Rethinking the Race

Milton Jordan

June 5, 2022

We had scheduled our dragons for later

but time ran short and our adversaries

hurled dragons of their own into the scrum

pushing us back along several fronts.

Dragons still unused, we yielded the field

to recalibrate strategy for more

effective electoral action.

Could we not pasture our dragons, lay down

our swords and line up new support 

with song birds flying and the harmony

of compassion rising above clang and roar? 

Will swords and dragons alone attract

public attention while soaring song 

and compassion’s harmony go unreported? 

Milton Jordan lives in Georgetown with Anne Elton Jordan. His most recent poetry collection is What the Rivers Gather, SFASU Press, 2020. Milton edited the anthology, No Season for Silence: Texas Poets and Pandemic, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2020.

Exercises in Electioneering

Milton Jordan

December 27, 2021

Our Governor’s proclamations  walled ‘round

with adjectives and filled with vague nouns

carefully hid his avoidance behind 

participles and abdicated all  

responsibility specific verbs

might make clear, leaving us to work out 

our own understanding of any plan  

he proposed beyond his re-election…

Milton Jordan lives in Georgetown with the musician Anne Elton Jordan. His most recent poetry collection is What the Rivers Gather, SFASU Press, 2020. Milton edited the anthology, No Season for Silence: Texas Poets and Pandemic, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2020.

Resistance: An Allegory

Chris Ellery

December 19, 2021

He held all the riches in the world 

and therefore all the power. It’s not that

I fell for his con or ratified his bible.

That was just how it was and had always been.

I didn’t know enough or feel enough

to question, no matter how many he ruined.

Desire fueled the cogs of his system. Fear was 

the scepter of his power. Violence was law 

and fulfillment, the physics of his kingdom. 

We knew no different. We were conditioned.

Then you came in the usual way, in accordance with 

the role assigned to me as a loyal citizen.

I did my duty and you were here.

Of course, he was pleased. You were destined to be

a perfect apple on the platter of the governor.

But as you ripened, something happened in me, 

some kind of mutation, a dormant gene awakened, 

a disease in the machine, malignant to the state.

It grew in me slowly, a pressure, always increasing 

with your instinct for freedom and fullness

no matter how much I tried to repress it.

One day it came to fruition, a labor of wisdom,

and I knew I was feeling and what I was feeling

and that it is stronger than his threat or seduction.

I knew it could save you. I knew it could save me.

The feeling overwhelmed the eons of submission.

When he came to take you, I rose up in his vision,

a god and a rival. All his anger and hunger

turned toward me. I didn’t resist him. He raped me 

many times with his scepter. It felt good 

knowing you got away to make a new day 

conceivable. If ever you find my remains 

in the desert you will know my true feelings. 

For generations to come, until the last particle 

of his power is gone, the ground around me will shine 

with the radiance of my good luck and gratitude.

Chris Ellery is a long-time resident of San Angelo and former professor of English at Angelo State University, where he was one of the founders of the annual Writers Conference in Honor of Elmer Kelton. His poems have appeared recently in Blue Hole, Crosswinds, and The American Journal of Poetry and are forthcoming in The Sufi Journal and Christian Century.

Endless Campaigns

Milton Jordan

November 27, 2021

We’ll risk seven painful failures for one

semi-success and begin again 

to challenge power dug deeply into

public office and private industry

conspiring to protect extractive practice

and political position, ignoring 

human need and earth’s ongoing destruction 

Doorstep contacts cannot counter deep pockets,

and a thousand letters will not match half-truths

professionally spread across social media.

Longshot candidates seldom succeed; 

few victories crown our biennial effort,

yet we take that risk and do not squander 

opportunity nor relinquish hope.

Milton Jordan lives in Georgetown with the musician Anne Elton Jordan. His most recent poetry collection is What the Rivers Gather, SFASU Press, 2020. Milton edited the anthology, No Season for Silence: Texas Poets and Pandemic, Kallisto Gaia Press, 2020.