Dave Kiffer - Alaskan Poet, Historian, Humorist

  SOUTHEAST LOG 12-12-20 > > Every plane old is new again > > SITKA - Visitors to the Rocky Gutierrez International Airport are > getting a blast from the past. An 80-year-old airliner from an airline > that went out of business in 1986 is spending some time in Sitka. The > 1942 DC-3 that was previously owned by Ozark Airlines is on its way to > Anchorage, eventually, where its owner hopes to put it to use offering > vintage flightseeing tours. THE DAILY SITKA SENTINEL > > First school COVID case > > TERRACE - A COVID 19 exposure was reported at the Centennial Christian > School last week. It is the first school related COVID case in > Terrace. THE TERRACE STANDARD > > Persily just can't say no! > > WRANGELL - Former Wrangell Sentinel owner Larry Persily is once again > taking the reins of Alaska's longest operating newspaper. Persily - > who ran the Sentinel in 1976 - wil...

MOOSOMIN Somewhere to the East The grain cathedrals Will be replaced by The spiritual ones. The life of the land Will become the life Of the mind, the life of a heart no longer soil. Meanwhile, the train tracks Vein their way outward, The only rise on a flatness that is emptier than death. People work hard here, Rushing to beat the cold And the enveloping dark. We are just passing through. But here we are though With the first flutter, blip, The early warning light. Fate is calling it quits. Yet we will push on Until we no longer can, And the Rest Stop Becomes permanent. Like a meteor in the sky We will continue to arc Toward the East, where Pieces fall mutely, to earth.

  CONFLAGRATION (Copyright 2017, by Dave Kiffer ) We wear our ashes Like snow in June Not flicked across Our bowed heads But draped like love On our shoulders It’s already too late To flee this Eden, The winding roads Already buried, The last escape Swathed by fire There is only a wait Til the heat rises From over the hill, The only regret That I didn’t build Something stronger When you move Out into the woods You think you escape, And maybe you do, But for only an instant, A heart’s lone flutter And now it is time, A disenfranchised beat Turning around on itself Like an unexpected crack, A final piece of kindling Turning softly to ash.

  OUR BASIC TOOL SELECTION   (copyright 2012, by Dave Kiffer )     That ballpeen has smashed My thumb a dozen times So I grasp it with care    And those needle noses With their worn out grip Not worth the cost of repair.   A Phillips, a standard, Sockets in a dozen sizes A chisel to cut stone,   An Allen-head wrench set Forged black, waiting for A dinette I no longer own.

  GORTAHORK  1999 (copyright 2011, by Dave Kiffer )   And here we are the day after The day after St. Stephens Day The day after the storm passed Rearranging all the rocks On the Bloody Foreland Everyone is picking the debris From between their teeth And we are walking between Petrol- blistered hedges to the Only open store on this desolate Edge of the breakers and waves That started with a rock tossed From the edge of Revere Beach, Still looking for a good steak We are breathily near The home of the Gaelic poet Whom the neighbors love Because you must always Love your kin, even if you Don’t understand about The Nepalese boys always Hanging about the Gaeltecht With their sad eyes lolling  About while the rest of us Wring our fingers over Y2K And tell each other we’ll See ya “next” millennium But the store is empty and There is no steak or tatties To be had anywhere near As the ESB scurries to bring The power back on, on the Outskirts, here, on the tail Of the great C...

T O LIAM ON HIS FIFTEENTH BIRTHDAY   (copyright 2015, by Dave Kiffer )     Nothing has or will ever change,   And I feel your pain, as you grumble   Along this narrow road, this town spine   Which we can only branch off slightly   Into evolutionary dead ends, never   Quite going far enough to get lost When I was your age the new century   Was decades away, too far to be real,   Or to even seem touchable beyond   The trees, the rain, and the waves which   Have now covered the beginning of the   Millennium as deeply as the Titanic But things have changed, I can tell now,   The stores that my mother and I shopped   Are no longer meant for us locals   The bars my father and I wintered in   Still overserve, but only shiny baubles   For those looking for a piece of Alaska But remember in the shiny aggregate,   You can still find warmth in the ic...

  BALLAST (Copyright 2011, by Dave Kiffer)   The plane is nearly empty We would love to sit in First Class Where our glutes could spread Like butter melting into the rich leather Of the wallets of the business class While we fill our souls with gratis Wine and morning bloody marys But the disembodied voice tells us To remain in our assigned seats So we remained seated, assigned Far apart like so many lights dotting  The Great American Empty Which passes far, far below us Unconcerned that we pass Overhead, like so many rocks Laded into the hold, equidistant From the reference datum center Of a giant silver pterodactyl Holding gravity, dear gravity, at bay