Sunday, October 11, 2009

Two Poems by former Quad City Poet Laureate Dick Stahl

Hello!  Today we are very fortuante to have two poems from the first Quad City Poet Laureate Dick Stahl.  Dick has long been a prominent poet in the QC area and we are thrilled to have him participate in this project.  Here's what he had to say about his contributions:

I chose "Cities & Memory" because I learned Davenport in the late 1940s and most of the 50s by going with my dad on his milk route every day in the summer and on Saturdays the rest of the year. I still remember his customers on parts of this route and many of the interesting people along the way.

Thannks very much again to Mr. Stahl for his contribution to this project & to the poetry/writing scene throughout his lifetime.  Enjoy!  Comment!  Share this link with friends! 


City Excursion



Davenport is not the grand Mississippi River,
not her star-studded troughs
of sun stipples, her slow, lazy roll of sleepy
winks, her reaching foamy fingers
of slapping waves
against the seawall in Le Claire Park, her eddies
that turn everything
around like feverish, dancing
dervishes, her five mile-per-hour speed chase
on the waterway, her silver streak
of Rapids' water that assays the boom
of the mother lode of rivers,
her East-to-West flow
that resets all compasses or her spring rise like a goddess
that calls all souls to their knees.


So watch your step
when you board the Pipe Dream
docked here. The waters beneath its deck
charm like none other. Their spells
splash with fantastic spirits.
You won't recognize the heaven-gazing spires,
bank clock, crowded streets,
sloping, brick levee and band shell
from your deck chair.
You won't even recognize yourself
after this excursion
on fabled waters. Discover something
of his river, and you'll discover something more
about this grand city
you call home.



Learning Davenport by Route

for Victor and George
names of my grandfather's milk
wagon team of horses


"What's Tuesday's next milk stop?"
my mother asked her father on the wagon. "Don't ask me,
ask them!" he responded, pointing
to Victor and George.


His team knew the daily stops
like they knew the way
to the barn. Blinders did not stop them
from stopping at all paying customers from Waverly Road
east along West Locust Street past the Fairgrounds
to Five-Points.


Nicknamed "Half Pint," I learned my father's Waage's Dairy
route for Tuesday. Dempsey Hotel, Colorado Cafe, Bishops
and Times Cafeteria, then the Second Street strip:
Kresge's, Woolworth's, Schlegel's and Grant's.


While he worked the five-and-dime stores,
I shared my morning with the great Mississippi River.
Leaning against the black railing in Le Claire Park,
I shared my breakfast, a half pint
of fresh chocolate milk,
with the silver power of sun-sparkling waters.


By 10 A.M., we returned to the Colorado Cafe
and headed west on Rockingham Road
to the Double Y Dairy. Then to Rolff Street
and a peak at Rubin Bobo's chimney, a perpetual-motion machine
built in the 1920s near the river and abandoned
when it didn't work. Not a milk stop, but a milestone,
my father said, to man's eternal quest
"to get something for nothing."


With a little horse sense, a high-riding, never-ending river
of fierce undertow and a tall, fireless chimney,
I got something for nothing. I learned a city.
I learned Davenport by route.

 
BIO:  Dick Stahl taught English for 34 and a half years at Davenport Central High School (his alma mater), retiring in 2001. His three books of poetry include After the Milk Route (1988) and Under the Green Tree Hotel (1996), both published by Augustana College’s East Hall Press. Mr. Farnam's Guests, my latest book, was published in 2004 by the Midwest Writing Center. From September 2001 to September 2003, he served as the Quad City Arts' first Poet Laureate.

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