RIP JOHN DONNE

by Lynn White

No man is an island wrote Donne
centuries ago.
He understood the predicament
understood
that man, or woman
is one part
of a whole
which is one part
of something larger
and so on
into mind-blowing infinity.

No man, or woman can stand alone
and reach their potential 
in isolation
or when isolated
on some small island 
however grandiose
the delusion.

An island alone cannot thrive,
except here in Britain of course,
so it was once said by some.

And now,
what now
when it stands 
triangulated 
in the centre 
of three egos, 
Trump, Putin 
and Zelenskyy.
Stuck in the middle
of such super egos,
TPZ Keir Starmer.

Lynn White lives in north Wales. Her work is influenced by issues of social justice and events, places and people she has known or imagined. She is especially interested in exploring the boundaries of dream, fantasy and reality and writes hoping to find an audience for her musings. She was shortlisted in the Theatre Cloud 'War Poetry for Today' competition and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and a Rhysling Award. Her poetry has appeared in many publications including: Apogee, Firewords, Peach Velvet, Light Journal, and So It Goes.

And now, 

OMICRON

by Joan Mazza

Animation showing the cause of Brownian motion, the random motion of visible particles (white spheres) in a gas or liquid. This random motion is caused by the particles colliding with the molecules or atoms (blue) in the surrounding gas or liquid. These molecules or atoms (shown here) are not visible to the human eye. This is represented by the blue spheres fading out midway through the animation. Credit CHRISTIAN KOCH, MICROCHEMICALS / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

When I think of these many months of isolation,

nearly two years so far, I well up with gratitude

for this holiday season when I can eat at a table

of sixteen, no masks, no fear of breathing the air.

As I drive home from Thanksgiving, stuffed

full for the first time since I took control of my

gluttony, a new variant of Covid’s in the news,

already flying toward us on planes, inside

vaccinated humans traveling to celebrate or return

home. Invisible and insidious, this not-quite-living

piece of RNA only aims to reproduce itself, not

kill us, although it’s not wanting or thinking

anything, mindless as a living thing could be,

circulating, waiting for the right conditions

to dig in, like a seed in soil after a long winter.

They’re naming the variants with Greek letters,

like the extended list of names for hurricanes.

Soon, they’ll run out. Will they use the names

of stars or planets? Resort to letters and numbers?

This is our long winter. We lock down again,

stay home and write, reread books we loved

to delight in them as if they were new, hope

to germinate and bloom what’s fresh. We have

no idea how deadly these new mutations

will be, how contagious, or if it will surge

and fade without explanation, leave a mystery

until another blooms in the world’s swamp.

This is life: erratic and random as Brownian

motion. Unpredictable, beyond control.

Joan Mazza has worked as a microbiologist and psychotherapist, and taught workshops  on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self, and her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia where she writes every day.

BRAVE RED

by Ellen White Rook

Posted on May 25, 2017 by Maggie at The Magical, Magnificent, Miraculous Amaryllis Journey.

on the one-year anniversary of the last time I got dressed up

 

In this country,

there is no minister for loneliness.

We make do with general anxiety.

The wind, loose, plucks

the last pinecones and builds

horizontal crowns across the snow.

After this year of quizzical

breath and fingers pressed 

against glass walls, houseplants 

are overgrown from too much care: 

Ivies overthrow terracotta 

and aloe spikes weave 

through jades.

An amaryllis 

that hasn’t bloomed in years,

this week leapt a green arc from its nest 

of tiny stones. The thumb-bud aims 

precisely where the sun comes up

even though I turn the pot

each morning and some days, 

the sky stays winter pale. 

The red sepals unfold

precisely the shade

of that last lipstick smile.

Ellen White Rook is a poet and teacher of contemplative arts residing in upstate New York and southern Maine. In the pre-COVID-19 world, she offered workshops on Japanese flower arranging and led day-long Sit, Walk, Write retreats that merge meditation, movement, and writing. In 2021, you can find her on Zoom. Although a senior citizen, Ellen is a recent graduate from the Master of Fine Arts program at Lindenwood University. Her work has been published in Montana Mouthful and Trolley Literary Journal.

