NEBRASKA CITY NEBRASKA

NEBRASKA CITY NEBRASKA
I am making maps
I don’t want to make no more maps of Oregon mama!
I want to make maps of home
I want maps of corn mazes !
and railroad tracks I’ve pissed on
railroad tracks I’ve given into stubbornly
houses I’ve drank booze in deservingly
Ill make these maps in my head one at a time

scratching my beardwhile the time continues accordingly

Im in no means consumed
By the carelessness of time
shapes appearing
recklessly
hanging on to these splints

I Organize them into packs
hoped to organized them into stanzas
while naysayers observed

but the gathering of needs i needed exemplified
in Februarys stale motionless depiction of Jesus’ s cross
In John Falter’s grand daughter Sierra's Kiss
amongst his down town glorifications
of Christmas time in Falls City
his jeep carrying Doug fir in the midst
Of the few fascists

Jews jews jews
Saved in the mid west

And I ponder its 200 years of existence
selfishly
while my German grandfather burry’s the bodies of Americans
gray hairs
during World War One

his whereabouts
concealed
not knowing what it means
to be a
torn up immigrant
by the light of day
parents marriage in poverty

by my parents churn of un human clamber
after one month of love

marriage failing at 39 years of artlessness
sick first year in Nebraska
sex ending in disparity
holding on
to nothing

hiding in Emmitt Kelly’s
antics

our children are
resorting
to these tree’s magnitude
and grandeur
exemplifying these trees I trust in
the Ozarks leaving us

Susan waiting for the dead
SUSAN where I was born
and driven home in mini vans
with my sisters concerned

Rolla Missouri
To the Willamette valley scattered

22 years
amongst
my wineries
and shame

where wilderness
on Christmas eve
comes bearing gifts in the morning

viewed by my friends as flattering
returning boys who murdered my next of kin
my dog buried
in the reservoirs

willingly sinking
climbing these steeples of our fathers churches
ignoring threats
and burgeons
of these three distant chimes of the catholic churches bells

old fishermen crucified by the
Joy in the world
solemn in thetelevisions glare

crucifix hanging between my V-neck
and my t- shirt’ s chest
where the burns I received on
Easter morning ruin my
drunken neighbors wifes ceremonies

and my fathers half assed attempts at reconstruction
are astonishing

romances half conceived ends
while money is laundered
by the stale glare of the hospitals
light poles
you poured your heart out
Through your window shades and glares
you told me you were a saint

sorry Your father was a recruiter
I too young too heed the call
For religion and or war
to young to hear
The guttural yearnings of
the hemlocks end job on Socrates
The Endless doubt of
Descartes
becoming my own

Genetics

upon leaving I fell ill
books and sunsets held against ones shoulders
deceiving
piercing blight before dawn
amongst 100 harvests
and attempts
failed at family gatherings perceived in tune
below and above floors
where grandfather once ate his dinner
solemnly
and peered out his window at what burdened him
and what would later burden me