Fashion Statement

Her hand bag 
matched her jacket:

a print of black and white circles 

resembling a film negative 

of dozens of deviled eggs

over a black background

a bold fashion statement 

which, sadly

only seemed to highlight

that the rest of her was unremarkable 

but that caused me to review 
my own wardrobe choices for the day:

blue jean jacket
blue flower-print shirt

fading blue jeans
all which seemed to highlight 

me as equally unremarkable 

and much less imaginative.

Matching accessories wins.

-written on the morning work shuttle, March 2017

Live Simply

Photograph by Suzette Odell

Spring and Summer Haiku, 2017

A beautiful day

     to stay in bed with a book--

sloth absolved by rain.

Dashboard hula girl,

     broken, her beauty fading.

Perfect match, we two.



Head down, snail tracks
     head up, sea birds ride the wind--
My morning lessons.

Sunday--when shouting
     "Breakfast is ready" at noon 
makes no one think twice.

Pine box oblation,
     soul collected, readied for
cosmic recycling.

Paradise Market
     Selling Daydreams since Day One.
(sorry, no returns.)

Majestic spring clouds

     crawling across my window

grazing on daydreams.

Morning Aria

     Act One, enter mama bird,

"Come children, breakfast!"

-written on the way to the train station

Dream of you complete,

     cars on sleepy roads tell time--

One thirty a.m.

-May 1st, 1:30a.m.

Silent church of dawn

     begins with an offering:

cosmic do-over.

Sadly, I waited

     to visit the new swallows 

one day too many.

Row twenty seven,
     Three squished mummies, eyes forward,

Trying not to touch.

              

In flight, one bathroom,

     two hundred souls, suddenly 

no gender issues.

United Airlines, Dallas to San Jose, June 2017

 Pleading forgiveness
     all is forgiven until

"lipstick marks, again?!"

from the English subtitles for a bad Chinese movie, June 2017

Golden summer moon,

     keep the secrets of my heart

safe until morning.

-Inspired by a fellow admirer of the moon, July 2017

Ken Owen   Van Niddy Press

Questions: A Collection, Volume I

Do the trees 

give voice to the wind,

or does the wind 

give voice to the trees?

If rain falls back to the ocean,

are clouds held accountable 

for dereliction of duty

or do they carry immunity 

under the Law of Universal timing?

If you don't return the doctor's call

when he requests an audience,

are you tempting fate 

to stop and take notice

or just refusing to give it 

your seat on the bus?

Should I be concerned 

that drive-thru trash 

dumped on our streets 

by 3:00am drunks 

bothers me more 

than anything said or done

in Moscow or Washington, D.C.?

Since traffic 

has always been getting worse,

at some point will it stop completely 

so that we have to abandon our cars 

and walk home?

Am I the only one 

that thinks having 

the right book mark

for the right book

is important?

Do you feel the wonder 

of Universal kismet 

when a song ends 

just as you pull into 

your parking space?

Have you noticed 

that people saying

"Long story short"

can pop your 

private day dream

like a balloon?

Ken Owen   Van Niddy Press   May 2017

A Great Secret

I remember

long ago

a friend told me

     Turn your 

     suffering

     into beauty

and I thought 

at the time

she had revealed to me 

a great secret

Now

I'm wondering 

if it was a spell

that I'll never break.

Ken Owen   Van Niddy Press   April 2017

You, Quotable You

Tonight 

under a moon all alone 

in a starless sky

You and I

held each other up

by listening 

waiting quietly for our turn

to tell the same old stories

of love unrequited.

     All roads 

     seem to lead 

     back to them.

     Well, 

     fuck them anyway

     (our usual consensus).

Then 

I paused 

wondering

     how is it we could see the moon

     while ancient star light couldn't make its way

     through a haze of city lights on a clear night.

No answer came shining 

through the haze

of our cocktails 

but when you said

"...anyway, then I realized you can't 

fuck away the heartache"

I knew I should just 

be quiet and pay attention 

because we had just entered 

that part of our evening

where everything you say

is quotable.

April 29, 2017

Ken Owen   Van Niddy Press

From The Estate of Mrs. Banks

I bought a book of

Japanese haiku poetry

from The Goodwill for $2.00

Basho, Issa, Buson

with their gentle suggestions

of falling blossoms

bamboo shoots and dragonflies 

on pages of beautiful 

wood block paintings

could not compare 
to the inscription on the inside cover

written in wobbly grammar school cursive

that was more lovely than any poem offered

by the ancient masters:

     "To Mrs. Banks:

          I love poems, and I love you.

     Allaire Imhoff, 1998"

My joy at reading 

her heartfelt profession

quickly saddened when I realized

if they had taken more time 

when cleaning out 

Mrs. Banks' book shelf

they would have found 

this simple eulogy 

as testament 

to her teachings 

of love and poetry.

Ken Owen   Van Niddy Press   April 2017