TWO POEMS
BY KENNETH POBO

















RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT

Hate abortion. Hate gays.

You can advocate screwing
the poor, making sure
millions of the the sick get no care,
blowing up the world.
All irrelevant. Three words--

your ruby slippers
to click you into the White House,
assure your re-election.

+ + + + +

THALIA MENINGER

In my late sixties, I remember goofy
Dobie spouting Hallmark poems about me. Sex

never happened. Dobie, not quite twenty,
his parents ran a small grocery, wanted me
to be pure, imagined our wedding day,
got all dreamy thinking about girls,
but flesh and blood left him droopy. Maybe

he craved Maynard
with his black goatee and huge aluminum foil ball.
Dobie promised eternal love.
Long ago. Now

I’ve had three husbands,
two which went poof. They wanted
to be adored. Men,
why do they sniff out adoration?
If they don’t get it, they find a secretary or waitress.
“My wife doesn’t understand me.”
I understood too well. Alone,

my one daughter’s grown. And living
in God knows why Mississippi. I look
in the mirror—rarely. Memory’s
spiders crawl on glass,

hairy and poisonous. What would Dobie say
if he saw me now? Would he still offer
eternal love? Or a quick spin in a Motel 6,
Maynard keeping the motor running.


Author bio:

WordTech Press is publishing a new book of Kenneth Pobo's poems in 2008 called GLASS GARDEN. Kenneth likes to write, garden, and do a radio show called "Obscure Oldies" at WDNR.com from 6-8pm EST on Saturdays. Kenneth recommends cool poetry books to read: Diane Gilliam Fisher's KETTLE BOTTOM, and Barbara Crooker's RADIANCE.