Don Kingfisher Campbell

DING

    DONG

I was 10
    Apollo 11
    lands
on the moon

on Earth
    I unwrap
    lunar-module-like
aluminum foil

to reveal
    a round
    chocolate frosted
Ding Dong

lift the
    snack
    cake
off

to leave
    behind
    a perfect
crater

I made
    my own
    moon
that year

I was
    that
    space
crazy

HARDBALL

The light pole in front of my house
was a touchdown
and the black cadillac
owned by that nasty old lady
(who kept our tennis ball home runs)
the other goal... of course
the yards were the stands

Depending on how many of us
were home on Sunday it was
2x2 3on3 4against4 or 5vs5
we'd try to balance teams
by age and ability
or just this week's best friends
we'd say "We're the Rams"
"We're the Vikings" huddle
whisper plays with our fingers
on the asphalt

Then 3 47 3 47
hut hut hut
run straight past
the driveway
imagine I'm Roman Gabriel
catching sight of
Jack Snow
slashing up the street
to the light pole
in Converse All-Stars
(the only basketball shoes!)

I never slanted right
off the curb
hit my head on a brick wall
turned my blond hair red
like Tim did
we laughed then cried
as we walked him
to his corner home

Just bad luck I guess

he'd grow up
to be a teenager
walking drunk on PCH
one late Saturday night

Ten years ago
I heard
he markets
chicken for
Orange County

I'm still the kid
with glasses
now deflecting bills
trying to hold on
to fun

MY SPACE

As a kid I wanted to travel
an astronaut in outer space
When I became a teenager
I painted my bedroom cobalt
hung dark blue curtains
turned out the light
put on Pink Floyd's Echoes
Dark Side Of The Moon
Wish You Were Here
I enjoyed being by myself
in my own mind in my room
listening to black vinyl universes
spinning on my Radio Shack turntable
at night Close To The Edge, Fragile
hearing the calls of my unknowable
older brothers, Yes
enter The Gates Of Delirium
I'd turn one metallic cone
on, part of the space age pole lamp
in one corner of my "Close Don's door,
we've got company!" refuge
sit on puffy blue bedspread
alone at a concert
in Madison Square Garden
feeling Led Zeppelin's
Dazed And Confused live
blow out my first Juliette speakers
and I had to drive my dad's white Skylark
to University Stereo's going-out-of-business sale
for new bigger black boxes
After my weekly trek for a Licorice Pizza
Hot 100 List, or Clan Records $3.99 special
I traipsed to Poo Bah's where
I would trade five taped platters
for the latest Bad Company
Run With The Pack to play afternoons
after boys' catholic high school
I traveled solo and loved
Somewhere I've Never Traveled
Somewhere I've Always Dreamed Of
smiling, blissful, before girls and drugs

THE FREE WAY

we were in the '63 brown Buick
I bought from my uncle for 350 dollars
blazing down the 210 Freeway to Ontario
for Cal Jam 2, the rock'n'roll concert
where we teens would light up
freedom from our parents
in a crowd of 300,000 at the speedway
we walked through the tunnel
to the infield where sleeping bags dotted the grass
(we made tracks on the grass in just an hour
it was 4am, I had been doing '78
trying to drive the year)
everyone was sleeping below the stars
waiting to be awakened by hundred thousand watt speakers
and reborn into rocking festival lyrics
to hear our cultural leaders--Aerosmith, Santana, Foreigner, Mahogany Rush
and when it was over, after our fists pumped into the air
thick with smoke and spilled beer and trampled dust
we shuffled out, media fed cattle, mooing with happy tiredness
for the 2am drive home, I drove in the dark highway space
weaving with ears buzzing, we had to stop
to piss on the walls of a closed gas station
spraying yellow sparks of independence in the night
the liberation of being on our own--with friends
hours of deep high to always remember

THE KID

As a bald baby I was moved
near a reservoir to a tract house
with a garage door branded Z Z

My Grecian Formula haired father turned on
the TV and the Trix rabbit jumped
onto a box on our formica dining table

I admired Dad's mahogany console stereo
oozing music for modern lovers
Tijuana Brass Whipped Cream

And Other Delights
a vinyl sheriff's star
stuck on the front door pane

Shouted re-elect Peter Pitchess
as my auburn-coiffed mom opened
her favorite tome

Jane Dixon's astrology pulled
from the woodgrain-
laminated-particleboard bookcase

I grew in evolving Polaroid pictures
smiling beside a "tree"
assembled for Christmas

Hugging my Strange Change
plastic creature maker
never thinking for a moment

I'd turn into a poet

WHITTIER BLVD. 8/29/70

Thousands
march in the street

Fists pump
signs into the air

Batons club back
protesting arms

Hands hurl bottles
and stones at official prejudice

Tear gas canisters
explode in bar windows

We can see it
all on TV

My father says
he has to go there

We cry we love him
as he opens the door

Because he wears the brown
Sheriff's jump suit

We wonder if we will
ever hold him alive again

But his name is not Ruben Salazar
so he lives to see an undeclared war end

All six poems will be published by Four Feathers Press in his forthcoming book From One Century To The Next, soon to be available on http://fourfeatherspress.blogspot.com