Now

Now

you are with me 

always

In days 

when I knew 

you were safe

at home

I didn’t see you

in every shadow 

as the sun played 

with the leaves

I never wondered

if that bird song 

was really you 

singing me 

your new 

secrets 

or if the 

crashing waves

had become 

your chance 

to shout

or if the 

young tree 

near the lake 

was you 

reaching your arms 

to a sun that seems brighter 

now that you shine with it.

Now 

begins our next 

great adventure

alone together

You’ll follow me 

in my shadow

and be the breeze 

that combs my hair 

and as you become 

the sum of your dreams

we will dance and play 

inside the private 

reverie of mine.

Now

you are with me 

always.

for Audrey

in memory of Valerie

Ken Owen
Van Niddy Press   March 2018

It Takes A Village

I.

In the place where I live 

many new villages are being 

built by herds of men 

with great machines

and soon 

homes in these shiny villages 

will be ready for sale to 

the people who are coming here 

from all over the globe to 

clog the stores, restaurants 

and movie theaters when they are not 

slowly crawling along a freeway

between their jobs in the valley 

and their new home 

in the village.

For some,

this does not feel 

like progress.

II.

To go anywhere now

on any freeway 

at any time  

is to give up 

2 hours of your life 

to go 30 miles

in any direction

and yet

hundreds 

of thousands 

of people 

are still making their way here 

every year 

for the privilege 

of doing that very thing.

(as of this writing, while sinners sleep 

and the penitent stir, Sunday morning 

4:00am to 9:00am is still passable)

III.

I had a job down in the valley 

for many years until one day 

they said it would be 

going to India without me.

I was fine with that

but I never understood 

why so many good people 

from India were coming here

while my job was going

there.

I told my friends 

I did not want to go back 

to working a 9-to-5 job in the valley

and they looked at me 

like I had lost my mind.

Eventually,

I went back.

IV.

The company I work for now

picks me up at the train station 

in a van and brings me to work

so I can sit and look out the window 

at all the motionless drivers on

the motionless freeways who have

come from far away for the privilege

of parading to a job they

are grateful to have

and these good people

will never once complain about 

the traffic

the pay

their boss

or what he asks 

them to do

I, however 

 am not so

        quiet.

V.

This has become

one of the most 

expensive areas to live

on Planet Earth.

Many people need 

two jobs 

just to exist here

(I am one of them)

but I try to remind myself

to look up from my time spent 

crawling along the freeways and 

to get up from my desk job in the valley 

and take a walk outside so I'll

remember how each day here 

is a beautiful gift 

but I often wonder 

if there will ever 

come a time 

when things 

get so crowded 

that everything comes to 

a grinding halt and we will 

have to declare 

there is no room left 

to build any more 

new villages.

Ken Owen

Van Niddy Press   March 2018

A Lie Before Breakfast

Her system of survival 

had become an art form of 

practiced deception.

Skilled in the role

of false sleep as quiet rest

the pre-dawn hours were spent

projecting dreams

over the peaks and valleys of 

the bedroom ceiling moonscape

while listening for

interruptions in his breathing

like waves dying on a soft beach

to know when to get up 

seconds before him

and be first 

in the shower

door locked

alone.

After a breakfast

of mumbling over headlines 

he kisses her forehead 

grabs his coat

and heading for the door

tosses a

"love you"

over his shoulder

without looking

that lands uncaught like

a bloop pop up in

short center field.

She does not look up

offers nothing

and he never notices

and on the day

when her misery is finally discovered 

it will be much too late.

Ken Owen

Van Niddy Press    March 2018