Mid-Summer Magic Showcase

[Tracy Mitchell]

[Tracy Mitchell]

.

Mid-August in Dakota

I am a king or a queen.
I ride waves of brome like
a ladybug among the aphids.

Voices without bodies
fill my path
crowd me toward the edges

where seeds with parachutes
drift by
calling me by name.

My new auras
tilt with tides

my lips open to the sea in prayer
a prayer to be buried 
in a sea of wheat.



 

[Colm Roe]

Pure magic Tracy...love it!

[Tim J Brennan]

@Tracy: Your last poem reminded me of Mercurtio and the Queen Mab speech.

[indar]

Late Summer Pilgrimage 

to the land of Once-a-Year
where food dances in formation,
deep fried,
upright on sticks, down Judson
from Horticulture
to the cow barn.

Grease molecules displace oxygen.

The vortex whirls at snails pace
40 degrees within a hexagon
surrounded by a million eyes
filled with suffering
in 90 degree heat
I, in 20 below test
winter gear and rainwear
accompanied by the royalty
of this domain, I occupy the very center,
live twelve days in alternate reality.

Farewell till after Labor Day.

PS this is an inside poem perhaps only a few will understand


 

[Tracy Mitchell]

If you are out of here, Indar, I need to get this response poem posted quick-like, and with no time for revisioning, polishing, or fixing-upping, here it be:    



 Cheers, and Hats Off to You, Indar

Through the Loop Gate off Como - 
hang a right. Scalped tickets are always 
genuine here, directions are accurate. 

Pagans as far as the eye can see.  
Heads on sticks - walleye, pig, corn.  
Sweet Martha’s cookies come in buckets.

Sweating crowds will part as the parade elbows 
through the sweat-slippery, electric end of summer.

If you get to Space Tower you’ve gone 
too far – but take it anyway.  The ascent 
is almost a spiritual feeling, a rise 
above the sweaty thousands and 
the pervasive scent of horse urine.

On a clear day you can see 21 miles in
each direction, Twin Cities history below, 
and all the way to 1971, a rookie carver 
striding toward destiny.

Now polka-step back past the politician
tents, past flannel shirts and free water, 
and the welcoming good neighbors 
to the northwest broadcast booth.

Back, between the go-carts and the Haunted
House, situated as religious shrine of
The Industry - the Dairy Building, on
into the holy inner sanctum, revolution agast:

New womanhood in ski jackets– heirs 
of the Big Woods, skin like milk,
to be memorialized until they melt – 

anxious, they open, bubbling in turns, 
align naturally in elite concentric pairings 
with certified Grade A New Ulm butter blocks.

And these 90 lb butter blocks, these 11 would-be 
Princess Kays, these five hundred cumulative
Minnesota Wonders, the tens of thousands of on-lookers,
these flannel shirts, these paraders, these good neighbors, 
these pagans with heads on sticks --

These and everything else real, and 
everything else daring to be sculpted toward real,
for twelve days of magic, all that makes summer magic
revolve around you, Sweetheart, the glowing, laughing
smiling, knife-wielding center of it all. 

 

[indar]

Tracy,

My years at the fair are numbered and I'm starting to feel a sense of loss already. Your poem kind of choked me up. From the very bottom of my heart--thank you.

Oh, fabulously written as well. Please don't change a thing.

 

[Tracy Mitchell]

If my math is right, this is your 47th year?  Have you done a daughter of a candidate?

You are truly a legend.  

[indar]

I have done 7 members of one dairy farm family including a mother/daughter combination. Two of them married in and brought their butter heads with. Most still reside in family freezers distributed around the state.

[Tom]

A unique and inspiring legacy, L.  

Sinatra can take a backseat to you, with the I Did It My Way  

sure wish I could make it back this year, but alas.

Maybe next.

Have a wonderful fortnight.

Cheers from all of us.