. Part of a manuscript under submission titled Lighted Highways)
____

The Genealogist 

On a breezy day at the cemetery
her cap blew off.  
She needed to find the stone 
for Cyrene Wender. 

She’ll tell you  
that the Wenders are shirt-tail cousins
by the young daughter 
of great-great-grandmother Rachel McKay.
Her husband James remarried, 
but went missing at the Battle of Columbus. 

She followed her cap as it tumbled
among the graves, 
and there was the stone,
where Cyrene has been since 1855. 
         A hawk flew over. 
She walked, following it, looked down,  
and found another grave she needed.

It’s not usually so easy. 
Census records:
       what happened to the wife, 
the child listed in 1850 but not 1860? 
A will is missing; 
a name is misspelled and thus overlooked, 
lives ephemeral as wind. 
For years she has searched 
      for James’ father’s name.  

But now, the Wenders are accounted for 
in Beulah township.  
Some sleep in an open place. 
Some sleep in a place of timber, 
with God’s shade in all weather.  
They sleep in bytes: names and kin and dates.  

(from Little River. First appeared in Springhouse)
____

Stereoscope 
 
Aunt Friede got eye strain,
the viewer pressed against her face
so often, each image to each eye
and then blending, 
that addictive 
illusion of depth and dimension. 
 
It’s not that she didn’t love the farm, 
plowed by her own father 
who died on the front forty, 
nor did she long for more of the world 
than what she’d seen 
and what would have saved to see.  
 
But she fancied traveling the globe
as a stereographer, visiting place after place 
from Washington
to the Taj Mahal to the Cliffs of Moher 
            
and any place worthy 
of a dream’s double image.  

(from Little River. First appeared in Pegasus. Won the 2016 Adult Poets contest, Kentucky State Poetry Society)
____

1910 Postcard

Men in hats and suits smoke cigars beside the door
of the Albright Hotel. The streets 
look like dirt. There are horses.  
A wagon retreats down the street 
beside facades of iron. See there?
At the block’s end, one car in town. 

That’s likely Walter McElroy. 
In Nineteen-nine he sold his partnership 
and bought an Everitt 30. He drives up one street
and down the next
and sometimes he drives all the way to Springfield 
so he can visit Lincoln’s home. 
 
Upper stories of businesses, drapery, 
within, leading families’ bachelor sons
whose habits are disapproved, discussed,
never punished, finally erased
like telephone lines on postcards.

With your magnifying glass
you read signs above the men, the National Bank,
Spring’s Furniture and Coffins, 
Dowie Hotel, with the sky, facades and dirt,
hand-colored, rural values. 

Are the women forbidden in this agora?
They’re on the reverse,
sitting in parlors, in silk grosgrain and crochet lace.
They write in cursive, sweet messages 
to family in other towns
then moisten one-cent stamps. 

(from Little River) 
___
 
The Emigrant 
 
This was the water she dreaded,
and the flies, the vapors, 
three hundred miles by freighter 
along la belle riviere.
 
Beauty: the way the river
rounds the forested headlands,
rich scenery at every mile,
places where fruit of other climes
are planted. 
 
The rude cabin, then two, 
and soon virtuous communities 
will lighten the peoples of the world
where once was only sounds 
of bird, beast, and savage  
 
as where Manny’s Creek flows 
toward the river from the bluffs,  
the goodness of the land, called Beulah  
in the scriptures of the Baptist preacher
who first came here.  
 
then Manny himself, 
his military grant of acres,   
the settlement on the wagon road
toward the old salt work 
called Beulah to this day. 
 
Rachel looked, but all she remembered 
was standing beside the tied tables, 
watching stars brighten
as the children slept, 
and loving the place 
to which she’d never return.

(from Dreaming at the Electric Hobo. First appeared in Big Muddy)
____

On Route 66 
 
Out of cash and out of work, 
he hadn’t slept in a decent room 
 
for a week nor cleaned up 
and found our church’s phone number
 
in the lobby’s yellow pages. 
He belonged to our denomination 
 
all his life, he said, and even sang me 
a verse of Amazing Grace. Three rows 
 
of steam-heated rooms with cable TV 
for low, low prices were right 
 
for the budget extreme, the folks
who for once could have a warm bed.
 
