Every Jeep is a god

Two poems by Don Kingfisher Campbell

Author

Publish Date

Oct. 25, 2017

Don Kingfisher Campbell has taught Writers Seminar at Occidental College Upward Bound for 33 years.

In the Sea of Dolphins, I Am a Manta Ray

Dive into the sun to find opened eyes
An empty sky, full of ghosts

Smile because trees become bare
Carcasses on snowy streets

A monkey dreamt the cosmos, found a house
To sit in, gaze at an apple, stare at a fist

Pray in the wilderness, he said
We might as well be ants

But the scientific mind was high on civilization
They celebrated our rocks and roles

Envisioned the perfect you
Driving a lonely night freeway

Galloping to repopulate the stars
And play the game of movement through air

Read a poem on the shore, the sad cliffs watching
Us, eventually eaten by the shark mountain

As the lords in welkin have already seen
Ancient temple women in flames

Our babies litter the world like clouds
Say, hi god, teach me something

Car People

red taillights
of that golden
Toyota Corolla look
like mad eyes
of a jaguar,
bumper smiling wickedly

that Sienna
dark blue van
is just sleep driving,
tail lenses lidded
horizontal as its
expressionless plastic bar

every Jeep is
a god with
one large sphere
tire in the middle
of their backs

in the opposite life
path hundreds
of headlight pairs
blare and buses are
multi-eyed aliens

my gray Saturn
must be near-sighted,
two lamps too close
together brightly seek
attention each day

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 California Poetry Out Loud, a performing poet/teacher for Red Hen Press Youth Writing Workshops, Los Angeles Area coordinator and boardmember 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 dkc1031.blogspot.com.