Three Poems By Kenneth Pobo

A CHARMING CREMATION

I look out at snow on our neighbor’s roof,
flakes huddled together before they die.
Even long winters are ephemeral. 
though a frigid February is tough
to like.  Spring, here’s a question for you—why
are you taking so long to arrive?  Dull
ground needs to fire up bulbs and seeds, enough
sun to cremate winter, ash rising high.

I STOP

to see cosmos, 
picotee blossoms.  

The flower starts out 
white, the edge 

reddish-purple.  
The sun hops 

on my shoulders, 
not heavy at all.   

MANDRILL

	Painting by Oskar Kokoschka

My dad, born in 1926, a year 
like a mandrill let loose in a living room.  
Vice President Dawes wrote 
“It’s All in the Game” which the mandrill 
sang to a bright red sandbox.  

In three years the house crumbled.  
Dollar bills shivered, 
no one to feed them.  Not even 
the mandrill whose hairy kisses 
covered hundreds of abandoned cars.



Editor's Note: Here is "The Mandrill" by Oskar Kokoschka.

Kenneth Pobo is the author of twenty-one chapbooks and nine full-length collections. Recent books include Bend of Quiet (Blue Light Press), Loplop in a Red City (Circling Rivers), and Uneven Steven (Assure Press). Opening is forthcoming from Rectos Y Versos Editions. Lavender Fire, Lavender Rose is forthcoming from Brick/House Books.