Woodblock Eyes, by Kim Peter Kovac

Shoki, the Demon-Queller, by Utagawa Toyoharu (Japan) c. 1770.

Woodblock Eyes
​
The eyes stare out
from the narrow woodblock print
hung in the narrow gallery
filled with Japanese ghosts
and demons.

The eyes of Shoki
the Demon Queller
stab out so fiercely
that even an all-purpose agnostic
knows who he will call if he is ever
spooked and scared and needs
a demon quelled.

Kim Peter Kovac

This poem was first published in Allegro Poetry Magazine.

Kim Peter Kovac works nationally and internationally in theater for young audiences with an emphasis on new play development and networking.  He tells stories on stages as producer of new plays, and tells stories in writing with lineated poems, prose poems, creative non-fiction, flash fiction, haiku, haibun, and microfiction, with work appearing or forthcoming in print and on-line in journals from Australia, India, Dubai (UAE), England, Scotland, South Africa, and the USA, including The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Red Paint Hill, Elsewhere, Frogpond, Mudlark, and Counterexample Poetics. He is fond of avant-garde jazz, murder mysteries, contemporary poetry, and travel, and lives in Alexandria, VA, with his bride, two Maine Coon cats, and two Tibetan Terriers.  @kimpeterkovac - www [dot] kimpeterkovac [dot] tumblr [dot] com