Cincinnati, misnamed
and misunderstood, is hardly kind
to free wandering folk.
Losantiville stretches in my dreams:
the bustling Germanic blood,
the desperate rattle of street car fantasies.
Taciturn and cultured
beneath a thin cynical veneer
and hues of eternal comeuppance,
it is hard for me to stay
or know precisely what to say
when all the little building blocks
have been ground to dead polluted dirt
and that which you label character
comes at a price determined
by the market cost of a pound of flesh.
9.
Fast breaking spring arrives
with summer on its heels.
Somewhere farmers are praying for rain
and hoping their prostrations
are not overly answered.
Red breast wrestling a long piece of straw.
Sparrow picking seeds out of the dirt.
I remember corn rows no taller than my knee
and the grim determination of old men on bar stools
while the agri-barons sat in comfortable chairs,
counting coins, and watching the market
waiting for the best time
to open up stores of grain
that no hungry man
will ever eat in leavened bread.
Location:Cincinnati, OH