Poem by Robin Throne: "Hunter’s Moon"

Our next contribution today comes from Robin Throne of LeClaire, IA.  Though she says that the piece is "unfinished" I think it's still quite intriguing.  Here is her "contexual statement" about the piece:

"Over the Labor Day holiday, I was in Connecticut doing research for a novel and I was struck by the context of time and place, and how essential that perspective is to our own relative sense of time within a place. As I explored the restored 17th century historic villages of Wethersfield and Glastonbury, Connecticut, I could not help but relate this context to our own historical saviors of 19th century LeClaire. People like Debbie and Gloria, guardians of the repository of local knowledge at the Buffalo Bill Museum, and city leaders and shopkeepers who were committed to restoring the historical ambiance of Antoine’s village. People like Steve and Wanda who continue to work to keep the library doors open to groups like the LeClaire Genealogical Society and information accessible to relative newcomers like me who celebrated my 10th anniversary of my home along the great river on October 15. Or Bob who catalogs our cemeteries and chronicles them on his blog and Friends of the Library who bring the past to life in their fall reenactments of the founding fathers and mothers. I am not a descendent of Parkhurst or Suiter or Tromley, families of the first homes and parks and businesses. But I have found my place in this river village (as other newcomers like Peggy would call it), or city as it would prefer to be known.

On Labor Day, when the historical societies in Connecticut were closed and I was done scoping out the cemeteries, I found myself taking a road trip from New Haven to New London to Barnstable to Plymouth to Swansea and back to Glastonbury, thinking all the while about those that had arrived on this American shore from another place and renamed their cities and towns to honor their former places even if it were a place which no one would ever return.

In LeClaire, we name things for the people that platted this town, first families like Jones or Reynolds, or those that became famous like Cody and Eads. And of course, we name things for states and trees, the river and its valley.

Each month, as the respective full moon reflects over the river (often as if choreographed with the reflecting lights of Port Byron on the Illinois side), I am reminded of time, place and the recording of time and place through poetry. As Glastonbury, Connecticut, restores 17th century homes to bed and breakfasts and posts ‘founding’ signs that read 1693, I could live in a context of believing that this place, my 10-year home, was ‘founded’ less than two centuries ago. This year’s October hunter’s moon reminded me that time and place will always be relative for the observer, and although we seem to have a need to claim it as our own within our own perception of time and place, it was here before. Perhaps then we can be reminded that in doing so, we may also honor those that had claimed it then."

Very cool.  Very cool indeed.  So here is "Hunter's Moon" (unfinished):


Hunter’s Moon

(unfinished)


The river is never the same in darkness as a swollen McCarty Creek delivers its goods
gurgling still from a sodden July, last remnants of burst tails flagging the wild grasses
like cotton batting, useless filter for crushed cigarette packaging with a one-way ticket
to the wider water tracing a refractive light path cast by a cosmic orange mirror.

Only you can walk on water and bring us to witness this abandoned bank camp
sheltering the thousand who carved out no abstracts or deeds, parcels or plats
now manicured with ornamental grasses, lattice and fence by the guardians
of four-inch grass and warring over clippings that crossed the line.

We see you rise in the comfort of our darkness, replacing the harvest before you
and illuminate the memories erased by day with hibiscus, cul-de-sacs and gazebos
to recall a feast of corn and squash and covenants signed and unsigned.


BIO:  Robin Throne lives in Le Claire, Iowa, along the great river. Her poetry has appeared in Tipton Poetry Journal, Sylvan Echo, North Coast Review, Gypsy Cab, poetry motel, Mankato Poetry Review, Minnesota River Review, Connections, and The Muse.

Poem by Victor Snyder: "Danceland's Euolgy"

Thanks to everyone who has made it out to the evnets the past two night!  Tonight is the workshop at the Midwest Writing Center, so if you can, come.  Tomorrow is the big Visible Cities Poetry Project reading, and you should definitely come to that & hear all our contributors bring their work to life!  Details on all the remaining events to your right (& scroll down)...

Today's first piece is from Victor Synder of Stillwater, OK.  Victor is a QC native, and, well, I'll let him explain this piece & where he's coming from:

"I heard of your project from my close friend Nancy Kiefer, who I am collaborating with on a similar project, based on our memories of the Quad Cities of our childhood. We grew up together and lived only a block away from each other, so we share many similar experiences...

I am an artist, musician, song writer and poet. the poem is based on my years of playing music professionally in the Quad Cities area in the early eighties. Dancland, of course, is a well known landmark in downtown Davenport. I also share Nancy's view of the mid west Gothic flavor of the area that lingers in our memories, and was always fascinated with the seamier side of the Q.C.; the soft white underbelly of seedy bars, run-down strip clubs, and late night honky tonks where I often plied my trade. This poem is an impression from a musician's point of view; a front row seat, if you will, to the often bizarre pageant of life played out after hours in the Cities."

Very cool.  & thanks to Victor for his work.  NOTE: Danceland is Davenport, IA is decidedly NOT dead.  On Halloween, it will be packed with the undead, but the place is still there, still available, though perhaps underused.  But not on Halloween.  Visit here and here for more info.  & now, "Danceland's Euolgy":



Danceland’s Eulogy



Dan had a country western band,
I was a hired gun.
Dan had a gig three stories up;
A ballroom called Danceland.

Dan could not sing, but liked to call
His hired guns his “boys”.
We’d not rehearse his country noise.
He’d shout the key. That’s all.

