THE JOPLIN OPTION (POEM)

POEM BY LANCELOT SCHAUBERT
ILLUSTRATION BY AUSTIN SPENCER

Well if you climb up mountains
Store your gravel in a vat,
Then you’ll need to come to Joplin
Where we trod on gorgeous chat. 
For our chat is like the desert
But without that snowing sand
And it’s tall like Mt. McKinley
(But less racist and less grand). 
It’s the leavings from the minings
Where we left our fathers dead,
But less toxic than their corpses
Cause it’s only filled with lead. 

Oh and if you like Niagra
You will love our Great Big Falls
For Niagra’s fresh and flowy
And ours holds some Casterols.
Well I wouldn’t like to stand in it
Unless my feet need glass
And I wouldn’t like to sit on it
With where I pass my gas.
But it’s beautiful to look at 
And it’s smells of sea and fish,
Water rising every evening
From that copper, nickel wish
That you and all your buddies
Tossed as if in Trevi Fount
But your wishes all die with you 
Plus you’ve flushed your bank account.

We have so many restaraunts
That our restaraunts pick the bones
Of the restaraunts that ate restaraunts
Like a restaurant Game of Thrones
Like the time the Bearded Lady
And some other local Jones
Picked the leavings of the building
That we used to call Caldones

Unless you count the highway
Or monopolies of spark,
Unless you count the hillside
Kept by monks we call Ozárk,
Unless you count tornados, parks,
Our building-steeple chase,
We’re less about our landmarks.
We’re more a people place.