BARKING AT THE MOON

Dusk.  The moon rows
toward shore, passes pink
cloths, the trees leafing.

Green grass
at my ankle,
a piano with hands
recognizing their reflection
in ivory keys.

This is when signs
appear.  The crow
is really an owl.

The moon leaves the raft
and rises.  Nearby,
a dog barks.
I have my sign, bones
of a shadow.
A ragged moan, then
nothing.


DEEP PURPLE

This morning I was
expecting to see
standard-issue turquoise
morning glory blossoms
on my fence.  Instead

I found a deep
purple with white
swirled in, a bloom
quite capable
of staying open
even if the sun takes
its yellow pincers

to shut it for good.  Some
people want every morning
glory to be turquoise.

And if it’s not,
then pull it up,
roots and all—
but my deep
purple
morning

glory
launches her bloom
rocket over
a closed turquoise
Canaveral, the sky’s

infinite panels
opening all at once.


DIANE’S PARTY

Twenty people talk
for six hours—such talk
provokes loneliness.

Word hurricanes blowing
up to 150 mph,
inland!  Ready to drive

home, I know I won’t
sleep—fierce chit-chat
rains against my mind

might wash me away.
I should’ve evacuated
when I had the chance,

but I stayed, grinning,
and now all roads are
closed.  I’m stuck,

no boards tacked up
to keep my eyes
from breaking.


STEVE’S LOBSTERS

A scorching July morning.
Steve in the Safe-Shop
holds sweaty coupons.
Just before swinging
his cart toward canned
carrots, he glimpses

lobsters in a tank.  All
around human tongs pull
things from shelves,
fluorescent lighting
making shoppers look
more like bodies in Webster's

Funeral Home.  We are
ghosts, Steve thinks,
wanting to pull each lobster
into the safety of his arms,
knowing how their claws
could cut.  This is not
the Maine coast.  This is
Parkersburg, West Virginia,
where sea creatures

swim into ovens.  He pulls
away from the doomed,
heads to fast checkout,
grabs a Globe which says
Jesus is dieting
and will return soon.  God
on talk shows like Liz
or psychics to the stars.

The Safe-Shop’s a huge tank
and he’s an aging lobster,
the scanner’s red
eye squinting on what he’s
chosen to buy, his car

like boiling water
he drops into.



SWEET PEA

I start my sweet
peas downstairs, give
them tube lighting,
good potting mix,

water, put them
under a baggy.  What
a way to begin life!

They poke up,
get big enough to make
love to a fence.  How
they curl and bloom.  Oh,

sweet pea, come on
and dance with me
sang Tommy Roe in 66.
They are dancing

with me.  Hey,
they’re even dancing
with dew, the sun’s
gold medallion on
the sky’s cloud chest.

__________________________________________________________________________

KEN POBO's work appears in or is accepted by: COLORADO REVIEW, NIMROD, MUDFISH, ORBIS, GRAIN, UNIVERSITY OF WINDSOR REVIEW, INDIANA REVIEW, and elsewhere.   His manuscript, CICADAS IN THE APPLE TREE was a winner of Palanquin Press's Annual Poetry Chapbook Competition and was published last year.
Ken Pobo teaches English at Widener University in Chester, PA.

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