ON HEARING JOE BIDEN SPEAK IN 1971

by Jane Patten

What did I care of

Fiscal fairness

Divided among

The three counties of

Little Delaware,

With its chicken on a banner,

Its battered boardwalks,

And soybeans everywhere?

 

Someone tapped me on the shoulder:

An elderly aide, a kindhearted sage

Who needed to impart

Something worthy to a jaded juvenile:

Quiet, please.

Listen carefully.  

This man is going to be President—

Some day.

 

So I listened

And remembered his name:

And waited

Long enough to know

That for some of us 

Destiny is late in coming

But just as sure, just as strong,

Needed more now than then.

 

For numbered years are nothing

When one can last forever and

Four can be disaster:

For fifty can be calming fate

To this time and 

To this place.

After retiring and moving to Huntsville, Jane Patten decided to write about her adventures thus far, including growing up in Delaware and her career as a teacher in rural Georgia. She enjoys traveling, creative writing, and spending time with family. Her poetry has been published in Outloud HSV: A Year in Review for 2017, 2018, and 2019.

AMBASSADOR OF GOOD WILL

by Edmund Conti

When meeting with Sergei Kislyak
Your memory falls through the crack.
There’s so much to discuss
With this welcoming Russ
That it’s awfully hard to keep track.

Edmund Conti is always happy to meet with the Russians to discuss the high price of vodka, have a few laughs, and trade military secrets.

MONTHS AFTER

by Alan Catlin

Months after
the towers came down
he sat an Upstate
New York bar
drinking lunch,

in town for business,
his friends teasing him,
“So were you one
of those guys we saw
on TV running away
as the second twin
came down?”

“Bet your ass
I was.”
He said.
Not smiling.
Not even vaguely
amused, as if he was
thinking, ”I could
have been one of those
human specks falling
down the side of
a building from
just-above-impact-
floor.”

“What would you
have done?  Hung out
to watch or stayed in
the lobby to see what
happened next?
I don’t think so.”

I didn’t either.

Alan Catlin is poetry editor of online journal misfitmagazine.net. His latest book of poetry is American Odyssey from Future Cycle Press.