“thrtthr whthrrthms” by Maria Damon
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Abby Wendle
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Hear it first. Subscribe to This Land Radio in iTunes. Poetry is transforming this space. friendly
Abby Wendle
me and my best friend k.t. hurtled down chug holed roads in her green Gran Torino, racing almost as fast as our doped
Jeanetta Mish
*** At the market they never have what I need: sofke corn, dried pea hulls, canuche balls wrapped in
Stacy Pratt
The apricot my grandmother planted the day that I was born. She made me fried pies in her
Britton Gildersleeve
Spring The wallows are full. Egrets range on bison backs --- colors rise
Erin Glanville Brown
It’s one of those buildings that everyone has seen and many have noted, but hardly anyone can locate. Even those
T. Allen Culpepper
we’ve come all the way from Oklahoma for locals
Victoria McArtor
----I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1942. ----No, I wasn’t. I was born in Salem, Arkansas in 1942. I always say I
Joe Brainard
The explosions are always real. Small wheels turn tighter. These stark prairie towns keep the eyes and bones close
Laura Brandenburg
Pro-Black doesn’t mean anti-anything. El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) there are at least
Quraysh Ali Lansana
I always thought I would grow up to work in a Bookmobile. It'd be my job to drive the lumbering green bus through
Angelia Herrin
Guide the scalpel with milk-wrinkled hands fine-honed point tracing delicate veins. Gently peel back transparent
John Wooley
Luckily, She was there to take his order. Or he wouldn’t have gotten any coffee. Luckily, There was that
Eli Wright
Down at the music floor where they sell beer with plastic collars and gauges hide under mullets next to
Casie Trotter
One. Heart melts into ink. Burns in the Arctic eternal night. Melts snow to drips. One. Drip drips down
Nicklaus Faith
What is on the train rolling through my city so important the conductor sounds the whistle every other second from
Chad Reynolds
Something goes on here, the echo magic. We step over the spot and echoes bounce from our voices. The warehouse,
Ann Zoller
night club no time lighted juke box music, pockets of muffled chatter from expectant patrons scatter
Paul Austin
I am saying goodbye to my life. Throwing away books, teapots, pens. Saying farewell to my mother’s passport my
Britton Gildersleeve
On Interstate 35 north of Guthrie, driving through evening shadows I pass a rusting, stale green Chevy bouncing
Ken Hada
A famous architect just passed me. He wore a ponytail and turned the steering wheel with one hand. Maybe he was
Chad Reynolds
Lifted their bikes up- side down above their thousand heads and cheered locked the grid blocked the
John Brehm
Lifted their bikes up- side down above their thousand heads and cheered locked the grid blocked the
John Brehm
You are the cat most like I was as a girl with a soft coat, fine reflexes, fresh eyes. I sat on many porches,
Jane Vincent Taylor
Don’t think because I hid in the bathroom that I didn’t enjoy last night’s office party. I loved your red-ribbon
Tim Carter
In the valley the treetops are bandaged in a dirty gauze the fields lusty with flames set to startle another growing
Justin L. Bond
(About the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: It is not our failure to remember the past that dooms us to repeat it; it is our
Deborah J. Hunter
this is where the wind comes to a place where there are no longer plains to bolster the pioneer
Walt Kosty
“And where are you from?” The inevitable vacation question. And I want to say Not that Oklahoma, The one you
Xandra Kaste
Again I slid up over the horizon and the lights of Tulsa spread flat out before me. “Ah, there you are,” I
Ron Padgett
Again I slid up over the horizon and the lights of Tulsa spread flat out before me. “Ah, there you are,” I
Ron Padgett
dry Oklahoma burns from Ponca to Tulsa green tip pushes through stalk fingering down to shit and char lily hood
Grant Matthew Jenkins
