Small town village news of births
weddings obituaries plea deals first
and last words photos of local life
decoded fumigated and anesthetized:
Christmas tree thefts ‘revisioning’ the
(damn) airport land & sea preservation
where (not) to put cellphone towers
commit Rover rage one more (or less) loutish
shindig celebrating modesty balloons carpeting
the (whole f----) ocean town meetings hemorrhaging
respectability — all those artists’ abstract dreams
(appetites) soaked in southwest light splashed
all over God’s (private) Garden Party. You know
what I mean: stories articles letters profiles
explaining how/why/what So-and-So said to
Never-Will-Be at the Benefit to End Pine Beetles
Who’s buying spite (wholesale) one Mast-Head
Guestword Gristmill Point of (Endless) View at a time.
Yes, the plain (godawful) truth about how (why)
the Supervisor of Righteous Outrage (really)
got elected the ex-ex-Mayor quoted Macbeth so often
who (purportedly) donated the Kiwanis’s bowling
charity the (real) reason West and East Miller Place
no longer speak high school cheating public housing
another parade documenting the history of yesterday
why nobody mourns the (historic) sorrow of windmills.
All that (clanging) enterprise of our settlement makers:
the Millers Bennetts Talmages Osbornes Reutershans
Round Swamp Lesters (Rattrays, most certainly)
relishing the dreams of fishermen farmers and teachers
enduring another day hour millennium of depressions
recessions world wars hurricanes and (of course)
pandemics. Yes, our watery phenomenon illuminated
editorialized and proofread into a rhapsody of hearsay
rumors court orders and D.W.I.s all the way out here
at the tip of America’s longest island. So okay, yes,
let’s stand and tip our hats to one more triumphant week
(please) of The East Hampton Star, indeed, thank you
and Amen!
Philip Schultz won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for his collection “Failure.” He lives in East Hampton.