Poetry

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 […]

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 […]

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

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 […]

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 […]

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

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 […]

tory island morning gray morning and a gray sky a sky patched with trailings of light a soft wind weaving the sea under it high hills of donegal carved on the east horizon dark gray hills and darker grays and a puff of white cloud hanging there over errigal ©John Knoepfle 2003

Shirley’s Eyes One misty morning, three visions, pleasant reverberations, came to me– your veiled face, a nocturnal lily blooming in the twilight of my hope, and a silver harp. I couldn’t discern your smile, but your eyes shone opalescent fire, more mysterious than stirred gray embers, ash glow from a burned out star. You sparked […]

old man on his birthday the family all flying in pray god I don’t die they would never forgive me I would never get over it © John Knoepfle 2003