But the heart of the Good Samaritan
with the caution and pace of the Levite
 
is still just the Levite, you know, 
and I paid for his room, gave him 
 
a voucher for a meal. But he needed 
friendship, a future, and I was afraid: 
 
my brother as surely as Christ made his way
through rough terrain that made these 
 
lonely Western lands seem biblical, 
snow parting like Exodus water.

(Under submission as part of a manuscript, Lighted Highways)
____

Airport Prayers

I’m doing Sudoku
while sitting at an airport gate

but I can’t get a single column correct.
Why is this fun? My daughter gets it.

My wife is reading. Looking around,
I glance at the pretty, black and white

woman in the window. Her light eyes
are strong, her full lips parted. 

I look again to the board, to make sure
our flight is on schedule. 

But you can’t be sure that it won’t be cancelled
when you’re boarded, while you’re taxiing…

That’s why I’m doing a puzzle,  
trying to, but it’s hard. Uncertainty is hard,

Call upon the Lord your God when 
you’re living by faith and you're worried.  
 
O Lord, be with my family and friends and students,
my church and my home and my country.

Be with that asshole who hurt me and now
lives in my head.

Be with that woman in the ad, the clerks
in that store, everyone coming and going. 

Lord, get that lady in her wheelchair safely 
to her destination, and not be abandoned. 

Lord, be with the man who has an arm tattoo
of the three crosses of Golgotha. Be with that man 

who laughs to be noticed, and with that woman 
in flip-flops who clenches her feet like fists. 

(from Dreaming at the Electric Hobo) 
____

Legacy                                                                        
 
As sure as I learned to drive, 
I knew to take care through Magenville.
 
The posted 55 drops to 25 at the village limit,
and you might think, for just a half-mile, 
you can meet the law halfway.  
 
But, no. That speed cop lives there,
said my dad. He hides with his radar 
and catches people night and day. 
 
He said he saw a family dead  
after their Rambler hit a pickup, and 
he never wants to see such a thing again. 
 
But you know, I passed through town
dozens of times over the years and
followed my dad’s advice. 
 
I never once saw a speed cop, 
but I did see people slowing down. 
 
I even met someone at a black-tie party
who told me, That cop pinched me once!
I never drive through there fast. He’ll catch you!  
 
For all I know, it’s been decades since he sat there 
in his black-and-white, beside the IGA
and the tourist cabins at the Laundromat. 
 
But I think of that cop, that legendary
speed cop of Magenville, as if  
he were the founder of a school of thought
who never wrote any teachings 
 
yet left his endless echoes, so that
he need not be here anymore but people 
know, they know what they should do. 
Then they teach the truth to generations.

(from Dreaming at the Electric Hobo)
____

Giving Away His Clothes 
 
Here is the outfit he wore
for our church pictures, 
and summer shirts I purchased 
for him, but he hadn’t yet worn
 
because, vague and stubborn, 
he wore the same plaid polo 
during his last three months.
 
Here are suits we pushed him into, 
along with church during 
his Christmas and Easter years.
 
By the time he got saved, 
church clothes became casual, 
so we didn’t have to strain 
top buttons for this very clip-on tie. 
 
Today, these and all the rest---
good shoes, work slacks, shirts 
in and out of style---go to charity. 
 
He wore his Sunday best 
for Eternity, where 
clothes don’t make the man. 

(from Small Corner of the Stars. First appeared in Pegasus)
____

1962 
 
His silver, plastic Colt 
slips into its holster for the stick-horse ride 
from the kitchen and the morning TV news,
into the open range of the backyard.   
 
African violets upon the window sill,
the sunny day outside, 
dry green beyond Dad’s garden.   
 
What if a fire started and the firemen
couldn’t put it out? The world would 
burn up. That was the only way 
he knew to ask. The firemen are good 
at what they do, Mom said.  
 
He practiced lying in the grass
with his hands over his head, 
as he learned in school. He hoped 
he would at least be home from school.
He hoped the foreign leaders
would think first of the children. 

(from Small Corner of the Stars)
____
 
Holocaust Memorial, Miami Beach 
 
I walked toward sea 
 
                   from that great hand 
toward the silent sky,  
green bronze of anguish and 
scrambling bodies on the wrist
and on the nearby wall, 
Jews’ names, so many names,  
            
if indeed you can count them, 
says the Lord.  
 