Sometimes I google “art AND love,” and then I click on “Images” and scroll way, way down until I come
Nicole Callihan
The neighborhood dogs are barking again: a chain letter cha-cha-cha that begins blocks away and rolls through the
Markham Johnson
*** Me, Shrouded in green, white, and orange I wake up tossing up electric blankets in my single-bed
Declan Kiely
As we move yet one more step towards dust Desire fades and jealousy and
Warren Brown
Behind the backyard in red gold afternoon, shadows from the freeway wash against the side of forty-year-old homes
David Beebe
here are yr. five year old fingers plucking pecans in front of the trailer here is the lynch rope looming from your
Claire Collins
There was a time when I couldn't write a poem without my mother showing up in it. There she would
Nicole Callihan
A seagull on the moon is not lost, She is a student of lunar soils. A cookie in a salad is not lost, It is
Rob Roensch
As darkness descends, this time in-between, when stars are not yet lit, the moon lingering far away, I
Ken Hada
I wept into the sea; it did not overflow. (Buddhist meditation) Spread out over a great
Kyle Erickson
drink me, rain says it’s hard to swallow the whole world dry so drink me everything tastes better in Oklahoma
Jennie Lloyd
I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic and she said yes I asked her if it was okay to be short and she said
Kaylin Haught
Tulsa Okla. 10th April Mr. Henry Ford Detroit, Mich. Dear Sir. --- While I still have got breath in my
Scott Gregory
This poem was recorded by the Library of Congress at a migrant farmer’s camp in California in the late 1930s. Before
Roy Turner
Their two-ton Jimmy staggers now, rolls and wobbles on creaky springs, creeping over berms on a
Nick Norwood
By mechanics, lanes of yellow vanish into the bailer’s munching mouth, while out the other end, like some
Sandy Hiortdahl
somehow you became pixel became less dust and sky turned into newsfeed away from
Nicole Callihan
For Uncle Max Greed, I guess—my father answered me uncharacteristically critical of our ancestors, their
Ken Hada
In the woods, in the deep hole I dug, beneath the power cable and the roots of box elder trees, down among the
Gordon Grice
House of all day; house on the sea, of doors no one knew how to enter; house of small country and green, green land;
Karen Alayna Thimell
Since April is National Poetry Month, we’re pleased to run poems by a pair of younger writers who participated in the
Nick Weaver
The red fox flashes in the field, and the mind wants to stop it. Run the catalogue of what it knows, put a
Michael Madonick
For the houseboat in Amsterdam. The snake of blue through the city will wind without me turn to ice
Britton Gildersleeve
Mama dropped the needle and my heart jumped. It was fascinating, titillating, be-boppin’, foot stompin’, traffic
Deborah J. Hunter
as wages stagnate up store square feet sore from eight days a weak excuse for profit margins measure of time out
Melody Charles
As I puzzled over the position of Karma, a bony waitress at a roadside café swept up all my change and explained how
Caleb Puckett
oh, woe to the woeful, aloe to the alone, tissues for the tears, this bitch world on its knees, the danger of
Michael Wright
Pools of light illuminate the fine, faint under-painting: ghosts appear like a dirt road that ends in tall
Bill Turley
At five am, thick bundles litter the front porch of the highway patrol, while all the newspaper boys in South Tulsa
Markham Johnson
It is difficult to offer up our hearts like raw chicken on a hibachi grill often the chefs are not
Jennifer E. Hudgens
1983 A week before, I bought my first maternity gear at the Goodwill, a brown empire-waist polyester top with
Jeanetta Calhoun Mish
A path is worn smooth in the hardwood floor, heading out the front door. The window above the kitchen sink is cracked
Denis McGilvray
Others have book fests, opera and garden expos. We have gun shows. Ammo. Freedom and now more freedom: open
Jane Vincent Taylor
With tar still sludging our fingers from roofing jobs worked through the heat of day, with scratches down our
Benjamin Myers
