Three Poems by John McKernan: One Drop, The Stone Mason Has, Instructions on a Cheetos Wrapper

Three Poems
by John McKernan

One Drop

Of midnight
Dew

Hangs in the smoke
In the spider web
In the pine tree

That’s me all right
In this tiny mirror
Taking a bath outside
In December

I have been
This small before This cold
Swimming in darkness
The morning years ago I woke
To learn my father had vanished forever

The Stone Mason Has

                                                A rusted iron mallet
                                                A chipped chrome chisel

                                                Chapped hands
                                                Blue ink LOVE & HATE
Tattoos on 8 fingers

                                                A shed
He shares with ice
                                                Four cats and an endless quart
Of white lightning

                                                He will forget
                                                My name
                                                As soon as he scribbles it
                                                In granite

                                                He makes the most stylish J

Instructions on a Cheetos Wrapper

We want you to write us and tell us how you feel

You will enjoy this    Unless you stole it     Take it back

It will change the color of your mood   From growl to
            bright orange

Particles will stain your white shirt

We are and are not responsible but we are sorry

When you walk do not drive eating this product

The girl at the counter looked at you twice

When you were there did you get what you wanted?

Think of your great grandmother planting a row
            of corn in the garden in the springtime

She was wearing a part of your name

The sunlight did the rest but the rain helped and
            here you are

Why was that Nietzsche guy always yakking about God?

He did not have enough cheddar cheese in his diet

Please don't litter    Especially on street corners patrolled
            by politicians with 9 mm guns in their back packs

John McKernan - who grew up in Omaha Nebraska - is now retired a retired comma herder / Phonics Coach after teaching many years at Marshall University. He lives - mostly - in West Virginia where he edits ABZ Press. His most recent book is a selected poems Resurrection of the Dust. He has published poems in The Atlantic Monthly, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Journal, Antioch Review, Guernica, Field and many other magazines .

Copyright 2014, © John McKernan . This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.