THE YEAR OF THE GREAT PAUSE

Six Haiku

by Geoffrey A. Landis

the great pause:

a year for learning patience:

streets are quiet

this is what matters:

you show your love with distance

alone, together

together, apart

attention to what matters:

distance shows your love

the space between us

shows our love:

a year of isolation

a year for introverts

ready to go out;

stay inside

a year for learning patience

year of distancing

find inner reserves

Geoffrey A. Landis is a poet, science-fiction writer and scientist. His poetry appears in places from ArtCrimes to The Year’s Best Fantasy, and he is the author of two poetry collections: Iron Angels from VanZeno Press and The Book of Whimsy from NightBallet. In his spare time, he fences épée, because he likes to stab strangers with a sword.

AVERSION TRAINING

by Robin S. Axworthy

Photo credit: Bette Ferber via The New York Times.

I have grown used to the moisture of my own breath 

on night walks, the mask, the sound of my own breathing 

pushed up past my ears.  Used to my own company at home, 

with only husband and sometimes daughter.  Used to any other

contacts as just the glass and scratch of microphone, letters 

appearing and sorting into sense on a screen. Used to touch

as poison to be scraped clean with alcohol and friction.

Accustomed now to nearness an electric buzz of warning

away from flesh, ears so used to staccato whine they have forgotten 

rippling waterfall of open mouth, mouth forgotten how breath 

feels naked and dry, thin in the bare air, my hands so used to solitude 

they’ve forgotten how to find their way to warmth.  

Robin S. Axworthy has been published in various anthologies including, most recently, Dark Ink: An Anthology Inspired by Horror (Moon Tide Press) and Is It Hot in Here or Is It Just Me? Women Over Forty Write on Aging (Beautiful Cadaver Project). Her chapbook Crabgrass World was published in March 2020 by Moon Tide Press. 

UNTIL THE SICKNESS CAME AMONG US

by Penelope Scambly Schott

"Knee" by Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890), February-June 1886: chalk on paper, 10.2 cm x 13.6 cm. Credit: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

We hadn’t really understood

the lunatic loneliness of skin.

Now, it’s the careful withholding

of the over-eager hand,

the lack of the comforting pat

on a friend’s shoulder,

no quick notifying tap

against a stranger’s sleeve,

no glad hug of greeting

or clinging hug of goodbye

Now we need to caress

the hand-smoothed bannister,

the weave of the couch,

bumps on the pickling cucumber,

the rough skin of our elbows,

or the childlike folds

of our own getting-old knees.

Penelope Scambly Schott is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Her newest book is On Dufur Hill, poems about the cycle of the year in a small wheat-growing town.

PANGOLIN STEW

by Fran Schumer

White-bellied pangolin photo by Darren Pietersen.

My son sends a picture of a pangolin;
my husband jokes that lunch is bat soup
and pangolin stew.
My mother calls me, angry at my father
for sleeping all the time,
and leaving her to die alone.


Fran Schumer is the author of Powerplay (Simon and Schuster; NYT bestseller) and Most Likely to Succeed (Random House). Her work has appeared in various sections of The New York Times including Op Ed, Book Review and Sunday Magazine; also, Vogue, The Nation, The North American Review, and other publications. She is the winner of a Goodman Loan Grant Award for Fiction from the City University of New York. She lives and teaches in New Jersey.

QUARANTINED WITH THE DEAD

by Judy Kaber

Your boots sit
beside the door
as if you will

creep, turtle-mind    
full of muckage,
out to drink

from the stream.
Hope is nothing
but a skull now

& you at home
as much in roots
of foamflower

as anywhere.
Once we feasted
on pizza

together
drank sassafras tea
laughed at

ridiculous things
like death, like pockets
of earth that might

swallow us
that did swallow you
long before

I sequestered myself
in a quarantined world
long before

my poems fell
into books, into quiet
word-pools

long before
madness descended
uncalled

Judy Kaber is a retired elementary school teacher, having taught for 34 years. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous journals, both print and online, including Atlanta Review, december, The Comstock Review, Tar River, and Spillway.

SELF-IMPOSED ISOLATION

by Mark Danowsky

Philadelphia. Credit WMMR drone.

