By Calvin Williams
The following poems by Calvin Williams are the first in a series based on Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology, published in 1915. Master’s poetic anthology consisted of epitaphs of the dead citizens of a small town in Central Illinois. His poems undermined idyllic notions of small town American life. Calvin Williams’ anthology takes the style and structure of Master’s Spoon River Anthology and applies them to a series of fictional characters in Southern Illinois in the wake of an unspecified disaster.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Where are Olivia, Frank, Lindsey and Anton?
All of them are dead and rotting in the woods.
1.
If you walk through Murphysboro you will see
the ruins of an old factory covered in poison ivy.
I worked there for decades,
and I never complained that it robbed me of my youth.
Each morning I walked there,
as my skin leathered and spotted,
as my body eventually failed.
The factory was a force of nature that consumed me
until there was nothing left to eat.
And now there is nothing to haunt;
and too many left to punish.
Olivia Montgomery,
Murphysboro, Illinois
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Where are Olivia, Frank, Lindsey and Anton?
All of them are dead and rotting in the woods.
1.
If you walk through Murphysboro you will see
the ruins of an old factory covered in poison ivy.
I worked there for decades,
and I never complained that it robbed me of my youth.
Each morning I walked there,
as my skin leathered and spotted,
as my body eventually failed.
The factory was a force of nature that consumed me
until there was nothing left to eat.
And now there is nothing to haunt;
and too many left to punish.
Olivia Montgomery,
Murphysboro, Illinois
2.
I hated watching those boys and girls at the vineyards
role-playing that they were not in Southern Illinois;
that the heat did not stifle them;
that they had important things to say or do
in-between yelling at the busboys or tech-support,
the people they all secretly despised
the people they measured themselves against
as they laughed and drank.
There were other people there too,
the people who could be anything.
They bothered me even more;
people I could have been
people enjoying music and alcohol
people stretching as night eclipsed heat
praying silently to Bacchus
as I once prayed to Him.
All of them are dead now;
the burghers of Little Egypt
and their servants tending vines in the bleached sun.
Holland Dickson
Alto Pass, Illinois
3.
I am Minerva, a witch and sorceress;
when I was alive
children averted their eyes or mocked me.
My peers snickered.
Drunks made sport.
The elderly shook their heads.
I was the Medusa of Old Town Liquors,
with my dreadlocks matted together.
until sugar made me blind as Tiresias,
and turned my legs to stone.
The town never knew how my curses saved them;
without me the forest swallowed them whole.
Minerva Thomas
Carbondale, Illinois
4.
I wanted her to take my life in minutes
to drink me by the hours
and drain me until I was nothing but hers
to be sapped and then eradicated.
But days went by -- blinded with empty light.
She saw nothing but enemies
and turned to them in contempt.
She was pregnant
and did not want to be.
I thought of how I entered her
and came inside her.
The parasites would force their way out
writhing like worms from their clay
fighting and screaming devils.
It was not mine, it was not hers;
she held it, but it struggled
holding a face of empty expectation.
I said nothing, I did not shake,
I did not hide or run.
Instead I haunted myself
until death hunted me down.
Franklin McCormick
West Frankfort, Illinois
5.
Who was the kid who saw words dance in a book?
Who saw words dance in a book
about the limits of reason,
and didn’t understand what he was reading?
My mind was once a great kiosk
of all the people and songs and politics and drama
wheat-pasted like posters on curved walls
open in the center to a dome of heaven.
Anton Delgado
Carbondale, Illinois
6.
I always imagined the floodwall was made of bones
(walking here was like walking on Mercury).
I remember the summer cold fronts across the river
and how they chilled my sweat.
I remember writing “lol” in the dirt.
I was texting China with earth magic --
I imagined a vampire from Beijing would come.
He would make me immortal
and then we would kill all the motherfuckers.
He would present me with the heads of Christians --
I would curtsy like a fairytale princess
and place the heads on the spikes in my yard.
Dixie Collins
Mounds, Illinois
I hated watching those boys and girls at the vineyards
role-playing that they were not in Southern Illinois;
that the heat did not stifle them;
that they had important things to say or do
in-between yelling at the busboys or tech-support,
the people they all secretly despised
the people they measured themselves against
as they laughed and drank.
There were other people there too,
the people who could be anything.
They bothered me even more;
people I could have been
people enjoying music and alcohol
people stretching as night eclipsed heat
praying silently to Bacchus
as I once prayed to Him.
All of them are dead now;
the burghers of Little Egypt
and their servants tending vines in the bleached sun.
Holland Dickson
Alto Pass, Illinois
3.
I am Minerva, a witch and sorceress;
when I was alive
children averted their eyes or mocked me.
My peers snickered.
Drunks made sport.
The elderly shook their heads.
I was the Medusa of Old Town Liquors,
with my dreadlocks matted together.
until sugar made me blind as Tiresias,
and turned my legs to stone.
The town never knew how my curses saved them;
without me the forest swallowed them whole.
Minerva Thomas
Carbondale, Illinois
4.
I wanted her to take my life in minutes
to drink me by the hours
and drain me until I was nothing but hers
to be sapped and then eradicated.
But days went by -- blinded with empty light.
She saw nothing but enemies
and turned to them in contempt.
She was pregnant
and did not want to be.
I thought of how I entered her
and came inside her.
The parasites would force their way out
writhing like worms from their clay
fighting and screaming devils.
It was not mine, it was not hers;
she held it, but it struggled
holding a face of empty expectation.
I said nothing, I did not shake,
I did not hide or run.
Instead I haunted myself
until death hunted me down.
Franklin McCormick
West Frankfort, Illinois
5.
Who was the kid who saw words dance in a book?
Who saw words dance in a book
about the limits of reason,
and didn’t understand what he was reading?
My mind was once a great kiosk
of all the people and songs and politics and drama
wheat-pasted like posters on curved walls
open in the center to a dome of heaven.
Anton Delgado
Carbondale, Illinois
6.
I always imagined the floodwall was made of bones
(walking here was like walking on Mercury).
I remember the summer cold fronts across the river
and how they chilled my sweat.
I remember writing “lol” in the dirt.
I was texting China with earth magic --
I imagined a vampire from Beijing would come.
He would make me immortal
and then we would kill all the motherfuckers.
He would present me with the heads of Christians --
I would curtsy like a fairytale princess
and place the heads on the spikes in my yard.
Dixie Collins
Mounds, Illinois