Mark Danowsky

Affirmations & Last Rites

They say Patience is a virtue
It gets harder every day

I stay down with my demons
No one knows me better

I speak to lost souls
Not just just on dark nights

I don’t dance with demons
Because I cannot dance with sincerity

Tell me what you think about fate
And I’ll tell you to listen to your body

All this talk about mind-body connection
As if there is no danger in it

We pat ourselves on the back
For self-awareness of a self we don’t believe in

I want to paint or pick up an instrument
To speak foreign languages

The next word is not better
It is simply next

I’m sticking around for what’s next
Since my body tells me there’s time

Another tragedy in losing yourself all wrong
Is the money you left on the table

Please don’t let yourself go
Even if you burn all the bridges first

Mark Danowsky is Editor-in-Chief of ONE ART: a journal of poetry, Senior Editor for Schuylkill Valley Journal, Poetry Craft Essays Editor for Cleaver Magazine, and a Regular Contributor for Versification. He is author of the poetry collection As Falls Trees (NightBallet Press) and JAWN forthcoming from Moonstone Press. Some of his more recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Anti-Heroin Chic, Bluepepper, The Broadkill Review, Eunoia Review, FEED, Muddy River Poetry Review, The New Verse News, Otoliths, Philadelphia Stories, Remington Review, Sledgehammer and Vita Brevis.