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.