Ken Hada is a fourth generation Oklahoman, descendant of Danish and Hungarian immigrants: Gypsy poets, barn dance aficionados, art lovers, amateur philosophers, wheat farmers, preachers, teachers and common-sense craftsmen.

“These poems, acting as spare parts themselves, go into the making of one smooth-running, powerful engine.”

 - Diane Glancy

Author of Pushing the Bear

Spoils of War

by Justin Swink

Uncanny intimations are born

from lonely trumpet songs

heard in vacant department stores,

like some horror movie flashback.

We hear it between the branches

when skeletons of Spring rattle

their bones in Winter’s breeze,

having shaken off their muscled leaves---

once taught against the tree‘s fingers---

now lying in a deathbed around the trunk.

Or the sound of an arrow, like the one

we let fly, the one we stole

from your uncle’s gun cabinet:

provenance---a dead VC, or so

your uncle told us. We were careful not

to touch the arrowhead because your

uncle said it was dipped in shit---

poisonous in a wound.  He told us

it was a nasty way to die, so we were

careful not to cut ourselves, when

we were alone, quietly taking turns killing

our invisible foes, always mindful

of how long it was until your uncle

would be home---first thing checking

his collection of death-weapons before

putting on a record and telling us once

again the stories we’d heard before.