Ode to Iowa City
by Sheri Grutz
This town smells like poetry
through a sieve leaving gemlike rocks
reminds me of my kids
the second self of a youth gone wild
lapping up the energy from the
educated sky I've studied
this town smells like birth
I refused to watch to not pass out
black outs in bars at the ready of
a ship of fools so off course
this town smells like dogs
against the moon and angle of the
rotten tooth from sweetness and smokes
all they do is pay the last piper who
took trees away and fields away
so brick it up again with an overhead
crane
and steel in your toes and nerves
nobody made good on promises here
strange encounters left it gaping as a
sinkhole
strange roundabout of the past
fornicating with
the otherness of my soul
games and concerts packed and praying
Hollywood angels got nothing on mist
over river
this town smells like water
treated and tripled to hurry up the
rain
floods and fairies and fallen virgins
imagine a town like this so sudden
in its scope of something greater than
the dance with a stick man if kindled
or not the wagon you two were so small!
Any sort of poetry curled like kittens
in my hand and cooking on gas stove
custard and ghosts of milky stirrings
parks always parks two in one baby
swing
back to back I was somewhere in my mind
before they took it strange brew of
entanglement
radio with rent and needs being met
books and singing to you and all those
pink skies
in my thumb and private parts I wanted
I really wanted
pledging in white all the sorority
secrets
gorgeous encounter with the divine
Newman Center guitar learning playing
in bars on Earth Day
walking with you through art rooms
cleaning up banquets and making the
sandwiches
special coffees with baklava and
cheesecakes
beer gardens all summer breaking the
strange war
on t.v. This town smells like fresh air
in youths face
it belongs to you and me and them and
those
if a scored settled would be a brand
new day or job
or love it would give more than it took
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