KNOWING YOU ARE A POET (OUTSIDE WASHINGTON)

by Jeremy Nathan Marks

“Truth/Poetry,” a painting by Cameron Holmes.

There is nothing quite like knowing 

that poetry is your calling  

when you’re growing up in a Washington 

D.C. suburb where the word is power 

for in the nation’s capital no poem passes 

laws no verse crafts policy no poem ever 

delivered a constituency 

Poetry is a gesture so vital 

as to be without use 

it’s like telling the truth

about the deficit 

how we should curb our penchant 

for violence Poetry is a useless means 

of pulling bounties off wolf heads it is hardly

a writer’s rubber to hatred’s glue 

for nothing bounces off of me 

and sticks to you 

why write a poem to change the world 

when you could become a lawyer 

or banker 

a dynamite maker 

whose lucrative investments 

bear witness to capital’s power 

why write a poem when you could 

become a shield to the truncheon’s 

bludgeon hear 

a bomb’s whistle bullets over Baghdad 

or the silence that comes when there’s no one 

to listen to the words you’ve just written.

Jeremy Nathan Marks lives in London, Ontario. New work appears this fall in Anti-Heroin Chic, Dissident Voice, So It Goes, Chiron Review, Bewildering Stories, The Last Leaves, Unlikely Stories, The Journal of Expressive Writing, Boog City, and Ginosko Review.

THERE IS A SOUND

by James Bettendorf 

There is a sound in Minneapolis
Like the tearing of heavy cloth
Where laws favor groups, that oppress
Others to their knees, that rip
Opportunities from small hands,
That flatten hopes, crush
Dreams under their heels
Red tipped white canes are broken
Pieces thrown in the gutter

There is a sound in Minnesota
Like the tearing of heavy cloth
Where angry men and women are bent
Their backs used as stepping stones
Feeling powerless in the face of money
Neighbors denied rights
Darkness isn’t dispelled
By the light of reason

There is a sound in America
Like the tearing of heavy cloth
Eyes of honest people
Covered with blindfolds
Made from the flag
Tower babbling deafens
Knees and backs
Bent by heavy wooden crosses
And more coal is shoveled
Into the furnaces of the wealthy

There is a sound in the world
Like the tearing of heavy cloth

James Bettendorf taught math for 34 years at various levels and in his retirement begin writing classes at the Loft in Minneapolis, MN.  He was accepted for a two year poetry internship in the Loft Master Track program in 2006 and has been working on a manuscript with his mentor/advisor, Thomas R. Smith.  He has had poems published in TheNewVerse.News. Rockhurst Review, Light Quarterly, Ottertail Review, Talking Stick Vols. 18 - 23, and Free Verse.