Poetry

The Vision Holds The Vision holds Its ancient face Takes time to remember This wrinkled place And all that yet The twinkle remains In Springfield’s eyes The Artists’ domain. –Anita Stienstra Local poets were writing about contemporary events in the Sangamo Journal as early as the 1830s. People’s Poetry wants you to share your thoughts […]

dialogue with cheks chek chek chek chek chek chek chek chek-chek-chek-chek-chek-chek-chek-chek chekachekachekachekachekachekchek chekchekchekchekchekchekaaakkkkkkkkkk what is all this sprinkler do we need this sprinkler grass does can’t you write something else chek chek chek chek chek © John Knoepfle 2003

TRINITY ‘Neath faille skirt of zealous genuflect, gold stare by pious eye, valley city sweat goth despair that cloudless cursed July. ‘Round coo-still Capitol dome pigeon bird shallow panted. While from burb to bowery home, fan whirred–summer recanted with each ragweed sneeze each rale each weeze on fallow grist. Stampeding stale through settler’s swath, wild […]

what cesar vallejo said he said when the time comes for me to answer to god I will have a defender–god he said it is sunday in the clear ears of my peruvian burro

The Lost Prairie–Lake II Covering the land of my youth I hear the laughing lake filling behind a massive concrete dam. Its fingers flood little hollows, cover brown cattails and purple violets. Sangamo history is hidden beneath the mirrored surface where names are etched on a gray stone bridge humped over the county road once […]

On her retirement marty mcgill we wish you well ©John Knoepfle 2003

By Lee Gurga Stephen Glosecki, an associate professor of English at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, will present “Over the Hills and Home”–a program of writings about Springfield and family–at 3 p.m. on Friday, July 18, at the Vachel Lindsay Home, 603 S. Fifth in Springfield. An award-winning poet, Glosecki, will read selections from […]

owl again do not trust the man who believes in his own lies when he swears on scripture who who who who who

FIREFLIES I don’t mean to bevulgar now, but when you narrowed your still thighs, it was like a firefly lighting the night just over the hill, with its lantern along- side a bush, and I came chasing, daunting your wings with the warm cup of hands that were clapping gingerly. –David Radavich Local poets were […]

oh say can you . . . ring the liberty bell the country’s doing so well forget old tom paine and remember the maine and anything else you can sell ©John Knoepfle 2003

A War Bulletin. The ruins–I walk around them 100 years before. Civilization’s tall buildings–crumbling ruins yet to rise. Vachel calls to me, “Don’t give up on my Golden City. The Golden City will rise from the ashes. It is you who holds the flame to Paradise.” I stagger around the city in the magic duskdawn […]

First Light It’s not sunup at Lincoln Greens, the skies are dark and gray. But I’m poised to start my work, on bunkers and fairways. The mowers sweep across the greens, the fairways and the tees. Their eerie lights, their ghost-like shapes, might startle some–not me! You lucky folks who sleep ’till eight, and work […]