Three Poems by Karla Linn Merrifield

Now and Then

Walmart
Dollar Store
            Woolworth's with goldfish
            turtles      hamsters

Netflix
DVD
            Captain Kangaroo traded
            for Captain Kirk (and Paul McCartney)

Earbuds
MP3
            45s
            75 cents a pop

Nanosecond
cyberspace
            Telstar and footsteps
            on virgin moon

9/11
NSA spies
            three assassinations
            on McCarthy's heels

'NamGulfWar
AfghanistanIraz
             ColdWarduckcover
             commienukes

fracking
global warming
             Interstate rest areas
             making America beautiful



Abstract "To Dave from Kar," 31 Years Before 9/11 Became 9/11

          for David Richter

Old Cloverside Court (, remember?)
miss my neighborhood (like ancient history)
some good times (tame, safe assessment)

School has started (i.e., clean slate)
a big senior? (former younger boyfriend in h.s.)
do anything and everything (I did, didn't I?)

Some such I'd write from that cool place,
creating a new world away from you,
fresh frosh in college beanie, done with you, rah, rah.



Out of the Locker

          for David Richter

weird dream
             toes curled
                          dead serious

(having another '68 flashback)

farewell the pleasures of the flash
              never do things halfway
                           an impulse every five seconds

(having absolutes, superlatives abundantly)

scorching around
             Zorba the Greek
                         Chopin the Hamster

(having a pet, petting)

a little incoherent
            befriended
                         infinite faith

(having a lot to learn about boys)

beautiful within
            take an umbrella
                           it might be raining

(having had my torrent of teen tears)

a fake face
             a false effort
                          love is lost

(having had my tie-dyed passions)

love is gained
            love is never gone
                        variable factor

(I roll over, rolling with it once more)




An eight-time Pushcart-Prize nominee and National Park Artist-in-Residence, Karla Linn Merrifield has had some 500 poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies.  She has ten books to her credit, the newest of which are Lithic Scatter and Other Poems (Mercury Heartlink) and Attaining Canopy:  Amazon Poems (FootHills Publishing).  Forthcoming from Salmon Poetry is Athabaskan Fractal and Other Poems to the Far North.  Her Godwit:  Poems of Canada (FootHills) received the Eiseman Award for Poetry and she received the Dr. Sherwin Howard Award for the best poetry published in Weber -- The Contemporary West.  She is assistant editor and poetry book reviewer for The Centrifugal Eye (www.centrifugaleye.com), a member of the board of directors of Just Poets (Rochester, NY), and a member of the New Mexico State Poetry Society, the Florida State Poetry Society and TallGrass Writers
Guild.  Visit her blog, Vagabond Poet, at http://karlalinn.blogspot.com.