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

They were Heavy

by Sheralee Purcell

They were jaded and pale, old  wine sour on their breath,

As they piled in the truck, to the village below.

The sky was pure and high above them, the sun like warmed honey  

On their aching heads, and they lit cigarettes in the sweet morning air.

Their two days of labor with the grapes in the mountains had

Earned them enough for a weeks’ worth of wine.

And their thoughts were jangled and tangled and knotted

Considering visions of bars and of bottles

As the sea lay below them, whispering sweetly turning and gliding

Past islands and mermaids and froth at its lips.

Oh heavenly blue all over their shoulders, light kissing them gently wherever

They went.  

The one with her hair twined golden behind her, she left

By herself down the opposite road,

She didn’t look back.

I watched as she strode down the hot dusty path

Til we rounded a corner  and then she was gone.