Two Poems | Ken Anderson
POETRY
7/1/20261 min read
TO DAVID
The Classroom
Our rhymes and rhythms flourished in the sun
of mutual, yet tempered admiration,
and criticism was a weeding out
of bad to leave the good more room to sprout
its virescent shoots, as a skillful jeweler will fit
a pearl in a setting that enhances it.
Though others would discover a precious stone,
they’d leave it raw or chisel to the bone
what points of spectral light once sparkled there.
Their new Apollo shaved his golden hair.
But your refinement scored our minor movement.
Melodic, far more subtle counterpoint
would weave itself into the warp’s dissonance,
and every bud of a class would bloom at once
into concerted craft, harmonious thought,
the flower of an image finely wrought.
You were the architect, objective, smart,
whose poetry was houses of the art.
The River
One midday on the levee in a sun
no tree or friendship possibly could shade
—the distant barges shrinking, fading, gone
into the haze where sky and water met—
you talked of how much longer you would let
your flag’s enlistment debt remain unpaid.
But now, the years, like driftwood drifting south,
have reached the gulf beyond the river’s mouth.
No Tom or Huckleberry had to toss
away his plans before reflections blazing.
You said your doubts were just the moment’s dazing.
Yet who could guess such terrible wrong, so right
in every attitude, so clear in sight?
Those pensive eyes, once candles of innocence,
snuffed by death, mirror, if nothing, loss,
and now I’ve bought this poem at a great expense.
THE RING WITH IVY TWINED
You tendered me a ring, two hoops
of silver, like a trellis, twined
with silver ivy. Just a gift, you said, some metal wires,
yet I plumbed the generous gesture, read how much
the sentiment was quite an expensive bill, the ring
a wedding band. And I, who shied the glib
and casual, also was quick
to see the sinuous duality
of your choice, for I knew
that such an ornamental vine,
though elegant, could gently strangle a tree.
Island of Wak-Wak Press (Orebro, Sweden) released Ken Anderson’s The Ward at Twilight: Goth Poems, nominee for the Elgin Award. Red Ogre Review Books (L.A.) released his The Goose Liver Anthology (Mother Goose Meets Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology), twice nominee for the Elgin Award. His first poetry book was The Intense Lover. Coffin Bell Journal nominated his poem “Blood Quartet” for the Best of the Net anthology. He was a Finalist in the Saints and Sinners poetry contest.