Ron Salisbury: California Poets Part 11, Five Poems

Ron Salisbury

October 20th, 2026

California Poets: Part XI

Ron Salisbury

Five Poems

Diagnosis

In the time just past harvest

I was born, season just before

sleet and black ice, the booty

of storm and cold which

the body holds for when

joy is too too, and requires

banking, boughs spruce or

pine will do. A precept blessed

on us born in the State of Maine

during the war when all was

doubt. A gift to bear and bear

up. Joy being the snow leopard

described but few seen. Oh,

on the back of night, I ride

the yak of something else

but not achieved. An emptiness

rolled like the last Christmas

hard candy in the bowl

on the tongue.

Tell me I have complained too

much and I remind what little

else is left after stripping the bark

from the cedar stave but

fragrance. And that is incensing

the room here where most of

what was crowds in. A ruddy

crowd it is and being mostly

mist and taste and such

know nothing of the past.

I’ll bury the fragrance later

with the dreams.

Lucky

The anchor that keeps you here

will be lifted at the altar of the open mind

if given enough time to crank up logic’s

chain from below. In the miasma

of morning as the nighttime pill drags itself

down from its bed in the forehead loft,

a person has to be careful making

decisions such as opening the door

before checking attire. Or, what

exactly are you pouring over

your corn flakes. It’s fear that seems

to drive the bus today, the one

you race to catch as it smokes its

way on to the next stop. You know

that next stop, the one where achievements

wait to get on and check to see

if your bus pass has expired. No, they say,

you still have time left to suffer.

This begins to read like a Philip Larkin

poem but without the rhyme. When

you tart up language and manipulate

line ends to create anticipation

does it make the content less pathetic

than that you whined to the counselor

for years as she kept checking her watch

for the end of fifty-five minutes?

You are just a moon hound, a man

with dog-licked knuckles. Every

night the convict digs his tunnel

and black widow spiders,

they’re everywhere,

Too Late

the iron light works with a pry

on the window to get in. You know,

the light before the light

which right now is East about

the Central Valley rolling toward

the difficult Pacific. In the giant

Ficus tree with roots like a hand

gripping the bank it’s on, there

is a juvenile rook practicing pulling

rusty nails from an old board with

a crowbar. Only the coffee this

morning doesn’t have a double

meaning. I said, I can give you half.

Of what, she said. Everything, I said.

But you don’t have much left. I

know.

Walloped

Another day nooned and I thought, Well hell,

why not? The light’s loud and It’s already

cracked right down the middle,

one side lizards the other crow.

The tide coming in

and limping along the blurry path,

here comes rampaging night

with his tambourines and ghosts,

nary a yard hound to warn us.

Geez, another little ditty

about my pathetic life.

But everyone has one of those

just wait until you’re past 82,

83 down the road like an angry moose.

We always wish for the impossible.

It’s eleven in the winter morning

Yer finally here, you blighter,

straightforward bright is what.

Don’t ya know it’s you that

levers the misery from the soul?

In an extra layer, snugged, an eye

for the east and another on guard,

here I am, a pityless knowing

I should be more, but that

was years ago back there

when there was more before.

You, your mate time, abets,

cahoots the very being here

waiting to crank the day’s

worn handle over and over

again until a cough, a choke

chugs on what must be done.

I tell you this, sucker, watch it,

or some morning you’ll peak

in, late it is. And I’ll be gone.

Author Bio:

Ron Salisbury: Selected as the first San Diego Poet Laureate 2020-2021, winner 2015 Main Street Rag Poetry Prize for his book, Miss Desert Inn.   His second book, Please Write and Tell Me What I Looked Like When You Met Me, published by Wholon, 2023. His third book, Quattuordecim, will be published by Uphill Press in September, 2026. This is the first volume in the series Poetry-at-Cost. Ron has taught poetry for over forty-five years.  For the past eight years he has taught the Certificate in Poetry for the San Diego Writers Ink.