Author Archives: stlouisisapoem

About stlouisisapoem

We live in this poem called St. Louis, a poem we're still writing. It's about history, and art, and politics, and business, buildings and streets, rich and poor, and food (of course), and all of the other things that make this city what it is and what it will become. We publish poems about St. Louis, and you're invited to contribute via the comments to posts (for now, until we get our communications organized). Send us a link or an email address, and we'll respond. Help us write the poem that is St. Louis.

I sit on Millionaire’s Row

I sit on Millionaire’s Row, what’s left of it, my German accent barely noticeable, the cries from parades of grief moving through my doors now calmed. I sit in a magnificent silence, the only sounds the chips of mortar chisels, … Continue reading

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More than a memory

Dewey defeated Truman here, or so the paper said, the one held up by a triumphant smile at the back of a rail car. Millions had blurred through in war-time urgency, not seeing a future of biking rails, not rail … Continue reading

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Symbol

In hot sunshine’s last gleaming it rests, this nod to the past, this hope to a future that didn’t happen except in imaginations, and dreams, but it sits nonetheless, a stately repose as its necklace of pods carry us upward … Continue reading

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Kerri Webster’s “Grand & Arsenal: Poems”

The intersection of Grand and Arsenal in the city of St. Louis is one part park, three parts commercial. Arsenal Street actually does a little zigzag as it crosses Grand and then runs the length of Tower Grove Park, which … Continue reading

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Feeding koi

Flashes, splashes of gold orange yellow white black punctuated by plaintive open mouths, jostling and competing for bits of compacted pellets (25 cents per serving) (what a deal) (even if of unknown nutritional value) delighting both a child and the … Continue reading

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Interstate 44

Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina has a post today entitled “The Death of Central St. Louis.” It’s well worth reading; it looks at the stretch of the City of St. Louis between Interstates 64/40 and 44between Lafayette Square and … Continue reading

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St. Augustine

It is a rock upon which he built his church and this rock you hear me of brown brick and towers and turrets distinctly Romanesque constructed when church buildings were made to look like Mt. Sinai of the hood afloat … Continue reading

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The Cathedral of St. Louis

It faces east, this stadium, this cathedral where Cardinal Nation worships. It faces east not because of Mecca or Jerusalem but because of New York and Philadelphia and Boston and all the other great and original cathedrals where Nations worship. … Continue reading

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Tuesday in the Rain

Early morning but still night, thick laden clouds blocking any vestige of first sunrise, and the drops pour on Forest Park. It’s 6:42 a.m., and the rain erases lane dividers on Skinker Boulevard, transforming the street into a river of … Continue reading

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When Cities Still Dreamed

Erected in an explosion of growth and opportunity, it was Neo-Gothic optimism announcing itself, if not its host, to the world. Steam and diesel propelled and pushed and pulled millions through its platforms and gates, a paroxysm of humanity eating … Continue reading

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