five poems
by David Koehn
A Red Circle Quatern
Two palm trees, one wrapped yellow, the other blue
Within a red-shifting LED circle, blinking, a life-sized emoji.
A series of dolmens bark at the vibration of neighbors on the other side
Of the paper screen composed of millions of thumbnail-sized
Origami paper cranes patterned into the great wave off Kanagawa, On shore
Two palm trees, one wrapped yellow the other blue.
In time this duration, but the ink absorbed off a woodblock print drying
Snapshots, trills, licks, riffs, flourishes, fouetté , lilts, gusts, whorls,
Naked unnamed occurrences live the duration of their lives
On an eyeblink, for us, an eyebolt for the mechanic,
Two palm trees, one wrapped yellow the other blue.
The largest eye in the desert made of wrought iron and purple stars.
Apollonia, circling circles encircling hues, the chaste sacrificial
Movement of a teacup atop a 20 foot high warped brass clock.
3 to 4 stretches longer, 11 to 12 but a minute, and the hands?
Two palm trees, one wrapped yellow, the other blue.
Penumbra Gobbles Cottage Quatern
Out beyond the esplanade, they climbed the latticed penumbra.
In the Everglades, a red mosquito’s blades cube the air over the mosaic’s hyssop.
What kind of kindness? The kind of patience who waits.
Dressed in blue, she sports a silver-spined tiara, which sits on the knee of her Tin Man robot.
Shivas' arms undulate, and their hands hold public displays of awareness.
Out beyond the esplanade, they climbed the latticed penumbra.
Ogoh Ogoh, the karmic questioner, has you on your knees saying, “yes daddy.”
And this is the good part, so hit pause on that stream of consciousness.
You call yours and wait, and the wooden cougars with legs as long
As street lamps with weekend cottages as bodies spirit their way
Out beyond the esplanade. They climbed the latticed penumbra,
The essential bench snaked an S of three seats at each turn.
Stone husbands surrounded a small fire, “wear the ring,” said the flame.
A great white gobbles up dust devils; the wisps
Out beyond the esplanade, they climbed the latticed penumbra.
Where Do We Turn Quatern
Where
Do
I
Look
Now?
Where
Do
We
Turn?
Perhaps
Where
We
Look
Turns
Into
Where.
Green Eye Poison Cilia Quatern
Red ink draws a teardrop around a green-eyed tea with no pupil.
What kind of madness might I ask for from the startling whiteness of Labrador tea?
This is not the question to be asked of showy milkweed’s honey.
The cephalothorax emits wolf withdrawing into shadow’s burrow.
Note badger’s pattern inside the spider’s back, the bite’s
Red ink draws a teardrop around a green-eyed tea with no pupil.
Strip elderberry, wrap the not dogbane around saliva, twined
Sambunigrin retained to protect her from the faeries.
Fire and water frees poison from fruit, a plain hollow stem.
Fluted awaits sweat’s tuned disharmonies, frothy Feldenkrais.
Red ink draws a teardrop around a green-eyed tea with no pupil.
Spinnerets of mother carry a brood’s dozens, as they hatch, they crawl onto her back.
Gnats in the sclera, in the web of the conjunctiva, wince swathed
Gnat in the vibrissae, in the ear’s cilia, the sensing body’s glorious panic–
Love’s head net shadows silhouettes merged with frog-eyed moon.
Red ink draws a teardrop around a green-eyed tea with no pupil.
House Quatern
My rib cage houses the Milky Way,
The moon takes up residence,
The sun in my belly is a mind.
The house of the Sierra range,
Sounds of pines spine the tinnitus,
My rib cage houses the Milky Way.
A window in the floor of a dream,
The buttock of the Oregon hillsides.
Invisible from the impossible front porch,
The coyote of my left leg lopes away.
My rib cage houses the Milky Way.
Hide me from the barn of my voice.
In the rafters, in the kitchen cabinet,
In the kiss of leaves on the back of a hand,
In the greasy mud pulled from wet earth,
My rib cage houses the Milky Way.
Photo of David Koehn
BIO: David Koehn won the May Sarton Poetry Prize with his first book Twine (Bauhan Publishing, 2013). He published "Compendium" (Omnidawn Publishing, 2017), revisiting Donald Justice's approach to prosody. Koehn also published a second book of poems Scatterplot (Omnidawn Publishing, 2020). Sur, his third full-length collection, was released by Omnidawn in the fall of 2024. Koehn's writing appears in the Kenyon Review, New England Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Rhino, Volt, Carolina Quarterly, Diagram, McSweeney's, The Greensboro Review, North American Review, The Rumpus, Michigan Quarterly Review, Smartish Pace, Hotel Amerika, Gargoyle, Zyzzyva, Prairie Schooner and elsewhere.