Marcyn Del Clements: California Poets Part 10, Four Poems

Marcyn Del Clements

April 2nd, 2026

California Poets: Part X

Marcyn Del Clements

Four Poems

blown head gasket

destroyed my radiator

Happy New Year?

Gridlock on Highway Five

Five lanes of freeway jam into one.  I flip out 

the map but the alternatives are unthinkable.                     

Dawn's grabby fingers scratch at my back as 

I try to stay focused.  Follow the flashing yellow arrows.

Stop.  Go.  Stop.  Roll out slowly on the curl of the clutch.

What would the Queen do, I wonder, trapped in gridlock?

Chauffeured out of the city toward her castle in the country

in a royal blue Rolls Royce, preparing her address 

to the Lords, a caravan of sheep trucks stalls on the road—

the sides broken out, bovines scrambling over the boots 

and bonnets of cars, slathering up the windscreens.

Double-decker school buses opening and masses 

of children everywhere chasing after them, slipping in sheep dung.

The Queen in the back of her limo looks up from briefs 

of her speech, quickly reaches for her golden phone.

RAF to the rescue.  They helicopter out and lower a chair

padded in carmine velveteen.  The driver pops open 

the top of the car, bends out a folding stair 

with a solid silver rail.  Her Royal Highness ascends,

fastens the ermine seat belt, snuggles under 

her faux-leopard lap robe and is whisked away—

over the tops of the belching buses, over the backs 

of bucking sheep, over the motors' noxious fumes,                     

to her summer home in the Dales.  

To the Caretaker

(for R.F.C. who invented words)

I’ll only be gone a minute—but

if you have time please

polish the shingles,

glaze the cat, fringle the gnu,

hobble the hyena out in the draw.

Please don’t worry about the flapper-de-google,

it just ticks along by itself;

but you may need to stir the jaydigger

on the back of the stove, lest it explode.

Don’t bother yourself with the frigid widget,

we have it serviced every fortnight.

I’d like to upgrade it; but not, you know,

while it’s in the family way like this,

or goodness knows, we’ll have a royal mess.

Thank you so much for standing in for me.

You’ll need to dodge the arrows of Framus,

who often hunts at night.  He’s very old, you know,

older than gingko.  But we put up with him.

He inseminates the pomegranates.  Don’t stress

about me, I’ll only be gone a shade too    long.

Taking Flight

I went out to see the bats

fly down the street.

It was twilight 

and the tall pines

were quiet against 

a violet sky.

I walked up the center line

and one by one,

the bats came to me,

big, soft, brown, adorable.

They stirred my hair,

curled up on my neck,

found my ribs,

unfolded my wings

and lifted me

into the evening air.

Author Bio:

Marcyn Del Clements, well into her 80th decade, lives in Claremont, California with 50 some koi and goldfish in a swimming pool converted to a swimming pond. Komorebi is Marcyn's second book; her first book is Shinrin-Yoku. It is a book of prose and poetry about nature, and can be found on Amazon/Kindle.