Upon Reading “If We Do Not Take Action Now to Address Declines in Insect Abundance and Diversity…” on Election Day 2024
I did not intend to write this villanelle.
But our nation has sunk low in the semantic sea.
And the mess we’re in, too easy to foretell.
Each generation has succumbed to the numb spell
That we’re the greatest and greatness our destiny.
I truly didn’t want to write this villanelle.
Yet our rag-tag, tangled storyline has compelled
Us so many miles, so quickly, past our apogee.
The mess we’re in, too damn easy to foretell.
Each smug sermon of corporate rights, a death knell
Staccatoed in every heart-hankering spending spree.
I had plans today to pen a quieter villanelle.
But these unsettling times demand we rise and quell
Each impulse to break the sacred in land and sea.
Our inglorious tale, so simple to foretell.
Refusing care for earth and kin: the undertow of hell.
We’ve a short time left to blueprint stability.
So out it came: a wish in the form of a villanelle.
Stop, please. The clag we’re in — any child could foretell.
My Wheelbarrow
I’ve kept it for years,
believing
it must matter.
Turns out not much
depends upon
my wheelbarrow,
tire-flattened,
rust-flaked,
beside the old garden
choked into ruin
by these amateur hands
and freakish weeds.
Michael Brosnan is a poet and writer based in Exeter, New Hampshire. His most recent collection of poetry, Emu Blis, Bums Lie, Blue-ism, a finalist for the Wandering Aengus Book Award, was published in 2024 by Broadstone Books. He is the author of two previous collections — The Sovereignty of the Accidental (2018) and Adrift (2023). His poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals and has won awards from various arts organizations, including the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts. In 2023, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is also the author of Against the Current, a book on inner-city education, and writes often on issues related to school and learning. More at www.michaelabrosnan.com.
Grand Little Things 