Nebraska by WILLIAM WALLIS

Those years mowing dry yards in west Lincoln Left crabgrass memories, a clutching hatred Of sharp white fences and shrill narrow gates, Of thrifty chats hinting at sandy mouths. Flat land spreads guilt thin, as summer’s sluggish Thigh drifts listless on the soil’s loose sheets. Intensity and glow fade from the pale child’s Dusty piping for a sense of place. Nebraskaland is bruised with fields of sand, Its culture worn cropless by dull lust. A nation’s oldest dream fades in the hands of Fourth generation mechanics of the earth’s crust. Still, the child can see the horizon rear, Crust with cloud jewels, rain blood and fear.

From “Four Valley Poets” (Stone & Scott, Publishers, Sherman Oaks, Calif.: $10.95; 117 pp.). The poets represented in this volume are: Midwest-born, Los Angeles-reared Michael Marth, founder of the workshop Eternally Poets Society; British-born Angeleno Terence Martin, a musician and English teacher at Valley College; transplanted New Yorker A. C. L. Stanton, and William Wallis, teacher of English and humanities at Valley College, whose libretto, “Hanblecheya,” was set to music by Richard Moore and performed for the U.S. Bicentennial. copyright 1990, Stone & Scott, Publishers. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.