Below are five additional poems from our recent poetry jam on Twitter. I call these our Kansas phase. All prompts came from Kingdom Come: Poems by John Estes.

The Kingdom Comes III

By @llbarkat, @SandraHeskaKing, @gyoung9751, @jestes, @Doallas, @jejpoet, @CeliaNickel1, @togetherforgood, @PensieveRobin, @kellysauer, @sethhaines, @theeagleacademy, @mdgoodyear, and @elizabethesther. Edited by @gyoung9751.

I came to Kansas

I came to Kansas to do a job,
to find a home,
to sing a prairiesong ,
and fell asleep on the drive.
I expected Kansan flatness,
but it wasn’t there. It was
a flatness that rolled, and
moved like a wave, a wave
of grass and cornstalks tall.
I came to Kansas to stop
the plastic bags right
at the kitchen door.

There is no ricochet in Kansas;
the song plays forever,
ancient like the moon,
like the trees it has never seen.
Kansas leaves me
longing, for i am missing
the Oregon trees and
the Oregon woods. In Kansas
the innocent rivers dwindle
to streams of wheat.

The best way to Kansas

The best way into Kansas
I have found is by flying
the house out of Oz:
there’s no plane like home.
What if Dorothy couldn’t
live without plastic, without
fake red jeweled toes?
Her ruby slippers were really
orange, I saw them once
in real life back when I was a kid.

What if Toto barked at the latex
moon? Would there be a shortage
of gloves come morning? Or would
the little dog chase the bouncing
moon, the bouncing latex moon
to California, or chase the moon
to Oregon woods? Pull that latex
moon, measure its give and take.

Under a latex moon I thought
she called me polysemous.
I later found I was mistaken.
There’s no plane like home
except I roam. Kansas, don’t
feel lonesome.

It happens in Oz

Wheat streams golden while I dance
in glass slippers under the Ozzian moon,
a rubber moon, a contraceptive or a big
bouncy ball, if the moon were ever to fall.
Corn stalks pretend to be a yellow brick road
I step across cornstalks, I wade through wheat
in slippers of ruby, slippers of polished
cornstalks, ruby slippers with cornstalk tassels.
If you danced on a rubber moon in ruby slippers
would you be able to tap? Or would your dance
just be a bounce? Oz just doesn’t deliver what
it promises; it makes good on all claims.

Rubies matter, too

She wants to think that rubies matter,too,
and the latex and the windmills she saw
on an old blue dish. Orange latex makes
for good dishes, clean scrubbed, with Oz:
that’s what she wants to think. Crickets
sing as she dreams of rubies and slippers
made of green. Ruby slippers behind her,
she embraces their echoes running wild
through the poems of ancient trees.

Whither Toto?

Toto stepped sprightly
in those ruby slippers,
bounced all the way
to a latex moon, bouncing
in a stitching rain, bouncing
like wheat or corn. Toto
swings on tassels
passels of ruby days.
With a fork and a spoon
he swings on the moon
over the trees of Kansas.

Here are the next six poems taken from our recent TweetSpeak Poetry jam on Twitter. All the prompts were lines from Kingdom Come: Poems by John Estes.

The Kingdom Comes II

By @llbarkat, @SandraHeskaKing, @gyoung9751, @jestes, @Doallas, @jejpoet, @CeliaNickel1, @togetherforgood, @PensieveRobin, @kellysauer, @sethhaines, @theeagleacademy, @mdgoodyear, and @elizabethesther. Edited by @gyoung9751.

I sailed a galleon, a tree

I sailed a galleon upon the sea,
I sailed a galleon, once a tree.
The tree’s the bed we’ll go to nest;
Its ancient wisdom offers rest .

We shall rest under ancient trees
to ponder the echoes that rise
over time, like those same ancient trees,
winding wisdom instead of lies.

The tree is the bed; that’s what she said.
We sit in our tree-bed, reaching for nests
of glass; when the wings are just right
and just ready, we break the nest
like hatching chicks.

This timber cannot be mined for wood;
This tree cannot be hollowed to float.
I try to keep up with moss
that grows too quickly, clouds
that change into three ships sailing.

Mad men like fools

I look for mad men who, like fools
rave and read the river, follow its clues.
Some rivers smile, and some weep,
but the best of them laugh at feet,
clues clinging to toes until we itch
inside river-wet socks.

