Create your own Poetic Libretto (16 pages of poetry and photos) and send it to donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com by Friday, October 31st. Your Poetic Libretto will be posted on this website, and you will be invited to perform it at the 3rd Annual Celebration of the Poetic Libretto on Saturday Afternoon Poetry's Zoom channel this coming November 29th between 3 and 5 pm PST.

Monday, October 6, 2025

Potomac by Andy Palasciano

Potomac
by
Andy Palasciano

a poetic libretto


A man in a coma spoke this, to the shock of the nurse who was in the room with him at the time:


On the stony brooks of the Potomac,

Saying what can’t be said

Doesn’t mean you said anything.

But there you stand,

As water cascades around you

You feel like more,

But you remain, only a man.


And then he awoke:



Many days later, this man was in the neighborhood of his childhood.  He walked along the streets and went in a backyard that was dark in the night.  Even in the shadow of moonlight, by a tree he looked up and saw a tree fort encased in darkness.  He stood and listened to the wind creak the wood of the trees and this wooden tree house.  Several minutes later, police arrived at the house.  They asked him what he was doing there.  He responded, “Rehabilitating squirrels.”


In the cell that night, he imagined a squirrel in the cell with him in the moonlight.  The squirrel was writing with spray paint on the wall, “Park Ruler.”  The squirrel disappeared as fast as he appeared in the cell and he was left to think and dream:


As in Dune, “the sleeper has awoken,”,

but I will not awaken as the Messiah,

one above generations.

I will awaken as a dream,

who can do nothing without the dreamer.



Many days later, it was morning, and he found himself in a wheat field.  He heard the wind rustling in the stalks.  He began to dream.  He was in a meadow of grass.  All the squirrels ran to him like he was Snow White.  He began to sing, and all the squirrels followed him as he walked about the meadow.


He began to sing a song, almost subconsciously, like he had when he was in a coma.  It was a space between dream and reality:


The  White Lion fell in the ground

with the thunderclouds

and rose up with the lightning shower.

He will return in power with a shout

When all the lights go out, go out.


As he came back to reality, he said and laughed,

 “A squirrel can’t give birth to a lion.”



He came to walking through a thick forest at around dusk.  The gnarled branches bent and sounded like they were ready to snap in the swift breeze.   He came upon one tree that seemed to open up before him like wings.  He saw shadow movement at the base of the tree that seemed to scurry around and up the trunk in spirals and his eyes moved toward the top of the tree and remained fixed:


The trees this twilight

were flooded with moth-like birds

that moved like bats.

The fluttering betwixt the moss hives

high in the amber

 was enough to drive you to tears.

Why do the trees stand still?



He found himself with an open newspaper in his hands that seemed to be from a small town.  The main article had a headline that said, “The Gloved Waver.”  And the article read “There was a woman with white gloves driving through town and waving at people out her open driver side window. Who is this gloved waver?” And the smaller article below had a headline that read, “Do we have a squirrel whisperer in our midst?”


He had a distant memory of being a boy on a field trip to a tavern that found itself in the middle of the Revolutionary War.  He remembers the tour guide telling a story of one patron who, when a musket ball struck the staircase next to him, ran all the way to the neighboring town without stopping.  He pondered this and thought:


   War is an outcry for creativity.   

   The action and fervency of war

   is an expression of a desire

   for “pure creativity”.  Muskets and

   cannonballs fired may as well

   be fireworks in the sky.

   So much destruction comes

   from the desire to create 

 


He found himself driving a car with his arm out the front window like the gloved waver.  He had no glove on, but the squirrels on either side of him along the small town road were following his car and there were children running after his car shouting, “It’s him, it’s him!”


