Don Kingfisher Campbell has been a performing poet/teacher for Red Hen Press Youth Writing Workshops, coach and judge for California Poetry Out Loud, board member and Los Angeles Area Coordinator for 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. He recently earned an MFA in Creative Writing at Antioch University, Los Angeles. Mr. Campbell has taught Creative Writing in the Upward Bound program at Occidental College and been a Guest Teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District for 32 years. See http://dkc1031.blogspot.com for awards, features, and publishing credits.

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*****

Asphalt Nature

1

Thought I saw a jellyfish
floating over the street,
but it’s only a plastic bag.

A big black caterpillar
resting near the gutter
–merely a Monster can.

Was that a walrus just now
lying on the sidewalk grass?
No, an old cardboard box.

2

A brown leaf hops
across an intersection
escorted by the wind.

3

I remember when I flipped
my bicycle like a seahorse.

The road rash bright
as any coral.

***

Anthropomorph

To unfolded laptop
screen god

head locks in
for obviously

well-made slot
engineered to fit

perfectly the hole
inside his brain

He’s got a face
of purposeful expression

wide-eyed
small-mouthed

armless
legless

penis depicted
like a duck’s

And one long
long tail

which ends
in a half-sized

version of himself
eyes lidded shut

Ready to be plugged
into the portable

cellphone’s female
open mouth

slit with a spotted
tongue line

Fashionable mole
microphone just left

a short distance on
faux aluminum skin

***

after the fall

amazing how difficult it is
to chase and spear cheese
cubes in a packaged salad

when all you have is a plastic
fork held by the left hand
dancing around a clear bowl

imagine spending the rest
of your life this way like
a wounded Iraq war veteran

or refugee Syrian child,
who would be lucky to have
a salad to eat, more likely

boiled bulgur again and again
until settling in another country
where signs are not familiar

this too shall pass, they tattoo
in Arabic on each other’s arms,
how beautiful the characters are

on any arm, think I’ll borrow
the phrase, ink it on my forearm,
pray for no more violence, only

the peace of growing old
someday, finding it hard to
make a fist anymore, rather

hold beloved shaking fingers
to calm them over the passage
of, I hope, decades together