After Okunoshima

The yearly dues are manageable, far less 

exorbitant than the annual shifting 

of domiciles; I once considered the price 

of a cage …

Though this is not what I wish to say:

May roses, summer dips through the Carpathians 

in search of sun-spilled bonnets … 

might once have seemed a noble endeavor, but …

the adventure I never could have 

imagined, or even knew existed is why 

you chose to turn this way? The mystery I’m still unraveling 

hardly ever certain of how the sun will rise or 

if I should wake to find 

whether I’ve fallen through some crack 

of a hallucination and used up the last of my genie’s 

banana muffins? Let me be frank, I don’t wish 

to spoil this smörgåsbord of bliss 

or dare the risk of losing my sleeping beauty 

for a common peach, or pear, 

their entire orchard of pomelos … 

I’m happy here, in this briar's patch, 

being your rascally rabbit, rubbing 

the heavenly-sent feet … 

And if by good graces my braces continue 

to hold up my hobo’s trousers,  

here’s where I’ll hip-hop my whiskers 

until Lomnicky dips from my sight … 

ever so glad I never found Albuquerque. 

Ken e Bujold

Reviews

[andrew mitchell]

A noble knight in a love conquest comes to mind Ken. Great writing.

[Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn..]

Ken,

I be a Texican who once looked like a Mexican, until Life and genetic alterations' sensations done up and went and bleached me out with somewhat powerful clout of routing my complexion without and lightning my contrasting tint to barely even a hint of who and what I thought I was in growing up with every single Hispanic person speaking to me in Spanish, oblivious to the reality that my mother was a Basque immigrant to Ireland (so called, Black-Irish. as per Errol Flynn? My mother was a Flynn), and from Ulster, her Rin-Tin-Kin migrated to America and in some damn uncertain way to Texas, wherein I was spawned in my mother's pond of which my Step Father soon became fond, and in Divorce's discourse of course, for a horse is a horse of a different color when a man's wife becomes another's, we did find and reside inside Albuquerque, New Mexico, nestling in shady western relief beneath the feet of Sandia Crest, whereupon I was sent to school and whereof I received my first gang-style beating walking home from said school, like a damn 2nd grader fool, for thinking to say hello to a group of four or five Anglo future White supremacist boys who lavished my personage with epithets' insults that (at that time in my life) I was clueless of the meaning of, for I had never heard the degrading slang terms Spic, Beaner, Greaser, Messkin ever before in my innocently young life, but I did receive a crash course education onsite of that open field of where I walked home every day, that damn day, as I lay there bleeding and beaten by boys who had no clue that I was not a Mexican, but a Basque-Mick-Scotsman blended like a bar drink in Ulster, Ireland after the King's Exile from Dumpreshire's hire of Graham (Grimm Rypers) Reapers who hunted down particular members of Clan Graham (needless to say: Outlaws, thieves, murderers, etc., etc. & executed them via hanging or drowning, and that onsite of apprehension's handiest location of nearest tree or mud puddle) ...

Needless to say, that event changed my life forever, amazingly for the better, as I grew up despising racism and supremacism in every shade of its ugly a*s face of rising to inflict pain and shame upon innocent peoples, and the experience prepared me for marrying my wife, a Tex-Mex of true Spaniard decent whose genes, ironically, identified her as an Ashkenazi Jew, and who would have ever known, or knew? ... Whew!!!!! ... Sadly, I lost her, after 49 years of marriage, January 7th, 2022 ...

I must say that your writing style is sheer excitement to behold and read, as this piece swept me back to over 60 years ago to a time when my life was changed for the better by a beating I never deserved, but grew up being proud to have received ... I, too, never found Albuquerque, but it damn sure found me, and shaped my entire future ... My thoughts on the matter? ... By now, you should know, or be able to formulate a damn fine guess! ...

Fantastically inspiring to wordiness comment review's damn writing ...!

Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn de Graham

[Ken e Bujold]

i understand all too well M. I grew up in a tough union town which like many in the 60s and 70s were full of hard men and women who bred like rabbits. their little rabbits all to often grew up to be giant asses, full of hate. Understandable, now as i see from the hilltop how few choices they would have in life to grow into something other than beasts of burden. Not me, thankfully. I was one of the ones who got marked by the future for something else. My life has/is a grand adventure which has taken me all over this world for work, play and love. Lessons I learned along the way have taught me to see people for their better angels, a little tattered and torn along the edges, but full of a promise of life. which is not to say there are not ogres out there, because we both know that they roam the earth, but not often in poetry sites. I have read your work, and will review some in depth very soon. it is the toil of a good heart putting to words what moves him through life.
if you are interested in seeing a closer look at my philosophical outlook (?) I suggest you might start with a recent post Letters to the Ephyran..which is a work in progress here of a longer piece to be included in a new collection of work scheduled for a spring release. It is essentially a series of letters to my younger selves.

ken

[Ken e Bujold]

ps, sorry to hear about the loss of your wife. that is fortunately an experience i have not had to bear. Mine is my rock, the center of my existence for the last 1/4 century and without her...well as this poem says, i never found Al, but I did find her, in Singapore, but Okunoshima (rabbit island) for poetic reasons

[Marvin Thomas Cox-Flynn de Graham]

Thank you, for your kind words of understanding ... She (my wife, Irma) was the love and light of my life ...

The Covid-19 Bullshit took her, along with those, so called, underlying factors: Diabetes, Thyroid problems, High Blood Pressure problems, all well controlled but never really under control, as we both learned and experienced the hard way: No man should have to watch his wife suffocate to death ...

Worse, even still: No man should have to bury his wife because of a Man-Made Biological plague release, magically transformed by redefining the definition's meaning of Epidemic euphemized into the rags to riches (we're all in this together, Elitist line of Bullshit) attire now called a Pandemic that, just coincidentally of course (for simplistic example), saw both Amazon & Walmart net the largest profits during 2019 than ever in the history of their Fascist Corporate Organizations (Fascism is co-equivalent to Corporationalism of Corporations Lobbing & effectively controlling our U.S. Government in D.C. in my not so humble view: America is a Soft-Fascist Nation running scared of Socialists and Communists in order to cover the tracks of reality: Fascism was never defeated in a World War II, only the competition of insuring that America remained & retained that position of existence as World Top Dog was, in fact of actually, achieved... And, Capitalism seems to function quite profit's reaping well in even Communist nations such as China, or say the old USSR, now Russia, or else, you would not have Billionaires residing, ruling (Vladimir Putin: one of the world's richest men), and doing business in comrade based nations ...

I've had COVID 4 times, never denied the invisible MAN-Made enemy's critter existed: Drank cold beer and chased it with whiskey every single time I tested positive for it ... 3rd time I had it was when she brought it home from a big family get together that I warned not to attend, because of the risks involved in close proximity (hugging grand-kids & all) to large groups of people that she/we all loved ...

Because I had it, for ten days I was not allowed to see my own f*****g wife ... Am I angry? ... You Goddamn right I am, and if there was a God (in my highly opinionated view, God is Man as Man is God, but I do believe some thing made the Universe & am no Atheist by far), if I could find that Son of a Cheap W***e's B***h, I would kick the living s**t out of such a worthless & merciless God for all that I saw my wife go through ... Pardon me .... No offense, or insult intended ... I struggle to be a Moderate in an Extremism-schisms world ... BUT! ... When I think of her, I do tend to go off that deep end of losing my s**t!

Thank you for understanding ...I will check out your suggested reading … I am not always quite so wordy ...

Marve

[Ken e Bujold]

its fine M. rage on a page is much preferential to that kept inside a cage.

[Perdition]

And let me know the price of them "cages' if you would, we could always split the costs should you have to travel, lol.

[Ken e Bujold]

sorry for response lag, P, was galavanting for a couple of days. glad you enjoyed the new work. as for the cage, prices vary according to size of one's appetites :)

[Perdition]

Well, most of the cages I consider are usually locked immediately and the owners happy and secure..lol. No worries and once again a wonderful poem Ken.thanks~

[Perdition]

And we are ever so grateful you did. To have a poet such as you Ken, bartering the muffins or simply staring off and then return to your wonderful click-clacking into a poem as wonderful, and damn do I wish I I could read this one for a living; perhaps one day I may, until that day, I guess the wonder of your willingness to stay is quite enough and more for all, certainly enough for me!! Thank you again Ken for that and more. Brilliant!! SIMPLY FREAKING BRILLIANT~

[Lorry]

Being happy in your patch is all that we can hope for. We'll, that and our significant others happiness too of course.😊

[W. Barrett Munn]

This is a great Valentine’s Day poem that I’m guessing has been delivered. Really good, Ken.

Winston

[Ken e Bujold]

it is and not yet, she is out with the ladies at the moment