ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Lisa Mecham writes a little bit of everything and her work has appeared in Roxane Gay's anthology Not That Bad, Catapult and The Shallow Ends, among other publications. A Midwesterner at heart, Lisa lives in Los Angeles where she’s finishing a book about mental illness in the suburbs.
Time As A Line
Did they know it was dark
when they lived it,
depressions, wars, crusades,
did they know their notch
on the line would be so grave
or like us were they getting up each morning
one foot, then the other. Coffee. Mouths
moving but saying nothing, was the truth
ever so slippery? Did they lie
awake at night, like me, gasping for
air unable to tell if torment came from
within or without or wonder
if the sun could still rise behind a mushroom
cloud or would we even want to survive?
Lift the hatch to the devastated world,
nothing but scorched dirt and black ash.
Is the last question how? Or why?
I wrote this poem as a direct response to the horrific presidency we’re living under. I wondered about all the other times in history where bad things happened: What did people think in the midst of it all? Were they oblivious? Did they turn a blind eye? Was there resistance? I used to think it was only “after” that we were able to have perspective on events but given what’s happening right now, I realize that’s not true. America in 2018 feels awful. There’s no denying we’re living in a country with a government that actively oppresses and hurts people. Are we doing enough to stop it? Am I? I was obsessed with time lines in the social studies textbooks of my youth. I liked their symmetry, the numbers, how the events were captured in tidy paragraphs and colorful illustrations. What will people in the future think about this time?
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
