—Poetry by Don Kingfisher Campbell, Alhambra, CA
—Photos Courtesy of Public Domain
Electrified man screams he can't leave his little house
My brain is surrounded by a fence
My mind is a lion god worshipping a bed of roses
My soul is a cat sitting on a windowsill watching leaves dance
My eyes have been wishing they could climb branches by themselves for decades
My mouth is a troubled door opening wide for a blast of stones
My belly is a flying saucer ready to fly high above the clouds
My penis is an aloe vera plant that transforms into a palm tree
My legs are afraid of becoming pudgy gnomes
My feet are beer cans tossed through the gate of the future
My brain is surrounded by a fence
My mind is a lion god worshipping a bed of roses
My soul is a cat sitting on a windowsill watching leaves dance
My eyes have been wishing they could climb branches by themselves for decades
My mouth is a troubled door opening wide for a blast of stones
My belly is a flying saucer ready to fly high above the clouds
My penis is an aloe vera plant that transforms into a palm tree
My legs are afraid of becoming pudgy gnomes
My feet are beer cans tossed through the gate of the future
Impressions of September LV
Shiny skyscraping hotels line the I-15
Casino-themed car-filled boulevards
Tanned homeless slumping along sidewalks
110-degree heat thickens the cloudless air
Mattresses left curbside in front of too many houses
Cultural businesses just like any other city
Palm trees and pools seen outside tower-room windows
Post-pandemic non-emptiness in smoky gambling halls
Man-made entertainment volcano blasts night fire
Balding retired men escort their women to $100-a-ticket shows
Neighborhoods of stuccoed homes in named clusters
The whole desert valley ringed by highways
Shiny skyscraping hotels line the I-15
Casino-themed car-filled boulevards
Tanned homeless slumping along sidewalks
110-degree heat thickens the cloudless air
Mattresses left curbside in front of too many houses
Cultural businesses just like any other city
Palm trees and pools seen outside tower-room windows
Post-pandemic non-emptiness in smoky gambling halls
Man-made entertainment volcano blasts night fire
Balding retired men escort their women to $100-a-ticket shows
Neighborhoods of stuccoed homes in named clusters
The whole desert valley ringed by highways
You and Me
You like to see me
wearing basketball shorts
I look at you and enjoy curvy
stripes across your chest
But we are really painting
a domestic banner together
Me, sitting on a sofa
papers strewn about us
There is even a white plastic
trash can, for target practice
In my heart, I want to create
a poem that is a poster of two
Moments when we watch
leaves dance outside the blinds
In our dining room with
a Chinese calendar next
to a psychedelic tapestry
And you like to cut napkins
in half while I blow my nose
I guess this will be a notebook
page of the daily times we share
We both like to drink from hot
mugs, you coffee and me tea
You like to see me
wearing basketball shorts
I look at you and enjoy curvy
stripes across your chest
But we are really painting
a domestic banner together
Me, sitting on a sofa
papers strewn about us
There is even a white plastic
trash can, for target practice
In my heart, I want to create
a poem that is a poster of two
Moments when we watch
leaves dance outside the blinds
In our dining room with
a Chinese calendar next
to a psychedelic tapestry
And you like to cut napkins
in half while I blow my nose
I guess this will be a notebook
page of the daily times we share
We both like to drink from hot
mugs, you coffee and me tea
Tulare Trek
Driving past golden hills
Then through the great agricultural valley
Smelling garlic and cows
Arrive at the city with two main streets
Every chain is there to choose from
First it's lunch Raising Canes
Check out dd's discounts, Dollar Tree, 99¢ Store, CVS
Followed by Blaze Pizza dinner
Back to the 200-square-foot square motel room
To watch some flat-screen basketball
While charging the phones
Occasional voices outside the closed draped window
My wife giggles at a rubber pillow from Thailand video
I'm ready to endure a night in a white double bed
With my sweetie by my side providing leg-on-leg warmth
Driving past golden hills
Then through the great agricultural valley
Smelling garlic and cows
Arrive at the city with two main streets
Every chain is there to choose from
First it's lunch Raising Canes
Check out dd's discounts, Dollar Tree, 99¢ Store, CVS
Followed by Blaze Pizza dinner
Back to the 200-square-foot square motel room
To watch some flat-screen basketball
While charging the phones
Occasional voices outside the closed draped window
My wife giggles at a rubber pillow from Thailand video
I'm ready to endure a night in a white double bed
With my sweetie by my side providing leg-on-leg warmth
Some Things to Do on This Planet
After a sunny afternoon spent indoors critiquing poetry on Zoom with friends
My wife and I go to the thrift store to look for bookcases
but she finds coffee or tea cups with matching saucers blue striped half price
Then back home I enjoy a salad made by my life partner
Finally relax selecting music to listen to and post on Facebook
Done with that I stroll over to the bathroom to pee
Switch on the light, look into the toilet
I see a tiny dark floater
Must have been left behind by you-know-who
There's even a crumpled ball of tissue beside it
Wait a second, this ain’t poop
Isn't that really a triangle on the surface
with two antennae twitching
It's a moth, soaked and suffering
I piss all over the little lake,
aiming for more indignity for the errant intruder and flush
An unpleasant way to end this stinking poem
After a sunny afternoon spent indoors critiquing poetry on Zoom with friends
My wife and I go to the thrift store to look for bookcases
but she finds coffee or tea cups with matching saucers blue striped half price
