Peter O'Leary's review of fellow Minnesotan Gabriel Gudding's Rhode Island Notebook.

I have a strange deja-vu, reading this, & am reminded of a poem I wrote in 1968, which was published in the Blake School (my high school) literary magazine, Talisman (1969 issue) :

GOING SOUTH ON U.S. 61

 
rusted rails running to
Moose Lake, Bruno, Willow Creek
North Branch, Stacy, Forest Lake.
white farmhouse wanders by among
clusters of contraptions -
a dirty once blue pick-up sits
on concrete blocks
a crazy useless tractor, one wheel
sunk in spring mud
a wind vane creaks on a pole.
the brown once red barn
slides sloping into earth again.
restless freeway runs between
Moose Lake, Bruno, Willow Creek
North Branch, Stacy, Forest Lake.
where screaming metal screams past
screaming glass, and billboards flash
sun-scorched, unread scrawls.
dairy queens stretch their spray-paint
crowns across the road, one last try
before they die in the darkness behind.
telephone poles crash bravely through
the barrier, and men in blue shirts dig holes.
the stop lights are always green
and the towns
Moose Lake, Bruno, Willow Creek
North Branch, Stacy, Forest Lake
speed by without breathing
brown brick
Joe's Bar B-Q
gray grain elevator
then gone, flashing dull.
when they have gone, 
only the gray, billboarded, roadsigned
tongue remains -
always running, running to another
Moose Lake, Bruno, Willow Creek
North Branch, Stacy, Forest Lake.