Five Superb Poems by John Knoll

 

AFTER KARL MARX

 

On the steps of a funeral home
two brothers discuss Karl Marx
and the future of three act
life styles

Across the street a television
lights a dark room with blue light
flickering the sound turned off a man
reads his palm

The mystery of light speed
entices me to get up and pour
myself a shot glass of tequila
on the rocks

A magpie ghost chorus in a cotton
wood tree announces the coming of
a lost world of pagan mysteries
sans saviour

I read somewhere the USA incarcerates
more of its citizen than any country
in the world that could be why
I didn’t sleep well last night

Orange sunlight out of a summer sky
tell me something of your knowledge
you have the air of someone rich
with enigma’s mysteries

Kissing the shadows of wild flowers
my brain is struck by a sudden getaway
strategy to feed my demons with a love
I once had for pitching pennies

ART IS WAR

Dante
Came home late last night
As usual

He was drunk
I looked out the window
And saw his pickup

But the wood stove
We bought yesterday
Wasn’t there

Dante
Where’s our wood stove
He didn’t answer

Art I war
He said
I lost it in the war

Dante
I said
You better start making sense

Right away
I had Dante go look
For my stove

He found it on the highway
Near the big dip in the road
It was smashed to pieces

Dante
You forgot to put the
Tailgate up again

I made a mistake
He said
But I’ll make it up to you

I’ll weave you a blanket
With the picture of a
Wood stove on it

That way I’ll never
Forget this day and
You’ll never forget me

Dante makes me laugh
He right you know
Art is War

We must weave songs
Breathe life into clay
And that blanket Dante made me

It doesn’t have a picture of
A wood stove on it
It has a picture of a black horse

The black horse
Runs down a dark city street
Dante on his back

Shoots arrows into the Pentagon
His war cry is from another world
A world I feel when he kisses me

Old Boat

 

A fisherman loved his boat so much that when it grew old and could no longer stay afloat he took it home and buried it in his backyard.

OWL

 

Owl heard not seen, with Maria on our porch
The owl is hunting, she says.

New moon, old scar faced friend, cries out
heaven’s precise address.

A flower, perhaps a lily, comforts my
animal distress.

A tumescent void fills me. Sleeping beneath a
snow-laced cottonwood, blackness the mirror I

Swim in to discover a deep dwelling presence
of sky floating from my palm sky fruit adagio

Whispers cottonwood tree milagro. Silent owl,
feathered assassin, glides to rest on  black

Snow covered cottonwood limb, a mouse in
its moonlit beak.

TWO DOGS

           

Voice One                                               Voice Two
                                            

 

No greater thrill                                      Infinite in time

We make poetry                                      In order to survive

Wrinkles in water                                    Move your body

Ridiculous in Venice                               Only don’t know

Ice cream in Chicago                              Go straight                           

Every motion dies                                   Protesting bone

Bone of space                                         Wrinkles on water

Move your boundaries                            Extinction

The real world                                         For centuries

Go straight                                              The real world

Imagine yourself                                     In a dream that never ends

In a dream that never ends                      Refine

Light membranes                                    Grow green with spring 

For centuries                                           Spread the word 

Spread the word                                      Grave to grave       

Grow green with spring                          For centuries

Minute by minute                                   Minute by minute

Show it                                                   Show it

The real world                                        Dreams

Fast asleep                                              On one side

I am high                                                 It is cool 

And happy                                              As it turns

On Earth                                                 Tangles me

As it turns                                               In the air

In the air                                                 Dreams

Devouring darkness                               Eternal pearl

Only don’t know                                    Save all beings

I see 4                                                     I see 3

Vista infinity                                          Smoky roads

Airplanes Cortez Christ Telephones      Frog legs basketballs arroyos

We make poetry                                     We make poetry

And disappear                                        And disappear

 

Two readers riff, their voices weave a sound tapestry.  No rules.

John  Knoll has authored six poetry books, two plays-written with Joe Speer-  a  CD, featuring John Macker and an environmental  jazz radio play, If You Rape My Mama I Will Kill You, with music by Zimbabwe En Kenya. His poems have appeared in a variety of magazines, including Beatitude and Exquisite Corpse.  He performs his poetry with jazz and rock musicians, most notably The Jack Kerouac Band, Nuclear Trout and Ground Zero.