Pipeline Head

Songs flowed through
my pipeline head--
like Tony Orlando and Dawn’s
“Summer Sand” where Tony and his
it-must-be-a girl lover
wrote “things” in the sand
in the summer of ’71--I couldn’t

walk hand in hand on a beach,
not if I wanted to live.
While the radio dosed us
on heterosexual love,
we needed the dosing
every moment, what would
happen if we weren’t dosed?

My imaginary guy and I
laid on a warm soft bed
of summer sand—
that version missed the Hot 100.

A year later Lou Reed invited me
to take a walk on the wild side.
I knew what he meant,
kind of. I had been dosed
so much, I couldn’t be sure.
Until I took that walk
and summer sand turned
bright lavender.

Divine

Outside my Sunday School classroom--
Jesus with flowing hair
looked like he had
just walked out
of a Stockholm salon,
soft-spoken, a TV
with the volume way low, he didn’t seem

real, not the pissed Jesus
who turned tables on
moneycrappers. He I liked,
though once he left the Temple,
he returned to pithy parables
and taking water strolls.

I yearned for a more
kick-ass Jesus
who said fuck when
he had just stubbed his toe.

Wandawoowoo off Her Rocker

This is Grandma Sarah’s wooden rocker.
Some nights a sound of rocking
awakens me,
maybe just windy trees.

Throwing up my arms
on a sluggish July day, I drag it
to the curb. The sun’s butt
falls onto it, useful at last.

Trash guys toss it into the truck.
Fearing that I’ve made a mistake,
I dream of Sarah, rocking in mid-air,
unable to get comfortable.

Kenneth Pobo won the 2014 Blue Light Book Contest for Bend of Quiet. They published it in 2015. His work appears in: Mudfish, Indiana Review, Caesura, Hawaii Review, and elsewhere.