Tallmadge Circle Spoken Spokes

Tallmadge High graduating spoken words,
Spin around and around a moving traffic circle,
Wherein from every direction they will depart
From the spinning HeArt of Ohio, as graduates
Tackling the world with Benjamin Tallmadge insight.

Tallmadge Circle has revolved and evolved in change,
But some things remain Tallmadge Circle historic.
Like a 1911 school dwelling on North Avenue
The Church with the tall steeple that stands so proud,
As testament to the Connecticut Western Reserve.

So many times cursed for its congestion,
But loved for its inner circle vegetation.
How many times does one traverse the Circle
As Tallmadge Students seeking knowledge
Every year graduating from these spokes.

This Ole Ben poet did depart in sixty six,
A Young man feeling the Draft of Vietnam
That from a West Avenue up Tallmadge Hill
A father dropped a son off in flowing tears,
Soon from Akron to Cleveland onto San Antonio.

Path from Basic Training to Biloxi, onto a Vietnam Theater,
A Theater that some Tallmadge grads did not make it home,
But arrived flag draped to hear the TAPS in a Tallmadge salute,
Others came back home with a gap void inside a soul,
Driving around and around a Tallmadge Circle with tears.

Coming home, you will find Tallmadge Circle the same,
Except it is now a museum piece of those past memories.
That one remembers fondly those spins around Lujan’s
And onto that A&W Root Beer stand of shiny muscle cars,
When all too soon, we depart, and its fades in nostalgia.

Been many a year writing about an American Dream,
But the spokes of Tallmadge, dew seam, to awaken Poetry
Wherein the verse it revolves around and around smiles.
That one wishes, they could take, a trip around The Circle,
From Time to Time wandering a spoke to a Six Point 
Decision upon paths less taken stanza sprouting buds.

Does one remember:
West Avenues Soap Box Tallmadge Hill,
A Northwest Tallmadge Spring swimming hole,
A South Ave cemetery of Memorial Day band marches
Going North to Tallmadge Central Junior High, now gone,
East to the old Tallmadge High School graduation,
That Southwest funeral home for my parents,
Southeast Tallmadge Post office and Henry Bierce,
Northeast to Carter’s Black Angus and Kent State.

Spin me a tale that weathered this Tallmadge Poet
Into a hundred dollar image of America’s circling past.
How Tallmadge graduates would spin the written spoke
Around the world roulette in spoken spoke stories
That started long ago upon a Tallmadge High graduation.

Rolling terrain of Tallmadge does expands minds
That what was Tallmadge, now North Akron,
What was Brimfield, now part of Tallmadge proper.
That Lujans, one hears lays deserted of desserts -
Remember that strawberry pie piled high in whipped Crème
That Crème de la Crème swept sweet in swollen eyes graduations.

Been fifty years since a Tallmadge High Blue Devil diploma,
Upon next year’s June spring of 2016 High School grads,
Where fifty years from then, with this poet in the ground
Another Tallmadge Poet will stand testament to time
That the Class of 2016 rhyme will write the word spokes
That revolve around a Tallmadge Circle
In the HeArtMosphere as Tallmadge – Ohio Grads.

DLY 09/09/15