Don Kingfisher Campbell, a longtime fixture on the Los Angeles poetry scene, has been a performing poet/teacher for Red Hen Press Youth Writing Workshops, Los Angeles Area Coordinator and Board Member for California Poets In The Schools, publisher of the San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly, leader of the Emerging Urban Poets writing and Deep Critique workshops, organizer of the San Gabriel Valley Poetry Festival, and host of the Saturday Afternoon Poetry reading series in Pasadena, California. Mr. Campbell recently earned an MFA in Creative Writing at Antioch University, Los Angeles. He has taught Creative Writing in the Upward Bound program at Occidental College and been a Guest Teacher for the Los Angeles Unified School District for 30 years. Campbell has received many rewards including First Prize in the 2011 Whittier Poetry Contest and The Artists for a Better World Spirit of Youth Award as well as the Pennsylvania State Poetry Society’s Charles Ferguson Prize. Kingfisher's poetry has been published in dozens of anthologies and magazines, including San Pedro River Review, Lummox, Mudpuppy, Poetic Diversity and So Luminous the Wildflowers.  His first book of poetry Enter, was  reviewed as "pithy, trenchant, raw withlife", is available on Amazon.com.He has been interviewed on KPFK and KXLU radio, and at Litrave.com and Poetix.net

Two Poems from The Rectangle, People

Life of Nightmares

Next to a closed road overrun with overgrown trees
You have become one of many abandoned castles

Now I'm seeing dead dolls in thick branches
My heart feels like an old turret tower

Disused like an unfinished subway system
A rotting shell left behind in desert sun

These walls need paint, still seek love
As snow covers the roof, blocks the doors

Inside, memories, remnants of forgotten bodies
An amusement park of long ago

We're off that plane, grounded, covered by sand
An empty bed looks out dusty windows

Tries to find the brain in the solution
Because hanging rope is not an alternative

Nor peering off a high stone bridge
I'm like a boat in a lake sans water

Mindlessly searching for an emotional twin
Nothing else to do in this dark tunnel

Where birds dive to their deaths
Rather than be caged in open air

The Rectangle, People

On a round planet
With jagged edges
And irregular bodies
Of clouds and water

Beings with oval heads
And four sticks emanating
Evolve to build houses
Tables, chairs, beds, pools

Vehicles sporting wheels
Bats, balls, tennis rackets
Radios, record players, televisions,
Microwave ovens, computers
(utilizing dials, knobs, buttons, keys)

And now personal L7's
To hold onto and look into
To fill lumpy, bulbous minds
Concentrate almond eyes

On numbers, letters,
Pictures, music,
Video, games featuring
Recorded voices and faces

Reminding us we are
Creations recreating
Recharging our selfies
Until inevitable recycling

© 2015 by Don Kingfisher Campbell