Don Kingfisher Campbell

A Slice of Dead Tree

I am alone

in this mourning

making progress

with my arms

I want to hang

myself from a tree

--not like somebody's

wet clothes

I could try to find

the deepest part

of the stream and

become a rock

For I long to

blend with landscape

because infestation

molests what I see

Makes me desire to

tear off my clothes

eat them

remove culture

Let my hair grow

in the movement of air

let the sun take

what it wants

I'll stand

until I can't

I'll sit

until I sleep

I'll lie

sacrificing my time

to the forces

--shape me!

Help me understand

what I have to do

to be leaf

I've come here

to view grains

my fingers trace

the sand

for a direct line

I'm not just

a visitor composing

'cause you've

given me the ability

Someday I'll return

again to try to

merge into your

simple beautiful colors

Room for the Dead

 

All these dead bodies in our room.

Books by the dead,

the soon-to-be dead,

or the someday-will-be dead.

Figurines.

Shoes and pants strewn on the carpet.

Marilyn Monroe hangs on the wall.

Stereo makes the dead sound alive.

TV, the dead look....

Shirt and blouse crumpled atop the dresser.

Life Fitness exercycle unused

in the night.

My wife and I in the living room

fucking.

2,000 DEAD

(a found poem in section A of the 10/26/2005 Los Angeles Times)

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Semi-automatic
Suicide

When my best friend lived
Next to Lancaster we would ride
To the Walmart so we could go
Order a bag of dollar
Cheeseburgers from McDonald’s
Eat them at a table
Talk about the economy
 
We never got pulled over
On the way maybe 
Because I was the driver
 
Friday night two men
Walk down Avenue K-4
To 30th St. W a residential area
With a Hellenic Center
On the corner a great place
To celebrate your day
 
They get stopped by gang
Unit plain clothes
 
Words are exchanged
One of them whips
Out an assault
Pistol from his jacket
 
That was all it took to start
A firing squad of detectives
 
His buddy ran away
In the hubbub
 
Deputies pick up the gun
From the lying body
 
Establish a perimeter
To catch a friend
Scared for his life
 
I made a phone call to Marvin
To give him the news
 
Heard him say he’s staying
Inside tonight

Little Boy at the Beach

He looks like he's sleeping
Wet hair seemingly combed back

Soaked red tee shirt and blue shorts
Shoes still on

He must have been tired
Face down on the sand

Gentle waves pushed him
To the Turkish shore

The only tell-tale sign
Is the swelling of his ear

Whispering sweet dreams
Of a better world for everyone

Dew drops on a dead leaf

The giant goes for a walk
under the blazing sun
	
The behemoth steps and steps
on long concrete sidewalk

A small insect traverses the
width of a rectangle just ahead

One gargantuan sandal darkens
the sky above the bug only briefly

It was the last thing it ever felt,
a mindless accident of location

Morning for the Dead

A procession of black umbrellas across a grassy valley
To the peaked memorial mountain where a gold cross
Shines in fiery light as birds file over corpsed graves
Extended to silently reach for remembrance of illusory
Mourning in which some still believe geography divides
When we are all the same detritus feeding the ground
Only one red-covered mourner acknowledges he follows
This sad pack, observes their breathing for passing hours
The dynamic daily destruction that doesn’t need our help
We are decorated finite presences on bountiful rich land
Today he will tell them time is just a perceived measure
For a flock who forgets they merely move moments since
Nothing else waits but lives on for perpetuated endings
Filled fallow minds finally comprehending the merger

the sun is beaming

red flowered bushes

open and receiving

me too I love to be

warmed as a flower

makes my skin forget

everything else going

on round this big globe

taking in the solar

seemingly invisible rays

yet I can see no matter

what we do on earth 

the system will continue

long after I'm dead and

you, kinda makes me

want to hug your body

before we dissolve

back into space dust 

which to think of it

we've been all along

maybe we can float

together proximate

forever past eons