Summer 2004

 


Summer 2004


Kenneth Pobo
DOORKNOB EMPEROR


Mr. Dirmo feared
our sixth-grade germs -
when we’d leave the room
for lunch, he’d coat
the doorknob
with rubbing alcohol.
Mornings
were arithmetic. Afternoons,
Roman history.
He’d stand on his chair
sing arias,
demand applause. Rita
told her dad about
a boy he rolled out
into the hall,
a soccer ball. Word
reached the Board
which did nothing--
the Emperor lived,
holding his doorknob-scepter.
Summer vacation,
the one barbarian
he couldn’t stop

 
Kenneth Pobo
THREE PLANETARY WISHES

All nine planets rock,
but if I could visit three,
I’d choose Mercury, Uranus,
and Pluto.
Freezing on one side,
boiling on the other,
straddle the line
between Mercury’s cold
and heat, are you in
God’s mouth? Who bopped
over gas giant Uranus’s poles?
Enter a methane, ammoniac
garden growing lethal green
flowers. Pluto,
some say, isn’t even a planet.
She’ll always be one to me,
this tease who can crawl
under Neptune’s wire fence
to sidle up to the sun.
Pluto’s moon Charon,
a stone eye watching.
Vacation over,
I’d pine for blue Earth,
her waters and daylilies,
animals and swallows.

 
Kenneth Pobo's work appears online at TAMAFYHR MOUNTAIN PRESS (my chapbook POSTCARDS FROM AMERICA), FORPOETRY.COM, THREE CANDLES, 2RIVER VIEW, DREXEL ONLINE JOURNAL and elsewhere. His book INTRODUCTIONS recently came out from Pearl's Book'Em Press in Atlanta.

 

 

 

 

Poetrybay seeks fine poetry, reviews, commentary and essays without restriction in form or content, and reserves first electronic copyright to all work published. All rights to published work revert to the author following publication. All Email submissions should be in body of email text.

To submit poems write to:

PO Box 114 
Northport NY 11768
or email us at 
info@poetrybay.com

send comments to info@poetrybay.com

first electronic copyright 2004 poetrybay. 
all rights revert to authors

website comments to dpb@islandguide.com