Welcome to Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours showcases poems by northern Illinois poets. Today we feature Jon McGinty.
McGinty, 79, lives on a 40-acre farm near Pecatonica, Illinois with his wife Kathy. He describes himself as a “recovering elementary schoolteacher,” although he retired from that profession more than 36 years ago. Since then, he has established a second career as a writer/photographer, and currently writes feature articles for Northwest Quarterly Magazine. Occasionally he writes poems.
One of the poems he penned is called “Housefire.” In this poem, he plays around with words by stringing some of them together.
Gleaming yellowchrome pumper parkangles
Across shiny strobewet street
Dirty canvashose tentacles throb from
Yellow hydrant into firefighter arms
That struggleaim whitewater stream
Onto weatlherwhite siding as
Orangetongues lick inkyblack smokeclouds
Noisy steam erupts into charscatters
Onto soggy lawn below
Heavy footsteps within accompany
Woodcrack glass-shatter sounds of
Fireaxe seeking hidden sparks
Anxiousfaced neighborcrowd surrounds
Busy spectacle from curbside corners
Buzzing with witnesswords
Oneup herefirst sawmost gossip
Couldhavebeen worse
Couldhavebeen us talk
Two tearstained kidfaces emerge from ambulance
Push through strangercrowd
Terroreyes seeking momsafety hugs
Livecamera makeupmedia jockey for
Videoangle interviews
Fully involved suspicious origin
Total loss
Blackclad firefighter removes heavyhat canvascoat
Revealing redsuspender moustache
Kneels into hosecoupling leakstream
Bathing curlymat sweatbrow in
Forgiving cool
Upstairs window shatterscatters outward
Spilling family lifestuff for strangereyes
Charred blanket broken bookcase
Splashtump onto mudyard
Tennnisshoe puddlesplashes into gutterstream
Waterfloats slowly to sewercorner
And is gone
- Yvonne Boose is a current corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project. It's a national service program that places talented journalists in local newsrooms like WNIJ. You can learn more about Report for America at wnij.org.