I do my due diligence
staying inside

I go for walks—
sometimes twice a day

I try to get 6000 steps

I try to make a day feel like a day

I have my tea

I try to find words

I try to reach out via the virtual

Sometimes I cover my bed in books
then fail to crack a single one

I tell myself today will be the day
I pick up a paint brush

I have so many problems
that are good problems to have

I go out shopping once a week now

I made it almost two weeks twice
but I felt like I was losing touch

Since we cannot touch
I tell myself other senses take primacy

Once I got in the car and took to the highway
to get to a good speed
                                                                                                                 
Then I walked the main drag
in another ghost town

I miss the feeling of being in motion

Being in motion was helping me
in this era of grief


Mark Danowsky is a poet / writer from Philadelphia and author of the poetry collection As Falls Trees (NightBallet Press, 2018). He’s Managing Editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal.

SPENT

by Paul Jeffcutt

Candy, Bread, Microwave Meals,
Liquor, eCards, Sleeping Pills,
Sausages, Butter, Toilet Rolls,
Cannabis, Cheese, Tylenol,
Pet Food, Chips, Video Streams,
Heroin, Wine, Computer Games,
eBooks, Beer, Exercise Mats,
Vitamins, Cookies, Cold Cuts,
Ice Cream, Guns, Online Gambling,
Webcams, Eggs, Hair Coloring,
Chocolate, Bleach, Coffee,
Baked Beans, Tea, Pornography.


Author's Note: Listed in the poem are the most popular products bought during lockdown.

Paul Jeffcutt’s debut collection Latch was published by Lagan Press. Recently his poems have appeared in The Honest Ulsterman, Ink, Sweat & Tears, The Interpreter’s House, Magma, Orbis, Oxford Poetry, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Salzburg Review and Vallum. He lives in Northern Ireland.

CLOSE ENOUGH

by Eryn Murphy

'The Invisible Wall' Canvas Art by Roswitha Schleicher Schwarz 

One day, this will all be over.
But the history books will not capture
the acute pain of wanting someone
just out of reach.

Immunocompromised, I cannot shop for myself.
The only time I leave my apartment
is to walk my dog.
It’s terrifying how quickly
this unfamiliarity became ordinary.

I am reminded of how much things have changed
every time a friend brings me groceries.
They stand over six feet away wearing a mask,
the groceries disinfected on the ground between us.

Sometimes I think it would be easier not to see them.
Their presence triggers a painful memory,
and the longer we talk the worse it feels.
It’s torture to have them this close.

As we stand with an invisible wall between us,
six feet might as well be six thousand feet.
They are close enough I can
see their smile lines and hear their laugh,
but I miss them more than I did before.

I long for their touch
and ache to be embraced.
I mourn all the hugs I took for granted
as they stand across from me,
just close enough for me to miss.


Eryn Murphy is a journalist and writer based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her healthcare pieces have been published in The Mighty and Girls With Guts. Eryn can be found on Twitter @smurph_95.

SORRY, WE'RE CLOSED

A Collection of Shorts on Close Confidants and Secrets Shared in Public Spaces Now Shuttered as Civil Liberties and Lives Lived in Previously Precarious Situations Ripe with Bitter Herbs that Burn Suddenly Collapse in Ruin. Coffee Shops Close. Close Confidants Cancel. Friend. Help. 

by Jen Schneider

Abortion rights advocates asked the Supreme Court on Saturday night to overturn part of the Texas governor’s sweeping ban on abortions during the coronavirus pandemic—the first of similar restrictions to reach the high court. Texas and several Republican-led states that have long led the legal battle to restrict abortion have sought to cut off access as the health crisis escalated in recent weeks, contending the procedure would drain medical resources. —Politico, April 11, 2020. Graphic: a frame from the comic strip “What We Do In a Crisis” by JB Brager at The Nib.

Three weeks late…

Can you talk? It’s urgent. 

Sure, let’s meet at 2. The usual spot.

Thank you, friend.

Secrets shared around tiny, cluttered wood tables. Laden with initials

etched as markers of time and trust, steaming mugs of cocoa—decaf, 

of course,—circular plates of rectangular toast, and square pats of butter. 

Nearby, glass cases protect cinnamon glazed pastries, petit-fours in pale

pinks, greens, and blues, and everything bagels with smears of chive

and onion cream cheese. Origami folded napkins stacked high. Ready.

All perfectly posed and poised for patrons, confidants, and shared secrets.

Public spaces 

pull necessary truths 

outward in shared spaces 

built of security and safety.

