Kenneth Pobo

Plans to Stay

My husband remembers

to buy milk before the container

at home expires and he makes sure

that my computer doesn’t catch

whatever electronic flu

is going around.  I’m not an easy guy. 

Sometimes I’m a pencil, the lead

breaking just when you want

to write a note to stick on the door

for the propane dude.  This could be

an anniversary poem.  27 years,

a couple of bluebirds, beautiful,

but ready to fly away. 

We promised forever.  That’s not possible,

so we took till death do us part.  Death

always finds our living room.

We watch TV and eat popcorn,

hold hands.  Even then,

it doesn’t take a hint. 

It plans to stay.

Confederate Judy

On Halloween I learned

I’d better not dress

as Judy Garland.  That would

get me beat up.  Why can’t

a boy sing “Over the Rainbow”

on a suburban street?

Instead I wore a gray jacket

and told candy-givers

I was a Confederate soldier.

We lived in Illinois—

no one blinked.

A boy can be military

even if he looks like

a schnook kid in baggy pants—

I wore Judy in my head,

belted out “The Man Who Got Away”

and savored my Butterfingers.

Kenneth Pobo has a new book out from a press in India (www.cyberwit.com) called Wingbuds.  Forthcoming from the Poetry Society of Alabama is his chapbook called Your Place Or Mine.