Inspired Elsewhere

My Fish

I knew someone hooked
By pixel screen
Into my streams of running
Consciousness
Leaping salmon
Running up the river
The display flashed scales
Into my retinas
Splashed droplets, that
Rushed into the turmoil
As I sat on a bank
Scrolling,
Letting out a line.


Pound Cake

It came out about a pound a slice
Heavy and dry
Heaved onto a plate from it's plastic display
The coconut flakes wiping up your throat
Swallowing the Sahara.

It was supposed to be the thin
Light, moist, as an end to a Memorial Day
Spent with friends
As a distraction from recalling the lives
We lost to war.

But it didn't entirely work as I found
My son later watching
His programs
On Medal of Freedom fighters
Something he does to remember

My uncle Marshall died in Korea
A kid of 19 on a hill
My son found out a bit more
About it all
Last year for a failed school report.

I made a lot of food, beans salads, bread
Hot and cold onions sliced with cukes
Beans in that off onion sauce
Strawberries and things our youngest guest
Found pretty yucky.

It's never an easy day
To try to square that
An uncle died, just a kid in a war
Fighting a losing battle over a hill
Being overrun by the Chinese

A long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
We can't know if he'd eat that plastic plated desert cake
Out of loyalty or his kindness
Many did choking it with some milk.

As Memorial Day came and went.