My Orthodox friend loves so much
the paths of the great sages of the Mishnah
 
and all the centers of Jewish learning
for the Balvi and Yerushalmi
through times of goyish hospitality or condemnation
that flowed together as streams
for a Sea of Halakhah,
 
justice and healing for the world, 
faithful to The Name. 
 
How many of my Gentile days
would I count back to a time 
Mom and Dad and I lived on our little hill  
and my world was toys, our dog,  
my cars and planet map,  
Jesus and Santa, 
 
Eichmann… a name on TV
about whom I asked my mom.  
 
I don’t remember what she said. 
What a bitter blessing to begin to know 
such things so young, 
when faith contends 
with hardest things: 
 
photos at which you stare,
a culture’s tributaries 
that run sick with evil, 
blood and ash
even as children play somewhere
in safety.
 
As the Lord lives,  
truth’s arc stretches long, 
even through Hell’s burning, 
and beauty is a daily gift,
though trust is hard. 
 
But do not forget the things 
that your eyes have seen nor to let them 
slip from your mind 
all your days
 
and I scribble in my drafts, 
I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. 
 
I’m sorry. 

(from Walking Lorton Bluff)
____
 
from Walking Lorton Bluff
 
The Nickel Plate Line once rushed
toward East St Louis   
near where Dad hauled fuel
for filling stations on old 66, 
 
and in the city  
shots were fired last night, 
and in many cities, little towns, 
schools shut-down, night clubs, 
children, men, and women dead, 
incidents of lethal force, 
symbols of hatred sprayed.  
I hear about them in television echo
as I get dressed and take notes. 
 
--The armed man should be feared 
(protect us, St Michael)
 
--Wisdom cries out in the street;
in the squares, 
she raises her voice.
 
--Justice is turned back,
and righteousness stands 
at a distance; for truth stumbles 
in the public square. 
 
--Why was man created alone? 
Is it not true that the Creator 
could have created the whole of humanity? 
But man was created alone to teach you 
that whoever kills one life 
kills the world entire, 
and whoever saves one life 
saves the world entire.
 
Let us finish what we are doing, 
go out, and befriend an ER doctor, 
a nurse with splatter on the scrubs,   
a chaplain who’s seen
very much, and learn of trauma,
grief unhealed,  
 
and then we’ll go to the sanctuary
beloved by generations, 
 
and it is filled with prayer requests 
for victims of violence of all kinds, 
and you can’t get inside 
for the number of request cards 
pressing against the walnut door
 
and light can’t pass through
the colored windows 
for the cards are stacked to the rafters,  
the social hall is full, 
and the trustees have earmarked 
funds for mercy’s work. 
 
Let us sing hopeful songs 
and pray while holding 
someone around the shoulder, 
and since we’re outside already 
 
let us go to streets and squares, 
the country places,
night and day 
where wisdom calls. 
____

from Walking Lorton Bluff 

Wishful thinking: a new prophetic call 
like one we all heard 
when my friends and I were young, 
fall classes barely started,   
brown bodies of the sea,

students of divinity   
with books for an afternoon 
on our towels on warm sand
down shore from war’s Corpus Christi.  

We passed around texts
of justice like plates, sampling ideas,  
and I was reading Karl Barth, 
stuck in the fine print, 

Marie had to pass Greek, 
so she was reading that,  
and Sarah loved Hebrew  
that favored her
later archaeology, 

though she was off somewhere,
last seen holding hands with Lisa
as waves managed the shore. 

I dream that the Reformers
went to the beach, 
Luther and his beer belly
pale in the sun, Calvin 
stern and systematic 
when the beach ball
hit him on the head

as they searched 
for God’s mercies among 
doctrines made and lost
then preached for 
a billion congregations.     

Michele padded across 
the promenade to electric groove, 
black hair long and wet
as I picture Christ’s, 
earth’s water dripping
from the Lord of the waters 

and blessing us as we grew brown 
and read and dreamed, the sand 
between our prayers.
____

from Backyard Darwin

Backyard happiness:
when these facts and topics fit 
the haiku pattern. 

Fortunate haiku!
The Origin of Species,
seven syllables. 

