Selected Works, Kenneth Wagner

Today’s Version of Us  

we are bears on the verge of suicide

doors with no sense of direction

we are white doves misused in a deep angry war

by worn windows and rust-colored chains

and the back fence is trying to say it’s not leaving

as old berries thorn under our tree 

we are apples that sit in cheap seats with drunks

we hear harps play on steps to a bridge

the earth has gone and surrounded us again

and oceans have lifted their skirts 

and you tell me we are more circles than squares 

with some untied knots east of here

and I tell you today is our own copper time

because tomorrow we live in midair

Depreciating 

light pours in these curious days - warping

floorboards and worrying leather chairs

ceiling fans ticker below web-draped 

rafters   doors list in frames   window panes leak 

and the house expands and contracts with the day 

how like me this building slowly fades

path worn and lived in with chipped baseboards 

and buckling walls that mimic

our mutual descent

just as the wobbly banister 

and crooked stairs report the weight of age

the orchestral creak of the front door hinge

tunes to the settling of the house 

and synchronizes 

our calamity   perfectly

I Only Remember the Moment

Do you remember that thought that slanted 

like sunshine through the glass 

then reflected into a greater idea and grew

out past my imagined self 

little snaps of light crackling in front of me

as the idea dripped on the back of my tongue

and I spoke the thought turned idea in one breath 

I was glazed over with the knowledge

sitting in that chair   I couldn’t believe

I had captured a meaning so huge   

the weight of thought bent around 

and absorbed into me   wiping away

the remnants of uncertainty

it was formed so perfectly clear even 

the dog nodded in agreement

that deep question only gods answer

The Geometry Teacher

a truncated cone 

with soft blue eyes

and rumpled clothes

he taught dimensional

zero in a monotone voice

that made heads loll

he saw only shapes 

not colors   and knew

no one else could see

the triangular birds

tessellating 

the warm air

in a quiz   he’d whiffle

down the aisle   his worn

corduroy slacks whispering

him to the back of the class

where he’d stare out 

the rectangular windows

and dream

of rhombus flowers

hiding quadrilateral cats

Vacation   

I’d find a room in the bark of an old pine tree

and in the morning raft the ridges

to the forest floor   then burrow under

needles and leaves to the spa of a nurse log

I could hang suspended over Saguaros

in the retinal nerve of a vulture’s eye

rising and falling on thermal air

to see how dead bodies look like a banquet 

wouldn’t it be nice to be the wall the fly lands on

and how peaceful to spend a week

as a broken window in an abandoned house

the tension of holding off weather relaxed

the constant fear of rock-toting boys dismissed

I could lounge on the half-drawn page of an animator’s desk after dark

or pitch a tent inside a circle left 

on the chalkboard in a second-grade class

while the summer sun heats the scent 

of white paste and watercolor paint

but I’ve settled for this long drive with the dog

over a pass to a two lane straight away 

where warm air buffets my ears 

and the dog   head out the back-seat window

pants to the beat of inconsistent fence posts 

Kenneth Wagner lives in the Pacific Northwest; he has had the fortune being David Wagoner’s student and teaching assistant at Hugo House in Seattle for eleven years.  Kenneth has also taught poetry, art, and theatre in primary schools (pre-pandemic) and found that third graders are the most daring artistically and physically - of the K-12 lot that call themselves kids.