Edgar Lee Masters

You died the same year
In which I was born
The place of death and life near
A city made famous by Whitman.

1950 was the year
Camden the shitty city.

You were one of the masters
Of your own time
(And on your own dime)
Which stopped for no man,
But paid you a visit as it did me
At two different ends
Of the cosmic spectrum.

A lawyer by trade
Given to tirade
With Clarence Darrow
Your partner.

Marital lapses
Made you human
Of time and eternity
You spoke and broke with.

Back to Spoon River
The ultimate flow of life
Brought you
Back from that nursing home
In Melrose Park PA
That you had no doubt
Been shuffled off to.

I'm just a dead man squalkin'
Out here a walkin'
Sister Helen Prejohn
Say a prayer for me someday
And carry me back
To my own Spoon River.