I count syllables
right-hand, Sapiens fingers, 
thumbs evolved to grasp. 

In 1950,                         
this Origin took a trip. 
to Columbia. 

The owner under-                    
lined passages, dripped sun tan 
oil on Darwin’s words. 

1858: 
announcement of what became
the paradigm shift: 

selection explains
varieties of species:
Darwin and Wallace. 

“There is a struggle
for existence leading to 
the preservation

of profitable
derivations of structure
or instinct.” Hard truth: 

life, governed by death, 
adaptation—not design.    
“The death of Adam.” 

The balance may tip
so that a creature survives,
thus more progeny. 

My new Pope couplet: 
“God said, ‘let Darwin, Wallace
be’, and all was light.”

Lyell, Hooker helped
establish priority
for Darwin’s research.

Huxley called himself
“Darwin’s bulldog”, Origin’s 
battling advocate.                              

Lyell, Huxley, Gray,
and Hooker pushed acceptance
of Darwin’s theory:

odd friends otherwise
in their viewpoints, pursuits, and
personalities.         

Hooker: selection 
applies to botany, plant
geography, too.  

Hooker gave Darwin
friendship and encouragement.
He was for Darwin

“the one living soul
from whom I have constantly
received sympathy.” 

Darwin gained the fame. 
But take heart, Wallace! You’re not                     
drawn as a monkey--

Darwin’s ample beard, 
eyebrows, enough like fur for  
Punch caricature--

nor lend your name to 
a “Wallace Award” for those 
who “cleanse” our gene pool...
____
 
from Four Mile (forthcoming in late 2021)

In this shady place, the grave

of Ben Mahon,
Irish grandson,  
Old School Baptist preacher.
 
            May the road rise up to meet you, 
            may the wind be always at your back…
            
He preached over 150 sermons a year
            riding west toward Vandalia
and southeast toward St. Peter 
            and to Overcup and Avena
 
till he wore out  
and was buried here in shade
            with his wife and young daughters. 
 
In my imagination,
he knew his Bible. 
            Jeroboam to Hoshea, 
            Rehoboam to Zedekiah, 
all those kings of Israel and Judah in order
and backward, 
and the tribes of Israel
            and where they settled both sides
of the Jordan 
and the way the Tabernacle looked
            and how Ezekiel’s Temple looked, 
and even how the End Times would be
            all laid out. 
 
as he read his Bible under the big tree
            in Mr. Pilcher’s graveyard 
where Preacher Chaffin of Four Mile  
was buried
            long before. 
 
Good and faithful servants. 
 
I dream for Ben
            a sermon:   
 
Enjoy your evening, beloved,
beneath these trees 
that border Four Mile, 
 
for God rescues with trees, 
 
Noah’s gopher wood, 
the shittim wood of the Ark,
the Temple's Lebanon cedar,  
 
the Cross:
stationary wheel 
with Life at its center. 
 
The Bible bookends 
with the Tree of Life, 
the great shade of Eden
the plentitude of water of life
that flows from the throne of God, 
bright as crystal
and waters the tree of life, 
its leaves for the healing of the nations.  

The soul is perennial, 
emerging nourished
through dryness and storms
            by the water of life.  
 
The soul is annual, 
planted new for each place, 
 
            God’s mysterious horticulture, 
selections and rejections, 
fig withered though out of season
 
            unexpected plant grafts
take, impossibly…
 
            Cherish the Scriptures, beloved,  
 
sun and stars for Torah,
flowers and rain for Prophets,
singing birds for Psalms and Writings, 
            pleasant breeze and trees
for Gospels and Letters,  
storm and rainbow for Revelation, 
            a truthful road that is the Way; 
 
            and throughout, 
the march 
            of Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, 
Greece, and Rome, 
 
            but God does not esteem 
what we call power, what we call greatness.
 
 Even the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
   and are accounted as dust on the scales. 
 
No, God opens his heart to all who turn to him, 
            more than we could ask or think.  
 
God opens his heart to you, 
            and nothing you could do
will close it. 
 
            Nothing. 
 
He will not let your foot be moved;
   he who keeps you will not slumber. 
He who keeps Israel
   will neither slumber nor sleep. 
 
