By Fredrick Pollack
If one takes a slightly longer
view, the safety in which
I write and you read is
illusory. If the focus
is shorter but still factual,
rational, it’s merely
brief. But a poem isn’t like
a signal from headquarters
or from one front to another
in war. Inevitably,
in comparison, it’s trivial.
So what is there time to say?
I’m scared. I should have had more
compassion, acted
more or at all, made fewer
excuses. With a coup taking place
it’s hard to write, but
that’s also an excuse. –
What emerges is ill-formed, too
compressed; it should have occupied
this whole last stanza.
—
Author of two book-length narrative poems, THE ADVENTURE and HAPPINESS (Story Line Press; the former reissued 2022 by Red Hen Press), and four collections, A POVERTY OF WORDS (Prolific Press, 2015), LANDSCAPE WITH MUTANT (Smokestack Books, UK, 2018), THE BEAUTIFUL LOSSES (Better Than Starbucks Books, 2023), and THE LIBERATOR (Survision Books, Ireland, 2024). Many other poems in print and online journals. Website: www.frederickpollack.com.