Poetry by Douglas Richardson

              ​kelly bell photography CC



Poem
​
Poem can be Sixth Street
under the green-leafed sycamores in June
an autumn leaf somehow on the sidewalk

Poem can be clouds
over the western prairie
changing the light of the landscape

Poem can be the danse macabre
that gets you through
Death Valley

Poem can be her mother’s child
yet have the opposite
personality

Poem can be everything
Poem can be nothing
a wave through a rope
but the rope not progressing

Poem can be a boat on the lake
morning in its wake
memory in the wind for sailing





Mona Lisa and Banksy Outside the Super 8

She recoils
from
the mark’s stare

then smirks
like the woman called
Mona Lisa

marijuana
in her
handbag

event horizon
in her
eyes

Her boyfriend
orbits
eccentrically

reluctant hustler
mismatched with
the ancient profession

yet something
in the way
he plies

She calls him
Banksy
just for kicks

​

Douglas Richardson is a poet and novelist who lives in Santa Ana, California, with his wife Jen and cat Wes. He is the founder of Weak Creature Press. He has written a fiction series, American Strays, which comprises the novellas The Corruption of Zachary R., Trust Fund Baby, and Kay Sutter Through the Ages. His poetry has been published in The American Journal of Poetry, Black Poppy Review, Cajun Mutt Press, Hobo Camp Review, Misfits’ Miscellany, The Nervous Breakdown, Straight Forward Poetry, Trouvaille Review, and Poetry Super Highway. In 2013, he won the Poetry Super Highway contest with his entry, “Notes from the Graveyard Shift.”

---