Steam soaked air shields salt-soaked tears and paves a path for pure 

talk. Honest voices pour over real options. Plans. Denim clad legs locked 

to silence shaking knees. Brown eyes close quickly as pent up breath 

releases pressing Truth: I need help. Now. A weekend away, one meant 

to heal wounds and smooth scars, turned soft tissue into hard calluses. 

Weak spots and weaknesses for lost laughter and sentimental talk, yield 

decisions with consequences. My regular clock stopped ticking. New life beats.

Now I know. I am in trouble. With bills already unpaid and tempers

that flare daily, I need help. A life in fear of daily taunts, weekly affronts,

and constant slights is a life mine own but not one I choose for the life 

that brews within when the capacity without is full.

As words whimper and fade, secret codes speak clearly. Pointer finger 

taps twice for Yes. Ring finger taps once for No.

Code conveyed on coffee-stained napkins as speakers stream classic rock 

tunes and patron chatter fuels and fires blankets that shield fresh wounds.

Have you told him? Yes. 

What did he say? No.

Are you sure? Yes.

I’ll go with you. 

Thank you, friend.

Three weeks later...

Can you meet? Please. 

I can’t. Nor can you. 

Are you safe? Can we meet online?

Let’s try. Thank you, friend.

Secrets mouthed over cluttered linoleum tabletop piled high with envelopes 

hosting bills overdue and pot-filled sink backdrops. Dog howls and television 

talk filter through climate-controlled air. Shadows loom and linger in adjacent 

room out of view—beyond reach and touch.

Private spaces 

push necessary truths 

inward in shared spaces 

ripe of insecurity and fear

Fingers fiddle chipped coffee cup—a gift from years prior—as laptop screens 

twitch and glitch. Friendly face emerges in pixelated view. Fingers lock and unlock 

in solitary fashion. Seek fodder, find fear. Newfound fears simmer like the skinned potatoes that drop, then boil, on the electric stove. Naked. Alone. Words mouthed 

in hushed whispers. When words endanger, secret codes speak clearly. 

Right eye blinks twice for Yes. Once for No. 

Procedures deemed no longer urgent as domains of urgency morph 

into spheres set for others to determine. Appointments stalled then paused.

Now ceased. Fears of drained medical resources drain safety nets—and sanity. 

Office shuttered. Governor said No.

Wait. What? Say that again. I can’t hear you.

Drained safety. Drained sanity. Don’t know what else to do.

Messages flick across digital screens. Internet connections also unstable. 

Now lost. Faces freeze. Blink. Blip. Disappear. Shadows from rooms 

adjacent loom larger. Closer. Close. Here. 

Three o’clock. Today.

As thoughts and lives beat on—consumed with an unplanned and uncertain 

future—the usual turns extraordinary and days marked by patterns etched 

in previously fine-turned moves and moods—turn unpredictable, close 

confidants and coffee shop camaraderie turn essential though forbidden.

Civil liberties in question. 

Threads fray as ropes tighten. 

Throats, Bellies, Hearts ache. Help.

Jen Schneider is an educator, attorney, and writer. She lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Philadelphia. Recent work appears in The Popular Culture Studies Journal, Bat City Review, Zingara Poetry Review, Streetlight Magazine, Chaleur Magazine, LSE Review of Books, and other literary and scholarly journals. 

SHOPPING AT THE SUPERMARKET

by Gil Hoy

Shoppers appear to be lined up six feet apart outside a Market Basket in Chelsea, Massachusetts, on April 2, 2020, as the grocery store chain implements new social distancing guidelines. —nbc Boston

You don't want to be there, but your family has to eat.
Which is just the two of us now. I'm waiting and walking
in lines made from rope. Like the roped-off lines
we used to see on a busy day at Disney World
with the kids. Today's anticipation is different.
Just hungering for the food you need to survive.

It's my son's birthday today. He's studying to become a doctor.
Sitting in his room in a suddenly faraway State. He's learning
human anatomy on a computer. The half-dissected cadaver
in his school laboratory will simply have to wait. I worry about
him sitting there all alone.

A police officer is cautioning customers to stay at least
six feet apart. I clean my hands with one of those sanitizer
things before going in. I'm proud I've not bought
any toilet paper yet. Can it really be caught
through the air like a plague?

