GAS Featured Poet: Richard Stimac

 Richard Stimac has published a poetry book Bricolage (Spartan Press), two poetry chapbooks, and one flash fiction chapbook. In his work, Richard explores time and memory through the landscape and humanscape of the St. Louis region.

Six Flags

 

There were six flags out front of Six Flags,

one for each nation-state’s claim of ownership.

 

Inside the gate (re-entry was free), mistrals sang

“Camptown Races.” None of them danced

 

on the concreate false cobblestone street

along a facade of 19^th century storefronts.

 

To the right, a pair of lawn jockeys stood picket

before the path to the miniature Model-Ts.

 

The Log Flume made everyone all wet

past carboard pine trees not yet clearcut.

 

The Mine Train thrust deep into the earth

for gold, coal, copper, what did it matter?

 

On the Buccaneer, all the pirates were dark,

as if the Barbary migrated to Bermuda.

 

A French log stockade fired cannon

at the River Boat. A canoe of Indians

 

crept from a blind, then retreated.

And then Injun Joe’s Cave, a tunnel

 

of love redone apropos Mark Twain.

That’s where the boys of Mary

 

Magdalene assaulted the girls. It was

enough to make Injun Joe blush.

 

He was quite a character. In a novel way,

we read the same stories today,

 

but, now, we are told they are true,

which makes them harder to believe.

Memory of America

 

My father’s body is the memory of America:

thin limbs; swollen belly; weak and resigned,

stored in an institution away from public sight.

 

My father’s body is unexploded munitions

buried in a farmer’s field. One day, a plow,

a tire, a foot will find it. We will not hear of that.

 

My father’s body is an artifact

only academics and clinicians probe

for secrets. They will publish their findings.

 

My father’s body is a documentary,

in many parts, shown consecutively.

Critics and viewers alike praise it.

 

My father’s body is a family photo album.

There he is, shirtless, in a bunker near Saigon.

Here my mother, with me, in Illinois.

 

My father’s body is a relic I contemplate.

He feels himself barely more than an object.

My father’s body is the memory of America.

 

(Memory of America won the following:

·       “The Memory of America” 2024 Deane Wagner Poetry Contest Winner, St. Louis Writer’s Guild)