This evening, beloved, 
know that through sundry and traveled places  
the Good Book unfurls   
along worn paths
                        like our very road:  
 
Samaria, Shechem, Shittim, 
Hebron, Jezreel, Jerusalem,   
Christ’s ways of sorrow. 
 
The Great Trunk Road: 
from Egypt to Megiddo, 
and to the seaside toward Antioch. 
 
Remember how the Israelites
so long before, 
hungry and bitter, deplored the roads, 
 
for Sinai had no wealth like the cities. 
            Like us, they couldn’t behave, 
they felt afraid. 
 
But those gathered people gained
            their precious direction 
in a homesick place, 
 
and thereby they knew God accompanied them
everywhere and anywhere. 
 
Mary and Joseph knew it 
so long later,  
as they carried their baby Jesus to Egypt 
on the Way of the Sea. 
 
The people gained their precious commandments
in a homesick place
 
            and by this we know
that any place is the place to serve Jesus
with our good deeds
and words of Life.  
 
Enjoy your evening, beloved,  
            on this land that your mothers and fathers
gained through treaties, 
claimed for their own 
            struggled to gain, to buy, 
your own place for a season, 
yet not your own, 
 
for the earth is the Lord’s 
            and all things therein, 
 
and all things work together in God’s wisdom. 
 
A voice cries from the highway, 
 
The Lord is the everlasting God,
   the Creator of the ends of the earth.
 
            God gave the people Canaan 
because Eden had been lost, 
 
and so Canaan became their Eden, 
and they settled with Judah in the south
and tribes in between,  
Asher and Nephtali in the north 
and the tribes across the river, 
            and yet do not hold tight 
to anything that passes away.  
A voice cries, 
 
All people are grass,
   their constancy is like the flower of the field. 
but the word of our God will stand for ever. 
 
Remember this 
as you sojourn 
in this home place 
and see the spring butterflies 
announce the Resurrection, 
 
the cabbage white and swallowtail, 
blue azure and the question mark: 
 
God cares for the land and the waters,
            and the deer and the rabbit and 
all creatures here below.  
 
God remembers his people.
 
God dwells among his people. 
 
He dries every tear. 
 
He joins in our laughter. 
 
He remembers the Jordan, 
 
where our souls wait in eager anticipation 
            to cross over 
 
to beautiful, beautiful Zion…. 
____ 

Hometown Senryu 

Radio summer: 
the hits from Octane Johnny 
on AM 90.

It’s that time again:
white-haired vets out on Main Street
with their jingling cans,

Flanders Field poppies
of cloth, our donated change 
to help veterans. 

Each weekend evening, 
kids drive up and down Main Street. 
Fun, friendship, boredom. 

New kid in our school, 
will he fit right in, or not? 
Hero or zero?  

(Second grade recess:
Billy told us the middle
finger means fuck you, 

but never do it 
around a teacher or your
parents: a whipping!) 

Illinois Central, 
tracks that cross Main Street, daily 
small town traffic jam. 

Love: walking the tracks. 
But take care! That boy last year
didn’t. So tragic. 

Grain elevators, 
tall over downtown places,  
prairie skyscrapers. 

The crowd at Betsy’s!  
You’re strange, but tell them you’re kin,
they’ll warm up to you. 

Formica counters, 
Cherry Coke and burger! I 
draw my name in grease. 

Our soda fountain, 
why, oh why did it shut down? 
The cost, one assumes. 

She loved me, yeah, yeah, 
yeah; but we were only eight. 
She moved in fifth grade. 

Childhood memory:
beer signs in downtown cafes. 
Let there be neon! 

Grandpa supported
the W.C.T.U., 
handed out leaflets. 

Washburn’s cigar shop 
wooden Indian outside:
folks named him Black Hawk.

The Church of Christ and 
Breezy’s Saloon, for years strange
and awkward neighbors

till both burned. Lightning. 
How do you explain that the-
ologically?  

The lonely feeling
of something old-time and used: 
“we purchase our past.”

Billboard in the marsh
of Sixth Street and the town branch:
a dab will do ya.  

My mom always liked
Alberto VO-5 for 
shiny, healthy hair. 

Grocery items 
in Product Jingle Heaven, 
old magazine ads.  

