MILD, FOR WINTER

by Ron Singer

Although the day was mild, for winter,
I decided to wear my warmest coat.
Nor did I neglect to transfer my gloves.
I prepared and ate a hearty breakfast,
balancing food groups, vital nutrients.
Checking my wallet, I removed a ten,
leaving enough to placate hold-up men.
On the train, I read selectively
from the paper: soccer, basketball scores.
When the train was full, I ceded my seat
to someone who looked needier than me.

Why do I feel so vulnerable today?
Could it be the prospect, or certainty,
of a four-year political winter?

Ron Singer’s seventh book, a collection of Maine poems, Look to Mountains, Look to Sea (2013) won an award and was nominated for a Pushcart. His eighth Uhuru Revisited: Interviews with Pro-Democracy Leaders (2015) can be found in about 100 libraries across the U.S., and beyond. His ninth, and most recent, is a double memoir Betty & Estelle/A Voice for My Grandmother (2016). 

FRIDAY, MARCH 1st, 2013

by Ron Singer

Drawing by Derek at Most Everybody Lives their Lives

Did the lights go out? Bombs begin to fall?
The lights did not go out. Bombs did not fall.
Nothing was literally sequestrated:
no property seized; no juries isolated.

But a bomb did begin to tick, loud already,
and the poor, already isolated,
looked ahead to being sequestrated,
foreclosed by trickle-down democracy.


Poems by Ron Singer have appeared in numerous magazines, e-zines, and newspapers. Some of these poems have been anthologized and/or set to music. His three published books are A Voice for My Grandmother, The Second Kingdom, and The Rented Pet. He recently completed three trips to Africa for Uhuru Revisited, a collection of interviews with pro-democracy activists (Africa World Press/Red Sea Press, forthcoming).