Owl Eyes

            For Susan Powell
 

There pools of black dye
Burrow into gnarled spores  

Here the emerald firebird
Shrieks in arrested flight 

Everywhere stories of pine
Splinter into grain 

Slowly branches rise
As dark hardens around its core 

Gnome masks emerge from
Rubbings pounded by monks


                                                                ________________





Amplexus
 

It's clear that Midas has won:
The golden toad's extinct. 

Tangerine no longer dazzles
Butterflies in the Himalayas. 

Burnished by grass fires,
The bread basket's parched. 

Peaches remain pits;
Grapefruits shrink to grapes. 

What doesn't wither on the vine
Burns off high-tension wires. 

Reservoirs evaporate
Salt from the tail.


 

Michael Karl (Ritchie) teaches at Arkansas Tech University and has published poems in a number of journals, including the Arkansas Literary Forum.