Seasons
Pages of a manuscripts,
thick-stacked like yellowed
leaves, chapters turning
repetitious now, the writers
raspy voices hard.
The words grow quarrelsome.
Spit that strikes like sleet
on dry November stalks.
yet habit guides the hand
toward some finality.
Perhaps the ending is a Summer
scene. Perhaps the print thins
out until the letters scribble
on unseen, like wind scrawls
on the emptiness of snow.
Returning
This year the cold is dry,
no snow to hide the rusted
tracks grown high with grass
or soften grime of empty
shops where stooped men
walked at five o:clock.
This place that haunts with
cries of sullen thin-clad
boys, is older now, houses
grayer, shingles scattered
through the vacant yards.
I stand here one more season
picking through these hard-edged
memories in search of peace,
but there is only empty slag,
fused by fire, the metal gone.
Dog Days
Grass dies, mud dries, the cat
lies flat on the kitchen floor.
Butter runs, the cellar holds
a sour smell, the river
creeps deep in its bed.
Our father eats his supper
by habit, sweats a dark oval
on the back of his green shop
shirt, glares at a dropped spoon.
At night we sit in quiet circles,
shunning sticky beds,
not daring games or laughter
in these mean times.
Memory of Smells
Iron in the foundry,
coal smoke in winter,
the faint freshness
of new snow, mud
in an April sun.
UP
RETURN
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Green grass growing,
rain scent reaching
ahead of a line storm,
sour alleys steeping
in the town summer,
sweat on a hot bus,
tar on July streets
and old Aunt Anna
who smelled
like a moth ball.
The Killing Of Elmer Monfort’s Old Dog
“How fast were you going?,”
Elmer asked. “Not more than
forty-five,” the Lutz boy lied,
fearing the old man’s great
red hands, but Elmer only shrugged.
“Get the other end,” he said.
When the sound of shovels stopped
they rolled him in like an old
gray rug and pounded the dirt
into the wounded turf.
That night at supper, Elmer told
his wife, who sat in her gray dress
eating sausage and fried potatoes.
“He’s been standing in the road
for the last two month,” she said.
At sunset Elmer stood a
while behind the barn, and his wife,
washing the dishes alone, wiped
her eyes once with her apron -
they never mentioned it again.
Central Illinois
Everything seems surface here,
spaces roll away in soft curves,
repeating patterns, broken now
and then by spare oak stands.
The wind, unhindered, drifts slopes
of snow across the north-south roads,
bends solitary trees like compasses
that home on east, in Summer skips
tornados from the thunderheads across
these miles, splintering the barns.
You have to walk this land to feel
its depth, to sense the bones
of bison, the husks of unfenced
miles of bluestem, the memories
of men who held no written claims.
They are still here, deep
in the black muscle of this soil.
©G.Kimmet
From the book 'In Fee Simple' , Stormline
Press
I wish to thank Jean Tolle for her generous help and assistance
regarding this publication. G.Mesh
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