Shamrocks and Sagebrush

Milton Jordan

April 6, 2025

Out south where Main narrowed onto Gulf prairie,

at that time well beyond development’s reach, 

he built a monument to himself, eighteen floors 

sheathed in limestone, replaced the prairie grass 

with lavish landscaping surrounding the world’s 

most spacious pool and a crescent of cabanas

available to limited clientele; 

no amount of warning from downtown interests 

nor his own accountants preventing

his spending too many of those dollars

now gushing up from his Gulf coast leases

to fill, for a time, his pockets and his ego.

Many years removed and more miles farther west

two of his successors, each dreaming himself 

a modern day Jett Rink. harvested 

gushers of their own, pumped a few pools 

of that harvest into the pockets 

of purchased politicians enabling 

their monuments sheathed with a thin religious

facade to cover selfish intentions, 

set about deconstructing public

education by claiming parental choice

and reaping the windfall public funds  

state issued vouchers would provide.

Milton Jordan lives with Anne in Georgetown, Texas. He co-edited the first Texas Poetry Assignment anthology, Lone Star Poetry, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2022.