Kai Laursen was born and raised in Seattle. He earned an MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts. Currently he lives in Bali. His poems have appeared in The Talon Magazine, Ascent Aspirations and Bewildering Stories. He has earned his living as a city planner and carried out pioneering research on solar cities.

DEAD POETS

For David Wagoner

He read from Yeats, Thomas, Stevens and Auden.
Pray to the Muse, he exhorted.
What was her name?
She has a tragic sense of humor.

He praised and blasted my early poems.
That old raven; or hawk; the next moment—a dove.

When he read Yeats’ The Fascination of What’s Difficult—
That got me; the bolt burst off the door.
He even dared to pull the curtain on my father,
Whose mask hangs like a trophy, in my room.

Writing On The Body

desire the tension between the seen and the unseen the real and the hyper-real and chance itself a current pushing and pulling she made coffee at noon but the room was doomed by snow falling in the himalayas if you see trouble cross the street a flower arrangement the dictionary her bible and the new sentence same as the old sentence a row of stitching on the outer or upper side of a garment near the seam a riot ornithology a sign used to indicate peaceful intentions made by holding the palm upright and outward and forming a v with the middle and index fingers one betrayal is enough in my book what does the wall symbolize track your dreams to speak or say something rapidly oranges allowing a feeling to grow and deepen usually hanging upside down on a tree trunk as it works its way down eating insects seeds and nuts the blurry iris beneath the flickering lid

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