Lowell


Lowell—poet of the apocalypse, 

another father to the sequence; owner

of preservation busting confinement, metallic

in his arms; himself Hell.  Asylum slays.  

As Lowell puts it, the past changes more than the present.  

But in the mythic the past is unmoving.  The walls 

come tumbling down.  Joshua sounds the horn 

of apocalypse, loud sabre rattle.  We are 

contenders in the apocalypse: that, and pretenders;

our girlie-gentle actors drive to work

or watch TV shows.  Blind subtle gasses

waft in the air.  The tide is coming soon.

Watch for the angel borne out or blown in by man.

Waters rise over us as we sit in gridlock.

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About the Author

Allan Johnston earned his M.A. in Creative Writing and his Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Davis. His poems have appeared in over sixty journals, including Poetry, Poetry East, Rattle, and Rhino. He has published three full-length poetry collections (Tasks of Survival, 1996; In a Window, 2018; Sable and Selected Poems, 2022) and three chapbooks (Northport, 2010; Departures, 2013; Contingencies, 2015).

A. Johnston
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