Old men in tattered suits of plaid
And girdled glamour gals
Would shuffle round the floor like pals;
Lost friends they never had.

Big bands had graced this stage before
In glory days gone by,
But now these floor boards creak and sigh
While dancer’s feet grow sore.

And Dan, his voice is out of key
And echoes in this room.
An amplified, distorted boom
Is Danceland’s eulogy.

Poem by Elisabeth Athas: "We Will Stay Forever"

Today we have a couple contributions, but we'll start with Elisabeth Athas, age 16, of Davenport, IA.  Elisabeth is an extremely talented young writer, and she had this to say about her poem:

The poem "We Will Stay Forever" came to me as an image of what brought every person of this area to this place. Whether it be a past lived here, the idea of a better future, or simply a life to be lived peacefully, etc. At one time this area was void of life, until we all felt the pull to come or continue to stay here, and now that we are here a part of us will always exist here.

Nice.  Well, without further ado, here's her poem:


We Will Stay Forever


Along the shores we gather
currents of memories
whisper to our hands

Waiting to awaken the water
we deny the mists
guided by storms

It called to our hearts
bound between dams
we digress over its depths

So long ago
the river was silent
sand and weeds caressing waves

Along the shoes we gather
waiting to awaken the water
It called to our hearts
so long ago



BIO:  Elisabeth Athas is a junior at Davenport West High residing in Blue Grass, IA. So far, she has published poetry and short stories in the magazine The Atlas. She worked as an intern in the Midwest Writing Center's Young Emerging Writers program. Her favorite part of writing is the revision and editing process because she loves seeing that disasterous first draft shaped into something quite fantastic. She needs caffeine in her blood stream and is constantly learning to speak the truth in love.

Poem by Ryan Meehan: "No Surprise is Ever a Quiet Surprise. Everything is Loud Somwhere."

Hello everyone on this cold, wet fall day.  Before we get to today's contribution, I just want to remind you all that the Visible Cities poetry project will be accepting submissions through Sunday, Oct. 18, so please send along your work.  Now that we're in to October you can expcet a lot poems by area writers to be posted, as well as by other contributors, and updates about the public events and my chapbook, Complicated Weather.  Click on the links on the right for more info about events, submission guidelines, purchasing my book or whatever.  Thanks!

Now, on to the good news.  Today's poem comes from Ryan Meehan of Moline, IL:



No Surprise is Ever a Quiet Surprise.  Everything is Loud Somwhere.

They’ll bring sand…

And iron combs to dry their
hands like angry men
As it will stand…
Thrown from every orifice in
hell for it to cleanse

It’s Winter…It’s Winter…

Shell every picket fence…
And burn all the streets
until they finally reach the end.
And when they bring the sand
We’ll gather along with the river’s pride 
And continue to stand…

It’s Winter…It’s Winter…

It’s Winter…

And drop every leather shackle and hence
Restore the glory we once had sent
And get on your knees it’s time to repent
And get on your knees it’s time to repent
And it will be like hell on earth…and hell, like

It’s Winter…It’s Winter…
And I will continue…
Until I’m in dentures…
So indentured…

 
 
BIO: Ryan Meehan is a freelance writer from Moline, IL.  He is a nonpartisan non-fiction writer.  He has one cat and enjoys speaking about himself in the third person to boost his ego and distract himself from the otherwise horrifying existence which he lives.  He currently works in the telecommunications sector.

Poem by Connie Wilson

For the first poem to be posted on this blog, we have an excellent contribution (with photo) from award-winning local author Connie Wilson, "Please Do Not Feed the Waterfowl":

Please Do Not Feed the Waterfowl

Eight of them silhouetted against the paddlewheel steamboat...four boys, four girls.

They slouch there, ill-at-ease in their unaccustomed Prom finery.

The I-74 Bridge looms behind them in the distance.

One girl, chilled by the spring breeze, wears her date's jacket slung casually around her shoulders. She stares at the ground. Is she thinking about the night ahead? Is she thinking about the future, as she shivers, clutching her evening bag?

"Are we grown? Are we ready?"

The blond athletic-looking boy in the white Saturday Night Fever suit and white shoes wears a turquoise tie and matching handkerchief. He coordinates with his date's turquoise strapless formal.

Will they always be this in tune with each other, this harmonious? Are they a couple only for now, only for tonight, only at this moment in time?

He squints, staring at the camera.

"Are we grown? Are we ready? Are we having fun yet?"

What lies across that bridge....across the Mississippi River...across time?

What does the future hold when Prom night ends?

"Are we grown? Are we ready?"

In youth, the future stretches out forever, spins on like an endless ribbon, an eternity of time, an infinite river of days and nights and dances and dates. But this is Prom night, and the end of high school is near.

"Are we grown? Are we ready?"

The sign reads: "Please do not feed the waterfowl."

If only there were other signs. Signs to instruct. Signs to warn about the future...

For now, it is just: "Please do not feed the waterfowl."

Connie Wilson has written for many newspapers, including the Quad City Times and the Moline Dispatch, and has taught at many QC area colleges and universities. She has won several awards for her writing including 2008 Content Producer of the Year in January 2009 for her contributions to Associated Content. Her latest book, Ghostly Tales of Route 66, Volume II (Quixote Press) will be released September 24. She will be appearing at Barnes & Noble in Northpark Mall, Davenport, IA Oct. 17 or Oct. 24 (details forthcoming). You can visit her on the web here or here.