by Terry Brix
Checked out Belcherville, TX trash embedded
In the weeds, plastic bags shredded by wind & sand
Like a reputation torn with foul words, cleaver lies.
Beer cans, Burma Shave signs, old store fronts
Sprouting fractured broken glass & tired dreams,
Red River in the distance--memories of the old West.
Glasgow, MT Air Force left the base two decades ago,
Only thing landing & taking off are tumbleweeds.
Base a ghost town, Glasgow town drying up so fast
Mud cracks, cakes & curls mute lips to utter silent
Words that end in leave, gone, bye, lost, dead.
These can be heard by people that have died or left.
Vici, OK near the Oklahoma panhandle
The only life being drawn from two miles down.
Brine 200 million year old seawater with a pinch
Of iodine that drives the town economy so poor
Otherwise streets & ramshackle buildings leaning
On each other like dying soldiers after battle.
Blue River, OR a former gold & old growth timber
Town plus the Cougar Dam reservoir in the 1930s.
Last café closed, liquor store gone, acres of old mill
Barracks burned & bankrupted. Local school,
Highway 126 skirts past the town
Like a jugular artery bypassing the brain.
Small rural town diagnosis—terminal.
Terry Brix travels worldwide for his business as a “green” chemical engineer. A collection of his poetry Chiseled from the Heart was published in 2000 by Vigeland Museum, Norway. His poetry has appeared in The Evansville Review, Fireweed, Exit 13, Curbside Review, Small Brushes, Blueline, Bellowing Ark, Liberty Hill Poetry Review, Main Channel Voices, and The Antioch Review.
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