Death of the Civic-Minded Man

By Dawne P Leiker

Death of the Civic-Minded Man explores the life and death of a civic-minded man and the social construct of "civic-mindedness" that is fading from our modern lexicon. The poems follow the 1975 murder of R.E. Ekey, a prominent western Kansas resident, the escalation of crime in the 1970s and how the unra

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dawne Leiker
• Release date: Jun 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9781088033425

Book preview

Death of the Civic-Minded Man

Death of the Civic-Minded Man

Death of the Civic-Minded Man

Dawne Leiker

Dawne Leiker

Contents

1 Icky Park

2 Death of the Civic-Minded Man

3 Why that Park?

4 Peggy Describes the Murder

5 When I asked Brittney, the Millennial, is the Civic-Minded Man Dead?

6 The Tussle that Ended with a Body on a Stretcher

7 The Chaplain

8 First Week on the Job

9 Photographs

10 Evening News

11 Letter Never Written

12 Walk Me Home

13 Manna

14 Rule of Order

About The Author

1

Icky Park

My son said he wanted to play at Icky Park.

You know, he said. "The one

with the crack in it."

I drove him past every park in town.

Hickok. Seven Hills. Massey. Kiwanis.

No, he shook his head. "That’s Iguanas Park."

We pulled up to Ekey Park, just south

of Chetollah Creek.

He ran for the swings.

Trailing behind, I laughed.

"It’s