Cold drink nostalgia:
Orange Crush, Grapette, RC, 
Shasta, B-1, Tab.  

When I was sick on
Sunday, I read the funnies, 
Dick Tracy, Peanuts.   

Mathison’s Drug Store
has been vacant for years. Does 
Lew’s pipe smoke linger? 

My friend bought the first 
X-Men there. He kept it nice,
can retire now.  

Give me any day
a bank counter, teller stations, 
daily calendars. 

Bachelor teller Bill.
We all loved him, and mourned him  
when he died so young. 

Mrs. Sidwell’s joke, 
visit the library and
give a Tarzan yell. 

Young Mrs. Smith
sometimes left her young kids there, 
then went to Breezy’s. 

Delicious-brand milk
on our porch in bottles, brought
by family friend Clint. 

The Fuller Brush man’s 
visits: he was happier
than Willie Loman.  

Ben’s shoe store; great brands
for the whole family; those
Braddock Devices.  

Laundromat morning, 
Mom sorts the whites and colors. 
Coke sign on the front. 

That Saturday when
a washer broke down for Mom:
eruption of suds!  

The shoe factory
on Madison Street for years, 
major employer, 

and the hill beside
was amazing for sledding:
I survived wipe outs. 

Our town’s five-and-dimes
like TG&Y, “turtles, 
girdles, and yoyos.” 

Four local hotels
from the railroad era: all
ground-floor antique shops. 

At this sidewalk spot, 
my granddad dropped dead, a stroke 
Dad recalled, heartsick. 

Gillespie’s garage, 
a fixture on the old road
just east of the tracks. 

OPEC embargo,
gas prices up, just as I
was learning to drive. 

When no attendant 
came out, I huffed, then saw the
sign: self-service pumps. 

Fond rural vistas,  
country crossroads, Herb’s trailer
behind the farmhouse, 

yards of fireflies,
crab apples drop in season. 
It’s all Lincoln land. 

Rough roads? No problem
for the Model T’s high frame
and high torque engine.

Uncle John warmed his
Model T oil pan in his 
oven: no more house. 

In a smaller town, 
you know who drives what, who trades
every other year. 

Purchasing power
after World War II. My dad
paid cash, our new home!  

Family car with 
breasts! Caddy, Dagmar bumpers,  
1955. 

Nostalgia for oil:
Pennzoil, Quaker State, Gargoyle, 
car’s lubrication.

Sun Oil Company
first to use octane ratings
their “poison free” gas.   

Remembered jingle: 
Cities Service is Citgo
now! ’65 trip. 

“Hottest Brand Going!” 
Oblong station, Conoco, 
manager: ol’ John. 

Burger Chef! Thrifty
Dad loved their bar of veggies:
his Dagwood burgers. 

Jane once worked there. She
passed me study hall notes, “from
Desolation Row.”

St. Louis Arch and
McDonald’s golden arches. 
Same marketing firm? 

Motels, gas stations
never have cornerstones like
churches. But should they? 

J. Edgar Hoover
thought motels were crime hotbeds. 
Those “hourly rates.”   

A “sundown town”? That 
was the rumor. Racist sin.   
No Green Book listing.  

Was that Gulf station 
streamline moderne or neo-
classical? Long gone, 

like Howard Johnson’s
out on old 40, restaurant
packed back in the day. 

But our White Castle
thrives; onion breath a small cost  
for slider goodness. 

Jackson’s mini golf
thrives, too, that evil Hole 8, 
par impossible. 

Our Dog ’n’ Suds! Fred
and Jean reserved it for their
wedding reception. 

We also ate out
at Sally’s on Route 40:
a giant chicken. 

A nice dinner place. 
I’ll get a baked potato
for potassium. 

Radio summer: 
the hits from Octane Johnny 
on AM 90.

Those nights up and down
Main Street, odometer fun! 
Young memories, yet 

high school agonies: 
no place for nerds and misfits. 
I miss a dear friend 

with whom I listened 
to favorite singles, LPs, 
vinyl collections. 

Fred and Jean write me
at Christmas: Let’s meet, next time
we are all in town!

I write back, I’m home 
often, to decorate Mom 
and Dad, to daydream. 

In my jewelry box, 
I keep my collection of 
Flanders Field poppies. 

(first published in Springhouse)
​