Issue
#1

January
2009

2 poems by Karl Koweski

happy family

with colored pencils
my daughter often draws
portraits of her
happy family

there’s me and her mother
the artistic rendition
of my wife
being much slimmer
than the
flesh and blood reality
though my daughter
makes sure to give me
as little hair as possible

there’s her brother
dressed as a ninja
setting fire to the mailbox
and her puppy,
a brown smudge on three legs
marking his territory

what I find most disconcerting
though
isn’t so much the circular UFO
always hovering in the background
as it is the two story house
with the wrap-around porch
and the in-ground pool

in place of the single wide trailer
with the wobbly fiberglass stairs
and the inflatable dollar store pool
that this happy family
calls home

© Karl Koweski

sand mandalas

obscure masterpieces
briefly given over
to silicon galleries

artist’s itinerant fame
measured by Google hits

critics praise
relegated to blog
comment sections

haters post their poison
on message boards

everyone
scratching their mandalas
in the sand

© Karl Koweski

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