Your hands on newspapers, your hands in your hair. Is your body yours to undress? Or is someone across town
Regina DiPerna
These new cool gangstas aint got nothing on the O.G.’s, The original G.’s, The Pistol packin, dynamite in petite
Keiyetta Guyon
Oil filters into fingertips and under my nails, stains my callouses, clothes, driveway. Now it’s five
Randall Weiss
Each time I painted nails Brilliant Blush, Sparkle Silver, I’d land in the bathroom. Larry the Ladle or
Amy Susan Wilson
Driving home tonight, I see Loretta Lynn on a casino billboard & take a left turn to
Benjamin Myers
Snow covered fields with ice hanging from limbs of trees. A doe came walking out from behind a cedar and
Michael Daugherty
The taste of red wine and dark chocolate Swirlin’ together inside my mouth is Like smoke escaping from the
Jenny Sullivan
The man in a yellow shirt behind me His head too close to mine above worn navy-blue faux-leather, above the
Shandhini Raidoo
POETRY AND THE NEWS by Scott Gregory 1. There’s a long poem by William Carlos Williams (from late in his
Scott Gregory
Today it’s a guy hawking prophecies on the 4 train. Strides into the car at the Brooklyn Bridge stop, white
John Brehm
& then gay marriage was legal in Oklahoma & it was renamed “Oklahomo” & cowboys went broke
Nick Weaver
We are the plastic children, flying toward the sun. We are the infirm rising through rooftops, we are the
Miss Terri Ford
A triumvirate of sad-eyed raccoons lounging on the roof of an apartment building in Stillwater benignly
T. Allen Culpepper
every evening after the six o’clock i ate dinner, something fast, sitting at the desk. eight tv screens, three
Quraysh Ali Lansana
Added a padlock to the fence, I am safe, nine different passwords, I am secure. New model with
Landry Harlan
Eldon Dykes’ father arrived on Sunday nonstop Greyhound bus from Oklahoma for a visit Next morning after
Wilma Elizabeth McDaniel
Rusted valves and pipes, sleeping gas lines, tables with saw blades rising to railway, vintage dust taking in streams
Bill Turley
Housebound in this town, love yellows. Stay, and watch the walls peel away from their ceilings. Look through this
Rochelle Hurt
you’re too much waist in time. you’ve been renting a room in the wrong house and your bill was late. you’re
Mia Wright
Some morning in late September he’d stumble in the diner ragged as a dandelion in a dust storm: ripped
Nick Norwood
White sun hangs just above the falls. You look upstream at cascading water immersed in sound, frozen by its
Ken Hada
The woman in the grocery store on Sunset stopped me in the produce, her claws about my shoulders, to bless me on
Lynn Melnick
Since April is National Poetry Month, we’re pleased to run poems by a pair of younger writers who participated in the
Bryonia Liggins
Your sweat falls in drops dotting the trail on a map, in a tour along the river, beside the irrigated
Frank Graham
That-which-regions is an abiding expanse which, gathering all, opens itself, so that in it openness is
David Bearden
see brady see brady now a ghost of tulsa’s flitting past wandering the old streets without aim ambition or
Walt Kosty
After thirty-four days of rain we wake to mallards navigating the back lawn and four survivor squirrels beached on
Markham Johnson
where the road descends steeply as it twists like gorgeous wreckage and there is always brightness like
Jeffrey Skemp
Where I come from, rain is the same thing as love, Falling rarely, and spoken about even less. Daddy tells me the
Preston Wells
(Written while listening to the Andrew Hill Quintet) The French horn strays, then joins with upside-down notes, the
Bill Turley
I punch you in the head. You fall down, unconscious but not quite dead. Thank you. It was
Jim Tolan
The last time, he was sitting on a stump in a cone of yellow light and cigarette smoke, and the bats
Markham Johnson
What does it mean, that the universe is growing larger, faster? Unlike my life, which seems to be slowing, even as it
Britton Gildersleeve
In 1958 or ’59 when I was sixteen I came up with the idea of replacing my parents’ back yard with a Japanese
Ron Padgett