He thought about getting ice cream on an evening of crickets in a small town.  He remembered how secure he felt as a man in that moment and no desire to be more.  He thought of this connection and reached out:


A Fillerless Rope,

To deliver a sword

He sent a lamb,

When he could have

Just as easily

Set it across 

The horns of a ram



He arrived at a street in this small town.  There were trees on either side of him, in this suburban sprawl.  The trees hung low and he found, as he walked, acorns began falling from the trees at his feet.  He almost slipped a few times, but gathered himself.  The sun peeked out from behind the trees and he had a daydream:


The white helicopter seeds

Flutter all around.

The summer trees are 

Snowing.  To the right

A tree draped in brown,

Its hair catching sunflakes.

They are at your feet,

God’s Royalty



He found himself in a bright room with lots of people.  He looked behind him and saw a brick fireplace and he noticed he was wearing a flannel shirt.  When he lifted his arm in a chicken wing-type motion, a squirrel jumped on his arm and remained, fanning its tail as he looked at the crowd.  He smiled and cameras went off as the crowd cheered.


He coughed and really woke up this time.  He looked at the nurse and smiled.  The nurse left the room shouting for the doctor and other nurses.  They called his family.  When his wife and child, that he had not met yet, arrived, he looked in their eyes crying and with joy he remembered his name and realized he was no longer a stranger.    


Saturday, October 4, 2025

Two new PL compilations!!

 

A new poetic libretto compilation featuring eight poems on the topic of too

A new poetic libretto compilation featuring eight poems on the topic of clouds



Both available by emailing donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com



Sunday, September 14, 2025

Two new PL's!!

 

A new poetic libretto featuring 12 poems composed from May to July 2025

A new poetic libretto featuring 11 poems composed from July to September 2025



Both available by emailing donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com



Friday, August 15, 2025

You can't make just one!

By my calculation, I have created 11 poetic librettos in the past year!
They're easy and fun to make!! If you would like a free PDF copy of any
or all of them, please email me at donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com,
then put together your own PL's...


Thursday, June 12, 2025

Speaking Out Loud... by Marvinlouis Dorsey

 Speaking Out Loud

Without

Writing a damn word

 

A

Bobby John Press

Poetic Libretto

 

Marvinlouis



























                                                                             Took

train

ride

 

so

i

could

see

 

what

most

eyes

 

are

a-

fraid

ta look

at

 

my

dear

love

 

who

would

hate me

for

sho-

win

the truth

 



I

took

the

pic-

tures

 

but

didn’t

write

the

words

 

for

those

who

did

 

i

ap-

plaud

you

 

for

taking

the path

into

 

rubber bullets

tear gas


Tuesday, June 10, 2025

Stop Worrying by Don Kingfisher Campbell

 

I performed my poetic half libretto at the Victory Theatre Center in Burbank last Sunday night. You can watch the video below under it...

DON KINGFISHER CAMPBELL

 

STOP WORRYING

 

a poetic half libretto

 



Stop Worrying

 

Major King Kong

rides on top of

the falling bomb

 

And everyone is laughing

as he whoops down

to the doomed city

 

If only nuclear weapons

could be just as gay

we'd all sleep easily

 

Dreaming of daisies

popping up in fields

not representing humans

 

 

With muddy water flowing

through green swamps

bubbling life for tadpoles

 

But what about the streets

laden with belching vehicles

and factories shipping direct

 

Are the cholesterolated beings

worth saving for all that labor

inside stapled cardboard boxes

 

Maybe this design is designed

to fail, be overtaken by breathing

trees and overgrown oceans

 

 

 

Where the Road Ends

 

A metal yellow diamond stands sentinel

Marker to conclusion of asphalt and culture

As fierce clouds shine over dark grassy hill

Walk into abundant wildness and see

Blue sky heat eat away clouds while

Purple thistle joyously overtake hillside

An oak tree cluster is familial brilliant

Green clumps welcoming sun and gravity

To almost reach slopes that roll and stretch

Unhindered by wire or building or car

Only footsteps and eyes should touch this

Grown beauty which still exists before

Civilization's beyond be again encroached

Whereout lie concrete interests of mere men

 

 

 