The rocks rise, bald caps before
the river’s blade carves time
in sandstone, molding sandstone
nests to hold the river. Canyon walls
swallow tears while trees float
down the laughing river

A river flows new every time.
A river laughs new every time.

Stitches

From stitched together stories
we weave a narrative. Stitches
and laughter bind up our wounds;
rivers of laughter bring healing.
Stitches, or itches, slide
between measured spaces
where the needle went down.
How do they tickle; how do we
laugh back? Oh and we laugh
and we laugh and we call it stitches.
We laugh until the pain pines away;
through the eye of the needle we pass.

The Northern Lights

The northern lights glow
like broken glow sticks;
the northern lights grow
like arainbow sky-glass.
We pass through
the northern lights.
We pass through.
Don’t peek between
the blinds, throw them
open, inhale the lights.
Oh don’t close the shade,
let the northern lights in,
let the northern lights come in.

Plastic we shape

Plastic we shape to fit our need:
the curve of an eye, the point of a nose.
Plastic is molded in stainless forms.
The potter molds the plastic, heats

and shapes the form of the rounded
hip of the sleek Cadillac. Infinity is

curved, and it may be plastic: mold me
with your plastic hand, and I will speak

nothing to the curve of your emptiness.
In your hand I take the shape of plastic.

Sharp is the edge of plastic bent and
broken, a shiv to finish the work.

Plastic cracks with laughter, splintering
percussion glass that never gets burned.

I hear the sound of plastic bursting,
plastic laughing, plastic melting.

If I water plastic seeds with plastic
water , will plastic sprout and grow?

The river’s voice

Faith finds me here, under a tree.
Along the river, I hear God.
Are we the camel then, finding
our faith not so rich as we thought
we might be? Is He laughing then,
with the river’s voice, asking us
to laugh along the river with Him?
He is speaking silently, wishing,
wanting for me to find Him.
I think perhaps He is a laughing
river and weeping waterfall
altogether laughing and weeping
with us.

This past Tueday, TweetSpeak Poetry hosted another poetry jam on Twitter. Fourteen intrepid souls participated, jamming to the prompts from Kingdom Come: Poems by John Estes. And the poet himself joined us, and at the end offered this observation: “The poetry-tweet-jam is a thing like no other. An exquisite corpse on ritalin. Nice invention.” We think that’s a compliment.

We posted our review of Kingdom Come here in May. In 2009, we reviewed his chapbook, Breakfast with Blake at the Lacoon. John’s web site is here. He is an assistant professor of English and driector of Creative Writing at Malone University in Ohio.

The first five poems edited from the jam are below. In honor of the poet and his new collection, we’re entitling this group of TweetSpeak poems “The Kingdom Comes.”

The Kingdom Comes I

By @llbarkat, @SandraHeskaKing, @gyoung9751, @jestes, @Doallas, @jejpoet, @CeliaNickel1, @togetherforgood, @PensieveRobin, @kellysauer, @sethhaines, @theeagleacademy, @mdgoodyear, and @elizabethesther. Edited by @gyoung9751.

If I Am Guilty

If I am guilty, let it be
with moss, never with
milk, not linen nor silk;
silk, like moss, appears
between the cracks of
innocence,
innocence with rain
innocence with woods
innocence with poets
and authors and love.

I love you by moss, in rain
beckoning like white stitches
against the grey, stitches
between layers of skin,
fastening tight, holding,
overrunning with stories
remembered no longer
the stories I write,
the stories of clouds,
white galleons sailing.

The Woods of Ancient Trees

The woods of ancient trees
are calling, beckoning;
the echoes of trees
are crying, sighing.
I am called by the tears
of the woods, come be
washed innocent.
My guilt drips like
Spanish Moss, a tangle
of ancient deceit.

I am full of deep clouds,
falling rain, climbing up
and up. I am grown heavy
with burdens, echoing deep
Can you stitch a tree?
What would it take, what
echo might it make?
Tears evaporate, become
the clouds grown heavy like
roots and underground rivers
coursing through canyoned walls,
washed with canyoned tears.

