The 2River View | 22.1 (Fall 2017) |
Walter Bargen Damacus, KS
Retreads rip open, long steel trailers groan, air suspensions hiss as trucks crawl across prairie overloaded with night. At border weigh stations bleary-eyed drivers step down, their cabs drowning in all night radio talk shows that cry the Lord and welfare. Scales slip into sleep, the eclipsing loads pass unnoticed. In Russell the irrigation pipes spill ancient rains on parched ground–the Oglalla aquifer a diminishing prayer. Outside town arthritic derricks pound their arms against plowed earth and empty sky begging for oily prophecies. By the dumpster behind the used car lot, a rusty flathead engine rests, remnant of lonely rides across plains to Junction City and Jericho. In downtown Topeka, the buildings are the splintered brick stalks of a deranged cornfield. Bridges stand half repaired. Midday the sidewalks are abandoned to the heat. Nothing moves except the bus as it leaves the station. Wind scorches a billboard. Outside Manhattan a broken-windowed church, its steeple fallen from rot is stuck in the ground. It's the old story, wrapping heathens in pox blankets. Each evening ghost ponies race from the hills to attack the white clapboard houses. Inside rooms, in front of televisions, the watchers call the moan wind and circle into themselves. At the park entrance empty beer cans, fired too quickly, surround two tired howitzers. Lost Music 1 2 3 Walter Bargen has published 19 books of poetry, most recently Days Like This Are Necessary: New & Selected Poems (2009) and Quixotic (2014). Too Quick for the Living is scheduled for publication in November 2017. His awards include the Chester H. Jones Foundation prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and the William Rockhill Nelson Award. From 2008 to 2009, he served as the poet laureate of Missouri.
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