cburll@hotmail.com

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A GRAND AFFAIR

Attraction burst into being
like an aerial display 
lighting the sky, and. 

we gravitated to one 
another, although we had 
never met before.

Jousting verbally, we
titillated nerve ends of
possibility. 

We leaned into 
jasmine-scented nights
and sun-sweet days.

swimming verdant seas
and dancing under
star-studded skies.  

In a waterfall of words, 
we vowed to love
forever,

to remember always
how clouds piled the sky
like pillows on a bed.  

But it was summer
and we were
young. 
 

 Cleo Fellers Kocol

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ON THE EDGE

Wearing jeans and a clean 
blouse, I attend another opening –
black and white photographs 
shot through dirty window panes, 
broken panes, no panes.  I barely
glance at them.  “Slick chic, stale
social statement,” a couple ahead
of me say.  I try to edge by, but

they want my opinion.  Are the
photos too stark, too real?  Hand 
on chin, I spout words about images
and focus.  At the table I fill a plate 
with finger-food and babble camera 
angles as if I owned a camera, as
if I hadn’t calculated how many 
canapés constitute a full meal. 

Cleo Fellers Kocol

Originally published in 
Blue Collar Review

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SNAKE DANCER GIVING THEM 
THEIR MONEY’S WORTH
 

In the neon glare she
danced for her father and 
with his livelihood.  Light
as a gazelle gilded with
multiple live snakes, the
little girl shimmied. 

Carnival goers gawked at 
the sight, she so delicate,
so young, the slithery
serpents so vile and so
inured to the Midway’s
crackle and glare.

 See the sly, crafty
python straight from
the Garden of Eden. 
See the girl weaned
on pit viper poison
and a boa’s embrace.

They waited for her to 
trip, to quail, to fall, waited
for a rattler, waited for some
stupid, slimy creature to 
sink fangs into her tender skin.

They watched later as her 
father lifted reptiles from her 
frail body, held their breaths
as he freed her from the wiggling
masses.  Watched in satisfaction 
as she shivered, a convulsive tremor
traveling through her, rocking her,
appeasing them.  Their applause 
shattered the slithery, 
slack-jawed silence.

Cleo Fellers Kocol 
Previously published in Rattlesnake 
Review and Fangs #1

 

 Cleo Fellers Kocol started writing in the 1970’s.  Her published writing started with humor a la Irma Bombeck and went on through one-woman, many character plays performed throughout the United States from Alaska to Florida and Boston to L.A.  She had a magazine column, one novel in print and two 
electronically.  Winner of various awards for short stories. Author of an essay in a college composition textbook and taught creative prose writing to adults.  She knew nothing about poetry. Then -- Cleo went to a poetry conference and felt the top of her head explode.  Since then she has concentrated on writing poetry when not traveling with her husband, giving  popular talks about history, taking part in numerous community events, or getting together with family and friends. 
Ostensibly retired, she won one of three grand prizes in the Artists Embassy International Poetry Contest, 2003, and was delighted that  Natica Angilly and her group danced the poem at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.  She is chair of the El Camino Poets of Sacramento and a member of the Poetry Club of Lincoln.

Cleo has two chapbooks:  What A Dance We’ve Had , Waikiki Winter and Other Tropical Tales, and three chapbooks in conjunction with Cleo Griffith, the latest, The Society of Cleo Poets, Volume III.
 

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DANCE THE NIGHT

A dry dust morning,
horizon lost,
people disoriented, 
cut off from the day,
the world a flower dead-headed,
bare stalks sticking up
like a forest without
a canopy –  
tree trunks
standing after a fire…

When the ice melts and 
oceans rise, and temperatures 
soar….   No, no,
bury the thought,
bury it deep. 
Pretend.
Ignore the day, dance
the night, dance again.  
 

 Cleo Fellers Kocol
 
Previously published in Medusa’s 
Kitchen & Rattlesnake Review

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Gray

He unpacks Courvoisier and chocolate 
and we watch brown leaves like tiny 
fingers flutter a sway-back tree.

Our motel windows show tidal 
flats shining darkly – as if 
coated with a film of ice. 

Blue smoke plumes from A-frames
on a beach where gray sand 
is sculpted by gray water. 

The wind piles foam in a 
dirty line, spindrift climbing
a wall.  Papers whirl, gulls shriek.

A long weekend ahead, we
pace the small room.  Cold
beats against the heater. 

Should have packed games,
cards, books, I say as wind
rattles the windowpanes. 

He blames everything on 
the gray unfurling in 
a fog no one can penetrate. 

Cleo Fellers Kocol
Previously published in Poettalk

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Pearl None, Knit Two

A needle threaded with
hypocrisy, you
cast on a requisite
number of loops and caught
gullibility with
a skein of yarn.

A garment developed, lines 
morphed into sized
duplicity, bound
prettily with pink and
baby blue.  But buried in beauty,
a dropped stitch lurked. 
 

Cleo Fellers Kocol
Previously published in Art With Word