Poets and artists published in Four Feathers Press Online Edition: Too Hot are now published online and invited to read at the Saturday Afternoon Poetry Zoom meeting on Saturday, October 25th between 3 and 4:30 pm PST.

Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Don Kingfisher Campbell


Gone Too Far

 

For billions of years

Something small has swum

In my vast wet belly

 

When footsteps first stepped

On my skin I welcomed them

… tickled with pleasure

 

Then thunderous lizards

Stomped over my dermis

A mere 165 million—nary a change

 

But now in this last blip

Of a few hundred decades

These opposable-thumb re-facers

 

Have reshaped my face

Pouring concrete on top, placing

Buildings, I occasionally shake off

 

How long can those destroyers

Possibly continue as they hurt

My breathing, dirty my fluidity

 

All I can do is let Papa Time

Take care of my problems

As he always has, always wills






Cars Are People Too

 

Sometimes

In the rear

View mirror

I can see

Headlights

Drift a bit

Just to look

Ahead a little


When a car

Gets impatient

You’ll sight

One suddenly

Swerving out

Of a lane

Without regard

For other automobiles 


Makes me laugh

Spotting a sedan

Meekly inching

Toward another

Lane as if

Asking permission

From some

Big SUV


Ever seen

An angry vehicle

Get on the tail

Of a slower mover

Shocked if the slow

Poke slows a bit

Simply to spite

The speedster


I hate to notice

Ailing auto

Start to sway

Onto the shoulder

For a rest stop

From the rush

Or more likely

Tired of braking


Often I glance

Inside windows

To glimpse

Moving brains

Hold on tight

Trying to control

Their metal skins

Like shields


Nothing finer

Than lonesome

Wheels on

A highway

Barreling down

The concrete river

With a laughing

Skull enjoying speed


At times I hear

Music emerging

From an open

Window emanating

Feeling unleashed

Heads bob

Arms rap

To the beat


What creature

Has eyes

And mouth

In their front end

Middle and back

Expressing

Happiness

Or depression

 




You are one of the flowers too


It’s even easier to acknowledge Veteran’s Honor when it is a lush magenta rose as well.

Take a walk to the Rio Samba, see dresses swirling yellow, orange, and pink.

The Gemini, white center opening out to the sun of red outer petals.

Mardi Gras, you know the brilliance of an electric pink dress touched by frayed brown edges.

Belinda’s Dream, the face in the softest hint of pinkish cream that has more layers than you’ll ever experience again.

A bunch of delicate white rose petals clustered around each other, Pillow Fight! (Radiating suns in the middle of every pillow.)

Scattered white flowers, near pink ones, next to yellow, a Rainbow Knock Out.

Midas Touch is the goldest yellow imaginable; if roses were money….

Royal Amethyst has cornered the market on lavender, such a feast full of flora.

What’s left but yellow heavily tinged with pink, Love & Peace, a perfectly shaped rose.

No, look down at this! Small roses blushing to white…just like Passionate Kisses!

The ultimate coupled rose? A Double Delight of sun yellow vortex and bold red ends.

But what makes this garden complete?

The petite beach-tanned cellphone photographer in her white dress artfully filled with black paisleys, sandal-exposed white-out painted toes, her fragrant smiling face framed by an auburn hairfall.  

 




It's All Too Much


A universe littered with galaxies beyond my imagination

Every spiral stretching outward festooned of stars

Each sun sporting some planets, moons and asteroids

This sphere always covered by untold clouds

Oceans alive since evolution evolved here

Thousands upon thousands of fish, sharks, and whales cruising currents

Shores infested in the billions because trees grow and humans manifest

Beings briefly bringing forth into being millions of buildings and books

Made merrier making music and art and children

A ground even more populated around a quadrillion animals and insects

Enough food and flowers to delight all those eyes and noses and mouths

Burgeoning brains recreate creating electric visions and revisions

I'm just a pixel in a pixel in a pixel in a pixel

Part of the whole shebang breathing in and out

Cosmic light went on, someday I am shut off

To be recycled as the planet pleases until it ceases

Also repurposed multiversally for unknowable time

Does God have a new design planned in the possibly etch-a-sketch future 

 

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