Kenneth Pobo had three books out in 2015: Booking Rooms in the Kuiper Belt (Urban Farmhouse Press), Bend of Quiet (Blue Light Press), and When The Light Turns Green (Spruce Alley Press). His chapbook, Highway Rain, also came out from Poet’s Haven Press. He teaches creative writing and English at Widener University. He gardens, is somewhat of an authority on Tommy James & The Shondells, and loves the poem “Binsey Poplars” by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

 

     Huangshan

after Li Bai

Kenneth Pobo

 

This lily looks like a small

yellow mountain. 

 

I walk to it, get close enough

to see the floating air

balloon of a bee

land less than an inch

from where I breathe in

an earth-wafting-in-cinnamon

 

delight. I lean against a stamen,

let it support me

the way it does a firefly.

Delaware October

Kenneth Pobo

 

We drive on Route 9, 

trees with kaleidoscope leaves--

urgent colors remain in us

after we’re home

 

and unpacked. Maybe

when I die and enter some

kind of heaven, I’ll get a home

built from those colors. 

We’ll walk along Route 9,

the ocean nearby.

 

You’ll be with me too,

love. It wouldn’t be heaven

without your hand,

your voice, the bright leaves

of your kindness.

Days of 1964

Kenneth Pobo

 

Dad insisted I get a crewcut,

no moptop. Whiffle ball

and getting a Cock

 

Robin lime cone. I wrote

on a history book “In case of fire,

throw this book in.” Gomez Addams,

can you live with us?

No moonbathing in Villa Park,

no hairy charmers dashing down

chimneys. School. Picked last

for any game. Preferred

Chinese jump rope with the girls. 

 

The Dutch Elm trees

formed a cathedral arch

over Villa Avenue. Disease

about to claim them, 

shade a rumor.