History Speaks Here

History speaks here; I hear it calling, carrying
words we dare not speak. Unspoken, sapped
of life, soured tastes, scoured from our mouths,
they fall heavy, tinder underfoot. Meant as
nevermores, they move away, trading
innocence for embarrassment

Laugh, laugh, wash all guilt away with sweet
cleansing laughter, with laughter and pain,
birth tears. I laughed at a river, once, and
the river laughed back. I didn’t know
the river smiled, staying true yet always
running away, meandering in woods.

I Hear Echoes Laughing

I hear echoes laughing, stitched
from nether parts,
I see galleons laughing, stitched
from rivers of roots,
I feel birches laughing, stitched
from roots of rivers.

There’s a galleon, and a canyon,
galleon ships on canyon shelves,
tilting tips toward sandstone waves,
galleon ships and canyon laughing,
echoing where the river used to be.
I can jump off into water or
jump down and fly.

A Child’s Quick Wit

A child’s quick wit
brings us to a close;
a child’s quick close
brings us to a wit.
A river’s a river,
So let’s drink tea.

In May, we reviewed Kingdom Come: Poems by John Estes here at TweetSpeak. He’s a fine poet, and we’re rather enthusiastic about his new collection.

John is doing a reading tour. If you happen to be in Colorado, Kansas or Nebraska, you might have an opportunity to hear him read from Kingdom Comes.

Here’s the schedule:

Estes Park, Colorado
with Matthew Cooperman and Aby Kaupang
Location: Estes Valley Library
Sponsored by Macdonald Books
Monday, June 27
7 p.m.

Leadville, Colorado
St. George Episcopal Concert Series
Tuesday, June 28
7 p.m.
Pages Bookshop
with Japanese Tea Service!

Newton, Kansas
Thursday, June 30
7 p.m.
The Bookworm

Omaha, Nebraska
Friday, July 1
6 p.m.

We checked on availability at Amazon, and it says “shipping in 2-4 weeks.” You can also order it from the publisher, C&R Press; through Small Press Distribution; or directly from John’s website.
____

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In 2009, we reviewed here a chapbook published by poet John Estes entitled Breakfast with Blake at the Lacoon. In the review we said that Estes effectively evoked a sense of both the literary and everyday reality. That same characteristic is true of his first collection of poems, Kingdom Come: Poems, published by CR Press, but even more so: Estes is refining his art, honing and polishing his poems to create a mirrored reflection of ourselves.

The poems are structured in four sections and an interlude: “in which love and art seek their measure;” ”in which he marries;” “in which a child is conceived and born;” the interlude called “Home Cosmographies;” and “in which they seek the measure of art and love.” This structure is important, suggesting both a circular movement and well as development and growth, a filling out of a life that is young and new and beginning to mature.

It’s fascinating to see how Estes combines images and even realities, using each to highlight and frame the other. In “A List of What is Found,” for example, he tells a story of traveling to Kansas to conduct an inventory of a bookstore, an inventory framed by an old train rail bed and which in turns frames what’s on the news:

A List of What Is Found

The old Burlington
Northern rail bed touches
the southern edge
of the yard
not a hundred feet
from where we’re staying—
a ghostly, trackless
river of gray gravel
embowered by cottonwood
and hedge, thickened
with pines and red cedar.
Our hosts tell us—
as two wrens zip around
rebuilding their
poorly placed
nest the Doberman
ate babies-and-all—
how an easterly wind would
blow the approaching
rumble off and so a throbbing
hulk of diesel engine
towing 100+ coal cars
could suddenly darken
their back deck,
a paracletic comfort
(in retrospect, at least)
abandoned for a bike trail.

I’ve come to Kansas
to do a job,
to inventory a store of books—
the endangered kind
housed in old Victorians
where light switches
hide behind Kierkegaard
and the bathroom is
a stockroom stockpiling
stacks of bargain-buy lectures
on Aquinas on Aristotle,
titles they account for
in years per turn
not turns per year—
which means forsaking books
to better address
the shelf-worn menace
of our bourgeois
contentment.
An old copy of Thoreau
sits on the stand
calling out alongside
other diluted (i.e., textual)
libidinal oppositions:
bloodless
and rational words
of institution
that mock a project’s
scope and scale
but safeguard a life,
so designed, of convention.

On the news:
in the desert outskirts
of an Iraqi town,
the so-called Triangle of Death,
a patrol is ambushed:
five dead—
3389, 3390, 3391, 3392, 3393—
three unaccounted for.
Our host descends
to remind us over 3000 die
worldwide each day
in car crashes.

