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Dayton, Ohio
I have been working on a series of poems about various cities (well, they
are obstensively about the cities... sort of). This is still on the cutting
block, as it were, but I wanted to share it with all of you.
Dayton, Ohio
By Gardner McPherson
My rag-time city
swang from top 40 to folk.
Dayton was a gut feeling,
an instinct made tangible,
"Dresden... looked a lot like Dayton, Ohio.
I wonder how so.
I read coffee at the widely reported
White Castle, while the asshole beside me proclaimed,
"Openhiemer has always been a hero of mine.
"I can excuse a man for bein' a Nazi
as long as he's anti-Communist."
(He was not aware I sipped Vonegut.)
Did you too sir meet your soul
in this "mopped up" town?
or did you just know
that I would?
This feeling that you served in the army for me
won't escape me.
This knowledge that you didn't murders me
and that fear is why I won't put five next to rye on my shelf.
I was apparently supposed to visit
"The Columbus District."
In an un-recommended broccoli and cheese soufflé
Happiness wore a Japanese girl
as a necklace.
She served me extra chocolate
and dreams of escape from the village
I had struggled to find.
Our conversation ended when,
her new car came to visit.
I'm not sure the world works without coffee.
Ohio is where Germany was buried.
It was lost somewhere... sometime
over the Rhine.
Dayton was a present
passed to me
for the future.
--
"The pen is mightier then the sword... the pen might leak, it might break,
it might run out of ink, it might..."
Brian Gardner, "Twisted Quotes"