I've never spent so much time alone with my wife.
Is she worried I'm getting bored with her?
I wonder if she's getting bored with me. No one
can be entertaining for this long. Such expectations
are unrealistic. I sense her panic as she watches
the news.  She's still able to connect with other
real estate brokers from her office for an hour a day
on her computer. They talk about the best ways
to sell homes at a distance.

Most everyone inside the supermarket is wearing
a blue or white mask. They look like shabby doctors
and nurses. I pick out some chicken and put it
in my cart with a box of strawberries. A lady
standing too close to me has a distant stare. As if
she's half-dead. I suspect she has no family or friends.

Just a few weeks ago, my street-smart son was serving
us oysters, fish and wine for dinner at a fancy restaurant.
Like he did every Sunday. They won't let him work now
so he and his girlfriend are barely getting by on one-half
of their pay from the government. We ordered dinner
delivered to them the other night and they seemed
appreciative. And happy for a while. My daughter
and her husband are holed up in Palo Alto
doing computer and engineering work. They're
still getting paid and still drive their new Tesla.
She likes to read my poetry these days.

I see there are still live lobsters for sale
in the seafood section. Their number is depleted
from what they once were. They're subdued and sullen.
They're not moving in their tank. I wonder
how long they have to live.

My father won't stop texting me on my cell phone
and messaging me on Facebook. We haven't spoken
in 20 years. Old high school friends want to travel
down memory lane, over and over again. Texting
and messaging me until my eyes are ready
to bug out of my head. Everyone is trying to settle
old scores and pay off their debts. I'm sorry to see
there's no beer left in the cooler for purchase
as I head towards the cashier to pay.

Gil Hoy is a Boston poet and semi-retired trial lawyer who studied poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program. He previously received a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Boston University, an M.A. in Government from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. Hoy served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. His poetry has appeared, or will be appearing, most recently in Tipton Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, TheNewVerse.News, Right Hand Pointing, MisfitMagazine, Mobius: Journal of Social Change, Ariel Chart and The Penmen Review.

HOARDING LIGHT

by Susan Vespoli

Maybe I’m hoarding Molly
while on lockdown, luminescent
in her fourth year around the sun.

People gasp and ask,
you’re still seeing your granddaughter?
like it’s a crime,

and I want to hide her behind my skirts,
she who chalks cement
with hearts, water-paints rocks,

watches youtube
compilations of Snoopy laughing
and never tires of tossing

the rubber bone for my ecstatic dog.
I turn off daily death counts on the news
to watch her in the field of brilliant

poppies that sprang up in my front yard.
She who bends to sniff and pluck
and count the bees,

then runs after bugs
she wants to keep as pets:
crane flies and beetles,

a fat khaki grasshopper
wriggling between index finger
and her thumb

as I the buzz-kill cry,
Not in the house! It’s a living being 
that needs its family. Let it go,

and so, she does: opens pincer grip
as the insect soars
across the yard in an arc.

Susan Vespoli is a poet/essay who lives in Phoenix, AZ. Her work has been published in spots such NVN, Rattle, Nailed Magazine, Mom Egg Review, and Nasty Women Poets: An Unapologetic Anthology of Subversive Verse.

CONTRABAND

by Gary Rainford

Winterberry  Heights

“Good morning from isolation,” an angel from Winterberry
Heights PMs the caption and a pic of Bobbi because memory
care is locked down; residents are not testing positive for

Covin-19, so they want to keep the curve flat. “Laughter
is the best medicine,” captions the next pic, a few days later,
Bobbi laughing, hugging herself. After forty five minutes

on hold with the CDC, a caffeinated operator reads the same
script I had already read from their website. Did I answer your
questions, sir? she asks. Nope, I reply. What do you mean,

sir? She sounds hurt and offended. I asked for guidelines
about compassionate care visits at assisted living facilities, but
you read a soap opera about how the blahblahblah spreads

and the importance of blahblahblahing in place, which to me
translates as, Go fuck yourself. “Your mother is just fine,” says
the latest caption from Bobbi’s quarantined studio while her

toothless smirk remembers the 1950s, polio pandemic: sore
throats, fevers, headaches, respiratory infections, beaked face    
masks, nausea, fatigue, and fear spreading like the virus.


