For silence, the year saw few warm
Days; they came seldom, as spooky
As honest politicians pop up because
Cold winds moved too much and
Made the clear panes rattle, too near
My bedroom window on the back
Porch sounding gossipy after a time
Unable to rest, pushed into such a
Clacking pitch by blue weather
On the roads, gusts skipped light
Cars like stones chatter on water
Nudged to cross the center line
As minnows flash there, surprised
Into oncoming traffic for a quick
Correction to the wheel to decide
To stay home, surrounded by walls
Soft, warm walls and to tape the
Wind chimes to stop their rumors
Beyond the bad day for Caesar
The buffeting-cold breathing Ides
Changed people, changed their
Human nature, grounded, delayed
Flightless like pheasants from the
Incessant breeze or, as stoic turkeys
From the chilled winter sliding
Over bare necks in want of heated
Air from the deep ache for good fires
~ Dan Pohl
Dan Pohl instructs English composition at Hutchinson Community College in Hutchinson, Kansas. Woodley Press will publish his first book of poetry Autochthonous: Found in Place in late 2013. He lives in Moundridge, Kansas, and writes poems and prose poems. He judged the 2013 Nelson Poetry Book Contest. People can find his work published in two 2013 anthologies: Begin Again: 150 Kansas Poems (Woodley Press) and To the Stars through Difficulties (Mammoth Publications), both edited by past Kansas Poet Laureate Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg. A sampling of his poems is found online at <kansaspoets.com>.
Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg, guest editor for Dec., is the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate, author or editor of 19 books, and founder of Transformative Language Arts at Goddard College, where she teaches. More on her here.
The Coop: A Poetry Cooperative 