Human Minds


A world without

the bomb

 

Now wouldn't that

be something

 

Maybe then we'd

get rid of the rockets

and missiles too

 

But it would take

the removal of rifles

and guns

 

To produce

a fundamental return

 

Back to swords

and knives

 

Unless an alien came

to melt it all down

 

Hell, you know

we'd rise up

 

Stones and sticks

in our hands

 

Even sans trees

fists would still

over rule

 

Taking away bodies

would leave only

worlds behind

 

For the universe

to merrily drift

out of existence

 

 

 

In the World War III Museum

 

Piles of melted steel, rubbled bricks, and scattered wood shards to walk around for hours

Shells of ships, planes, trucks, and cars to gaze at from an uncomfortable short distance

Shadows of humans, dogs, cats, even mice to be observed on walls and floors so close you can almost touch them

Videos of world leaders in disagreement, of people segregated in differently named countries and neighborhoods in this bunker

Finally, mounds of cooked hair, scrapings of charred flesh, and chunks of fragmented bones as evidence we were all the same


 


Vietnam 

 

numbers on the TV screen

wounded in the hundreds

sometimes thousand and 

 

dead always double digit

newsman in a simple suit

with frank reynolds hair 

 

small square picture

in the background

of green uniforms 

 

with one hand

clutching chest blood

like ketchup in the movies 

 

and I was young

maybe 8 or 9

when I first noticed 

 

people holding signs at

the federal building

finally making the connection 

 

the suited man giving the news

the soldiers dying on their backs

and me in the living room 

 

with my parents at night

looking at magazines the fan on

shadows saying nothing

 

 

 

Green Bell Apples vs Dreadful Toenail Assholes

 

I want to write a poem about clipping one's toenails

That's my idea: to start with something dreadful

But then I think of what is even worse: assholes

And realize I need a pleasant counterbalance, like apples

A universally loved fruit, historically important, red or green

This contrasts wonderfully, causes my brain to ring like a bell

 

I decide I'll try to get every word to sound like a bell

For example, I dig the noise made by each clip of toenails

It's good to cut them, it's like eating something green

Which results in fine digestion, a subject considerably dreadful

To some, until you remind them that it is grown apples

Chewed and swallowed that help to unplug stopped assholes

 

You definitely want to keep doctors away from assholes

When they get a hold of you, you reverberate inside like a bell

Thus a diet of the good stuff is essential, like mature apples

And bananas and oatmeal and gelatin for your toenails

I hear it comes from animal fat--how nauseatingly dreadful

To contemplate--I've got to shift theme: a tree is green

 

That's better, our world is mostly filled with glorious green

Trees and bushes and grasses and hopefully not just assholes

That would be unpleasant, right? Another notion dreadful

Like oil slicks and car exhaust and stock traders clanging a bell

To signal the start of trading--there's a concept without visible toenails

How do we get back to nature in this concrete land of few apples

 

By focusing some time on what gives us a quality of living like apples

And take an afternoon off to walk in a park or wilderness that's green

A place where one can remove one's shoes, expose them toenails

Maybe even find a lonely spot to excrete onto dirt from assholes

Like design intended, remember we discovered how to cast a bell

Forge furnaces, direct sewage through corrugated pipes so dreadful


And what about us, the modernized people who've become dreadful

With our loud stereos, air conditioning, paper waste, prepackaged apples

Filling landfills and stopping up rivers--we need a real warning bell

To toll in our heads to call us to ponder again the value of green

Instead we drive and fly our cyberspaced opinions like assholes

Everybody's got a justification, but what about freeing those toenails

 

Yes, it's all down to toenails freedom or leather shoes dreadful

When it's the assholes that rule, we diminish the number of apples

So go for the green life and make your own cause a cleansing bell

 






Potomac by Andy Palasciano

Potomac by Andy Palasciano a poetic libretto A man in a coma spoke this, to the shock of the nurse who was in the room with him at the time:...