CONFLUENCES IN SEPTEMBER, 18 MONTHS OF LOSS

by Mark Danowsky

Fighting a Losing Battle 8, a print by Alexis Lekat at Saatchi Art

It was so nice to read Butler revisiting Butler—

their change to they for our times

* 

We let some people off so easy

& others we will forever push to the limit

* 

Waiting on the next check

for survival

* 

We are losing our birds

& much more than I know how to notice

* 

I want to save our homeless

more than I want to save children abroad 

* 

The people I know are not pleased

with my ethical quandaries

* 

My city’s beverage tax is abysmal

when we’re debating if 200K or 400K means rich

* 

A credit card notification informs me 

my address falls in a natural disaster location

* 

All signs point to no one coming for aid  

* 

I know it’s tempting to pretend

the worst might be over in 6 to 8 months

* 

Try 10 years of losing

only to lose the nexus of all your efforts

* 

Let the record show I tried

Mark Danowsky is Editor-in-Chief of ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Senior Editor for Schuylkill Valley Journal, Poetry Craft Essays Editor for Cleaver Magazine, and a Regular Contributor for Versification. He is author of the poetry collection As Falls Trees (NightBallet Press) and JAWN forthcoming from Moonstone Press.

WHEN WE'LL ALL MARCH TOGETHER

by George Salamon

Detail of the cover of Katie Mack's book The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking).

Does it all end, or can we keep on in our merry way indefinitely?… We have doom and destruction of our own to worry about, arriving faster and faster… Plague is rampant. The Arctic Circle is on fire. Still, I find it helpful—not reassuring certainly, but mind-expanding—to be reminded of our place in a vast cosmos. —James Gleick in his review of Katie Mack's book The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking) in The New York Times, August 4, 2020

Walked out of my confinement to
Gaze at the sun, moon and stars,
Colossi of our universe, they
Make our world go round,
Turning the wheels, rising
Above our shrinking horizon.
We touch their grandeur to
Sustain our hope and striving.
Shivering, I crash instead into
Our rush into losing everything
There is to lose: day, night, the
Center itself, I ask if our purpose
In the universe is found in such
Disposition, or lost by it as well.


George Salamon lives in St. Louis, MO and most recently has contributed to One Sentence Poems, The Asses of Parnassus, and TheNewVerse.News.