Prairie Madness

Saint Paul, 7 August 2006

Vanes askew at cockcrow like prairie madness

Each circle of the windmill is a death rattle

Whose bearings are certain to seize up

Like a twisted door too cocked to slam shut

By mid-day half-baked wind keeps it turning

And squealing to remind those of us left behind

That the last productive well is long since dry

And no rain is forecasted for generations

Exhausted and forlorn this bone-weary soil

Settles to a tin cup like dashed hope to despair

Even the slack-jawed squatters with syphilis

Cast off the good Lord to reason before leaving town

Every year I return to this place come fall

Dutifully change the loony bin bedpans

Hang the few threadbare curtains that make sense

And discard the shabby soles of unsound shoes

I re-paper the slumping schoolhouse walls

With the yellowed newsprint of miraculous cures

Chinking each crack to smother all abominations

Horrors more deafening with each passing year

By nightfall I’m dumbstruck in the town hall

Deserted in the wilderness of a crowded room

Attended by ghosts too shallow to fathom grief

Yet too desperate to make small talk