Then back home I enjoy a salad made by my life partner
Finally relax selecting music to listen to and post on Facebook
Done with that I stroll over to the bathroom to pee
Switch on the light, look into the toilet
I see a tiny dark floater
Must have been left behind by you-know-who
There's even a crumpled ball of tissue beside it
Wait a second, this ain’t poop
Isn't that really a triangle on the surface
with two antennae twitching
It's a moth, soaked and suffering
I piss all over the little lake,
aiming for more indignity for the errant intruder and flush
An unpleasant way to end this stinking poem
Sequoia Sojourn
Gas up, hop on the freeway
Watch farmland become groves
Trees growing taller as the road winds
Feels like driving a sailboat through choppy waters
Signs declare narrow bridges, switchbacks, recent fires
An hour later reach the last space
In the closest parking and walk
Spot redwoods here and there increase in size
Down to the largest tree on Earth
Stranger couples take cellphone shots for each other
Stroll and find a double tree, a triple arbor
Look at the rings of a fallen giant
Thousands of years longer than a human life
Huff on stone steps back to the car
Sit on halved wood benches on the way
Then unwind the maze to return
Past homey hotels and restaurants
Homes with streams in their backyards
Arrive at the city to stay the night
Tomorrow morning retrace the highway home
Still Life
On one edge of the dining table,
a clear plastic gallon bottle of
purified drinking water is flanked
by two somewhat unevenly used
cardboard paper towel tubes.
One is to the inside left, the other
right, looking like two supplementary
fuel tanks for an Artemis booster rocket.
When observed from directly above,
the combination kind of appears to be
like a dog's face, with the two tubes
as eyes, the bottle cap a nose, and
its handle the jowls and mouth.
I imagine it barking out, woof!
Day after day the bottle is slowly
being emptied, the towel sheets
torn off one by one, until eventually
the empty cylinders are tossed into
a white plastic recycling bucket.
Just need to replace both
to create table art again.
She is a firework in my life
She makes my heart go boom
My breaths fall away like dominoes
My body wants to get on her bicycle
And ride, ride, ride until my mind
Until her mind says the train
Our train is coming to the station
And I hug security and comfort
We have become family I plan
We plan our day and then we act
Shower dress breakfast brush exit
Into the optimistic world that is ours
And I pray we'll have decades we
Knowing our forms age as we go
Forward into unforeseeable future
She makes my heart go boom
My breaths fall away like dominoes
My body wants to get on her bicycle
And ride, ride, ride until my mind
Until her mind says the train
Our train is coming to the station
And I hug security and comfort
We have become family I plan
We plan our day and then we act
Shower dress breakfast brush exit
Into the optimistic world that is ours
And I pray we'll have decades we
Knowing our forms age as we go
Forward into unforeseeable future
It's All Too Much
A universe littered with galaxies beyond my imagination
Every spiral stretching outward festooned of stars
Each sun sporting some planets, moons and asteroids
This sphere always covered by untold clouds
Oceans alive since evolution evolved here
Thousands upon thousands of whales, sharks, and fish cruising currents
Shores infested in the billions because trees grow and humans manifest
Beings briefly bringing forth into being millions of buildings and books
Made merrier making music and art and children
A ground even more populated around a quadrillion animals and insects
Enough food and flowers to delight all those eyes and noses and mouths
Burgeoning brains recreate creating electric visions and revisions
I'm just a pixel in a pixel in a pixel in a pixel
Part of the whole shebang breathing in and out
Cosmic light went on, someday I am shut off
To be recycled as the planet pleases until it ceases
Also repurposed multiversally for unknowable time
Does God have a new design planned in the possibly etch-a-sketch future
_________________
Today’s LittleNip:
Dew drops on a dead leaf
—Don Campbell
The giant goes for a walk
under the blazing sun
The behemoth steps and steps
on long concrete sidewalk
A small insect traverses the
width of a rectangle just ahead
One gargantuan sandial darkens
the sky above the bug only briefly
It was the last thing it ever felt,
a mindless accident of location
_________________
Don Kingfisher Campbell, MFA from Antioch University L.A., taught at Occidental College Upward Bound for 36 years, has been poetry editor of the Angel City Review, publisher of Spectrum magazine, and host of the Saturday Afternoon Poetry reading and workshop series in Pasadena, California. For awards, features, and publication credits, please go to http://dkc1031.blogspot.com/. Welcome to the Kitchen, Don, and don’t be a stranger!
Today, from 1-3pm, Amatoria Fine Art Books presents Ajuan Mance, author of 1001 Black Men, in an author talk/signing, 1831 F St., Sacramento, CA. And tonight, 6pm: Escritores Del Nuevo Sol presents Hablemos del Amor featuring Zheyla Henrikson and Paul Aponte, plus open mic, at the Vida del Oro Foundation, 1324 Arden Way in Sacramento. Click UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS at the top of these column for details about this and other future poetry events in the NorCal area—and keep an eye on this link and on the Kitchen for happenings that might pop up during the week.
_________________
—Medusa
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Would you like to be a SnakePal?
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Just remember:
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clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
