Poem by Emporia Native Dennis Kelly

Thanks to fellow Emporian Dennis Kelly for this. He captures the zeitgeist of late 1950s in that small college town, where Kansas City and other town dwellers were a sharp contrast to those with ties to the country, like Kelly describes here. Kelly is a published poet who also practices "cleave" poetic form: http://cleavepoetry.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/cleave-poem-a-new-experimental-poetic-form/

LAST HARVEST —for James Tate and Denise Low

kansas city boys
were always sharp
especially the
frat boyz at kstc
none of them drove
pickups cattle was
something they
called kc steaks
and then they
were gone on
weekends while
I studied in the
waw stacks and
harvested wheat
in jewell county
all summer long
for my uncle
under the red
glare of the
john deere sun
& buffalo moon
but that’s all gone
now the farms little towns the
dirt roads tyson
sullivan doxtator
stauffer the little
athens of the gone
midwest prairie
lumbering into
the dark fields
that will soon be me
when night comes.