Mark Danowsky is Editor-in-Chief of ONE ART: a journal of poetry. His poetry collections include Meatless (Plan B Press), Violet Flame (tiny wren lit), JAWN (Moonstone Press), and As Falls Trees (NightBallet Press). Take Care is forthcoming from Moon Tide Press in 2025.

***

Boxes

My passport may expire
without a single use

I lived in the city 
when I was too poor
to take advantage
of access

My days were long
because torture 
insists on duration

The office
was my escape

How old-fashioned

I went from free
to bound
in two weeks

There went ten years

All those choices
that were not choices

You know this feeling

An external force
puts you in a box
& calls it freedom

You are not free
in these imaginary
constraints

Maybe you are familiar 
with that big sigh

It's not relief

There's a relief
short lived
as you find yourself 
in a new habitat

Then the rules 
start to arise

I am a mime
feeling out walls

I just located another
& its pressuring me
to go silent

***

Long Echo

I am busy discovering
new ways to belittle myself

I was instructed for so many years
Useless, Useless, Useless

Background noise now
No matter what I get done

 

***

Less Energy, More Depressed

15 years later
I guess that's about right

Same defenses—
I laugh it off

Hurt doesn't roll off—
I mean, I let it pass in the moment

Later, night
I ruminate, replay

Nostalgia of minor traumas =
Friday night wind down

I want to feel like a wall
Like I roll with the punches
Like I can take blows the way I used to
Face the onslaught of nightly belittling

In one sense, I was at my strongest then—
Hypervigilant, a punching bag

Blue-black, bruised, never healed
before the next fight

Truth is, I put my hand through walls
& my fuse kept shortening 

I reject both labels: 
Victim & Survivor

There are two sides to every story
& the other side is gone 

***

griefbearer

not like the pallbearer
who accepts an honor—is given
an valued role

tell me again about closure

time heals &
time takes away

sure, keep falling down the rabbit hole
though you must come to know
the futility

& another wave of grief
& another wave of grief

don’t stay in the corner with
all the other “sad” folks

they try to put sad & sad together

another attempt to corral death

it is not so dark to acknowledge
the arc of a human life

second chances are not
for the faint of heart

how many broken seasons are required?

the maple leaves will change soon
& I remain unready for early nightfall

***

Going Nowhere

I have never
Seen a desert
Or blue sky country
Watched fish thrown
In Starbucksland
Felt day after day after day
Of San Diego 68 degrees
Known the bone-deep
Chill of up north winters
Heard the raucous of Mardi Gras
Eaten local NOLA fare
Put my hand on a star
Gazed up at the redwoods
Held skis—
But I’ve been told
What all this is
Supposed to mean

***

Publishing credits

All poems exclusive first publication by East Ridge Review