1st Prize Poem

FIRST PRIZE: DAVID R CRAVENS

Violence in Old Sainte Geneviève

when Kickapoo mercenaries captured an Osage
and burned him at the stake
the Osage would often sing to his captors
telling them as he died
that the fire was not hot enough for his liking

in seventeen seventy-three these same Osage
rode on Ste Gen
(in their black and orange bluff-paint)
and as they cut one villager from the running crowd
a warrior of the Bear gens unsheathed his knife
and pretended to scalp the man

but when the man screamed in terror
the warrior slit his throat
and he was left to lie where he fell –-
for no honorable warrior wished such a man’s scalp
to adorn his spear

the following century
Auguste De Mun insulted William McCarthur
(both candidates for the House of Representatives)
they met at the Ste Gen courthouse
one going up the steps, the other coming down
both fired their pistols

no police reports filed, no charges pressed

the century after that and just down Merchant Street
I fought two men in front of  The Orris

but that was still the old days
before pent-up anger burst forth
in mass school-shootings
like the mighty river that ruptured the levee
(that very same year)
and nearly destroyed the entire village

I stumbled to my truck with a broken bloody nose
cracked ribs and mild concussion
but I made it home and slept it off

I like to think the Osage would have taken my scalp