Wendy Taylor Carlisle
These Days
“…the damned have howled away their hearts.” Yeats
These days I’m damned by politics,
disheartened by money and influence.
I howl away my hat.
These days I question the nation’s vigor,
examine an edgy distress
I haven’t felt in years.
These days I waste saved daylight
trying to turn anxiety around.
These days I’m surrounded by unworthy heirs—
are there any others?
These days the national woe seems perpetual.
These days elected servants are no different
than grackle and crow.
Will we stumble too late on another suitable hat?
About the writer:
Wendy Taylor Carlisle writes in the Arkansas Ozarks. She is the author of three books and five chapbooks. Her book, The Mercy of Traffic, was released in 2019. She has 11 times been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and twice for best of web.
Image: Enough Drama for One Day by Terri Edwards. Acrylic and pastel on canvas. 24 x 24 inches. No completion date specified. By permission.
About the artist:
Terri Edwards is an internationally collected artist, having achieved success initially with her mixed media collages, playing with paper and paint, mark-making and gestural brush strokes. Her recent work has been in intuitive abstract art, but she maintains an interest in her early specialty of realistic mixed-media collages. Edwards’s core belief is that art has the power to transform, uplift, and enlighten.