Author's Note: Maine Governor Janet Mills, like many governors across the country this week, ordered Shelter-in-Place measures for all non-essential activities.  My mother Bobbi is under hospice care, receiving doses of morphine daily, and now she will likely die without me, her only local family, at her side.

Author of Salty Liquor and Liner Notes Gary Rainford lives year-round on Swan's Island, Maine, with his wife and daughter. Gary's third book in progress is a verse novel that tells the story of his mother's dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

COVID-19

by Gary Lark

Here we are
waiting for the world to end.
Enough stuff to last a month
and angst hanging outside
waiting to gobble us up.

I go out back
to the garden
plant spring seeds
in an eight-year plot
and collect some vitamin D
for the long haul.

Sheltering in place,
seeing even less people
than I usually do.
A neighbor turns out her little dog,
we wave. I check the rat traps,
some of the bait is gone.
They lose a few every day.

Gary Lark’s work includes Ordinary Gravity (Airlie Press); River of Solace (Editor's Choice Chapbook Award from Turtle Island Quarterly); In the House of Memory (BatCat Press); Without a Map (Wellstone Press); Getting By (Holland Prize from Logan House Press). Daybreak on the Water is forthcoming from Flowstone Press. His poetry has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Catamaran, Hubbub, Poet Lore, ZYZZYVA, and others.

TO MUSCLE MEMORY

by Lynnie Gobeille

"Automat" (1927) by Edward Hopper

He says he plays by muscle memory
Stares off into space while on the stage
In some sort of out-of- body zone.
He asks if writers ever feel that way.
Do we experience the Zen
Of lost time and space?

I think of countless meals burned,
Eggs exploding on the range,
Long past “boiled”—moving on
To become lethal weapons;
As I sat patiently
Waiting for the arrival of the Muse.

I tell him—
Maybe that is what love will be
In this time of Covid19 and
Social distancing is really
All muscle memory with no touch.
I tell him not to worry—after all—
Hell—this is nothing new to us.

Artists are used to creative isolation.
And all this fear over Solitude?
—Just another name
For how we live our lives.
He picks up his guitar and plays—
I turn back to my computer.

Our words hanging there
Along with our silent fears
To be digested later.


Lynnie Gobeille: Co-founder and retired Co-Editor of the Origami Poems Project. Champion of all things Poetry & Magic.

NO WAY BACK

by David Chorlton

Image source: Mars One

            "To me, when someone asks, 'why would you want to go?'

            all I can think of is, why wouldn't you want to go?" she added.

                                    -Leila Zucker, one of the 100 Mars One finalists

                                    selected to train for a mission to Mars

A room is waiting

in a place where the wind

has nothing to hold on to,

where it’s colder than Fargo

at Christmas and the atmosphere

is so thin there’s never any rain,

just an occasional shower of snowflakes

that turn into illusions

before they can touch ground.

It has a bunk that rocks on thunder,

windows so small they reveal

only specks of the surroundings,

and furnishings in a gray

that chills the eye. This

                                      could be home

for anyone seeking answers

to questions a monk once asked

in his medieval cell. Voices

marinated in persuasion

offer invitations to be a part

of history . . . to inspire people

around the world and make

isolation as attractive

as embarking on a tour with all

meals provided, time to relax

and read, play games, write, paint

 work out in the gym, watch TV,

use the Internet, contact friends at home

as life becomes more and more

like fingering a tiny device with a screen

to busy your hands while sitting

on a bus you can never get off.

Who has what it takes

                                never to return?

Who will seek claustrophobia

in the midst of boundless

space? Who has what it takes . . .

Who believes our future

cannot be confined

we must explore and look up
court death by radiation

                                        or life

so deep in boredom

the only consolation

is that . . . . the future

belongs to those who believe

in the beauty of their dreams

                                              even

if the dreams come quietly

and turn into a nightmare

at the moment

of the ultimate goodbye,

in realizing a particular tree is the last

you’ll ever see; the mailman

won’t stop at your house again;

you’ll never hold money, hear

sparrows, go out

to a restaurant meal. Rivers

will finally have flowed off the edge

of the Earth, we’ll be back

to the first of all questions: where

are we from? As if the answer

could be found by going

where nobody belongs.


David Chorlton came to Arizona in 1978 after living in England and Austria. He has spent more than three decades stretched between cultures and writing poetry, the pick of which has just appeared as his Selected Poems, from FutureCycle Press.