Don Kingfisher Campbell - Eight Poems

Don Kingfisher Campbell, MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles, has taught Writers Seminar at Occidental College Upward Bound for 33 years, been a coach and judge for Poetry Out Loud, a performing poet/teacher for Red Hen Press Youth Writing Workshops, Los Angeles Area Coordinator and Board Member of California Poets In The Schools, poetry editor of the Angel City Review, publisher of Spectrum and the San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly, leader of the Emerging Urban Poets writing and Deep Critique workshops, organizer of the San Gabriel Valley Poetry Festival, and host of the Saturday Afternoon Poetry reading series in Pasadena, California. For awards, features, and publication credits, please go to: http://dkc1031.blogspot.com

***1. deathsto look forward toin a particular order

humankind

strangers

famous stars

rockers

facebook friends

real friends

relatives

wives

mine

children

***2. Sunday Morning

11/15/15

Facebook feed

Reading poem

Eating sushi

Worshipping clouds

Noticing shadows

Appreciating sculpture

Playing music

Making pancakes

Debating politics

Kids playing tag

Turtles munching flowers

Cartoonists drawing

Walking Hollywood

Dreaming Thanksgiving

Remembering murdered

Painting nature

***3. Listen to the Park

babble
of children
playing on
plastic slides

whoosh
of cars
speeding over
concrete river

rustle
of trees
shading some
cement walkways

laugh
of parents
chasing kids
around pillars

bark
of dog
scampering lawn
between masters

cry
of peacock
running from
sidewalk pursuers

talk
of us
two lovers
bench embrace

sigh
that we
must leave
this paradise

honks
in street
driving home
lengths behind

brake
lights of

Mercedes rear
kabuki face

***

4. In Kristian Mensa Land 1

Push pins pick my brain

Like grasping icicles

I might as well sit on a comb

Contemplate holding ear buds

A fork can leave me prisoner

As bow tie pasta dresses me

Like a ballerina on a ship

Sinking through a serrated

Knife the gum wrapper

Should be a bed instead

My iPhone x-rays me

To feel like Frankenstein

Walking hills I scream

My eyes are bathroom

Tissue I need to jump

Into a pile of crisp leaves

Pretend my hair is just

Sharpened pencil shavings

If my arms could be

Flexible like a paper clip

My September wouldn’t be

Afraid of an October

Like Indiana Jones

I will escape the giant

Orange hide in a pink

Washcloth hung casually

And become the last acorn

Clinging to a tree

Limb like Rapunzel’s

Blonde tress dominating

Building changing sign

To a win only smile

Enter do not enter

Skyscraper chill

Rest in flower shade swim

Through my cell phone again

***

5. Kristian Mensa Mind

When flower petals sing

My head is in the trees

So take a penny from me

Let the rose be your dress

Hair clips can bite fish

But bushes will still gather

More archaic than phone books

A USB soldier paint brush hair

Light the dinosaur tail

Wish make up powder to fly

The Aloe Vera plant doesn’t look

Like octopus legs by coincidence

A mere toothpick is a javelin

When it comes to smiling lemons

Surf a sponge charm pasta

Put your socks in nature’s dryer

Because paper clips can be

Mistaken for ballerina shoes

Pitch a tent at that clip

Since an apple is a being

***6. Novim’s Nightmare Whistlestar

Morning Has Broken

But I Might Die Tonight

I Wish I Wish

Trouble

The Hurt

Miles From Nowhere

Father And Son

Sitting

Drywood

Silent Sunlight

Oh Very Young

Can’t Keep It In

Lady D’Arbanville

Hard Headed Woman

Bitterblue

How Can I Tell You

Moonshadow

Majik Of Majiks

The Wind

Maybe You’re Right

Banapple Gas

On The Road To Find Out

Wild World

Where Do The Children Play

Tuesday’s Dead

Longer Boats

Katmandu

If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out

Don’t Be Shy

I Think I See The Light

Ready

Into White

Peace Train

Tea For The Tillerman

***7. Nine birds

      sit equidistant

    on the arm

         of a signal

Until one

   flies off

    to land

   on a nearby facade

The remaining

eight flutter wings

     individually

Reposition themselves

so they are again spaced

   in this afternoon

Change to green

  cars juxtaposition

      to get ahead

 before yellow turns

***

8. Facebook Newsfeed Sonnets

1

Will your dining table kill you?
Will you live to see the sea again?
Exist to sniff a flower in a bed?
Meet up with some handsome beautiful,
Maybe you'll want to share inspiration,
Words like a lighthouse inside you.
Whatever you do, don't ductape your mind.
Run through minutes, hours, days,
Get yourself space to reach outward,
Play the bongos of being alive.
Someone may sidle next to you,
Form a group of like-minded professors.
Then smirk your way to local stardom
Or just enjoy the colors of your pens.

2

Is your mind a flower in the desert?
Does your imagination see above the trees?
The colors of music might inspire you,
Remembering friends you took pictures with.
That one day you sat at the shore just looking
And felt the need to tell someone about it.
People may look at you funny.
Some could stay to watch you rap rhapsodically
About the patterns on your brain wall.
The moment you felt like Kong on a skyscraper.
When simply walking on a sidewalk in the heat
Drives you to start preaching to anyone.
Inside you is a lighthouse amid the clouds
Where bright thoughts dominate the darkness.

***