Estes write from his own experience, and that experience is easily recognizable – the husband, the father, the handyman, the house repairman, the guy dealing hail damage to his roof and car or taking out an insurance policy on his child. In “This Poem is Carbon Neutral,” Estes addresses what it means to be a neighbor, suggesting a kind of trade-off akin to Frost and his “good friends make good neighbors:”

This Poem Is Carbon Neutral

Across the street they think
we’re eco-Kool-Aid drinkers: we sort glass and plastics
into blue bags, organics into clear ones, stuff
paper into paper sacks then treat
everything else like garbage.

But he thinks I’m a good neighbor,
and since we mend no fences I stop short of thinking
he’s like Frost’s old-stone savage
despite the Pall Malls
billowing with grandkids in the backseat,
windows up, despite the herbicide
and fungicide and fertilizer
liberally broadcast fall and spring. We wave
and shout news across the way though I suspect
he’s deaf.

Otherwise our lifeworlds
barely intersect, our privacies mutually assured
except for now and again
when an egg is borrowed, or if the wind litters
his greensward with my recycling—
a magazine blow-in card or a pitched draft
or a crumpled receipt.
Once they walked across to inspect
then carried back a worn-out bookshelf we’d discarded.

Now and again I pop their cat
with a pellet gun to chase him off our feeders.
But when the trash trucks come
each Monday,
doing their slow-maw grinding action-non-action thing
and one truck stops for him
and one truck stops for me, we offset,
we reset, we’re zero-sum.

Several of the poems were previously published in publications like Southern Review, Wallace Stevens Journal, American Poetry Journal, Dos Passos Review, New Delta Review and New Orleans Review, among several others, as well as from an earlier chapbook entitled Swerve, which was published as a National Chapbook Fellowship of the Poetry Society of America and C.K. Williams. Together, these poems form a deeply satisfying and outstanding collection.

The poems of Kingdom Come are polished, almost chiseled to refinement, painstakingly written to use exactly the right word, the right line, the right idea. Estes is clear about what he is doing; as he says in “Object Permanance,” “What’s a poem / for, anyway, if not to make the empty / spaces habitable?” And his poems make the empty spaces habitable, the empty spaces that are everyday life.

You can find John Estes’ web site here. He is an assistant professor of English and driector of Creative Writing at Malone University in Ohio.

I was at the University of Missouri bookstore in Columbia, looking through the poetry section. And I saw Breakfast with Blake at the Lacoon, with a rather plain cover and looking more like a pamphlet than a book. It was a collection of poems by a young poet named John Estes, who teaches at the university.

I opened it, and went to the second poem, one entitled “Prayer in the Study of Art.” It includes these lines:

In your writing of icons,
Where you in theory
No longer exist; in the face,
The image becomes a likeness
And color and shape graft
Us to forms worth following.

I bought the book. After reading it (twice), I’m glad I bought the book. He also has another short collection entitled Swerve, and a full-length collection entitled Kingdom Come that will be published in 2010.

Estes’ poems evoke a sense of the literary and a sense of everyday reality. He ranges from Virgil to a one-armed, drunken grandfather, from the art of Brueghel to a divorced man at a family barbeque. My favorite in this collection is the poem entitled “The last rites of Pavel Florensky,” a narrative of the death of the Russian theologian, inventor, philosopher and engineer in the Soviet Gulag in 1937.

Maybe while developing
some intercepted samizdat,
hovered around as purple
vapors betrayed him –
self-evident to his enemies
even in ink, ink cloaked
by an invisible hand –
the troika damned him
for those relatively obscure
sentences on the physics
of the kingdom of God,
or for positing an icon
recalls eternity where a poem
recalls times or worse –
for proving it with numbers.

Legend says that Florensky was condemned for refusing to disclose the hiding place of the head of St. Sergii Radonezhsky. No proof for that, of course, but it makes a good story. And a truly fine poem.

In his artist’s statement in Tusculum Review, Estes said this:

“What if Americans read more poetry? We might be less deceived, might treat ourselves and others with more kindness. Except for frauds and hucksters, who we’d more easily identify, and ridicule. The holy fool would again achieve social status.”

“The holy fool would again achieve social status.” I like that.