After a Line from Ezekiel

Happy to say that this poem, published in Synaeresis-Art and Poetry in June 2018 ,  has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize:

After a Line from Ezekiel 

                                                          

I keep my Distance from Congress,

from joining this dance,

this trance of doublespeak fast talk,

this prance of  smug smiles.

This tense keeps my future in my past.

 

Oil of wintergreen, of tic tac,

Interrogates a protein,

Questions if a teenaged temper

Will bring on another war.

What will be the next diaspora?

What spores and spondees

What spontaneous combustion?

 

These are the remaining tribes:

Secretive Roma gathering their bright shawls of sunset

Apricot and rose colored, gold gleaming,

Silent birders clutching their binoculars,

Stalking the Pine Siskin,

The meadowlark in the tall weeds by the highway,

Shadowy softball girls clothed in their muddy uniforms,

Weeping aides from the crumbled hospices,

Wheeling the loved ones still living.

Shivering Syrian children

Who chew their shoelaces.

These are the exits of the city:

Behind the bombed out grocery store,

Under the ivy shrouded billboard,

Where woods meet river.