Marc Janssen

 

 

ON A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
—After “Surrender” by Jon Anderson

Do you remember that happy
Hippy dream?

On a starry midsummer night explode all the weapons in outer space
A sky explosion
A safe sky explosion
A safe psychic, psychedelic joyful sky explosion!
What a sight that would be
What a relief.

Sniggering realists laugh at the idea
Now peace is a punchline.
How sad they are
These bleary cynics whose dreams have remained so small.

____________

 

Marc Janssen lives in a house with a wife who likes him and a cat who loathes him. Regardless of that turmoil, his poetry can be found scattered around the world in places like Pinyon, Slant, Cirque Journal, Off the Coast and Poetry Salzburg. His book, November Reconsidered was published by Cirque Press. Janssen also coordinates the Salem Poetry Project, a weekly reading, the annual Salem Poetry Festival, and was a 2020 nominee for Oregon Poet Laureate

Big Blue Balloon by Marc Janssen

 

Balloons never return to
Earth; twisting ever higher
Red, green dots become day dreams-
We are memories: clumsy
Hands, parades, birthday parties;
Forgotten, as the world sinks-
Ahead, the moon lost its string

IT’S GOTTA BE AOC by Marc Janssen

Foxes newest bogeyman
Of course not a member of the clan,
Catcher her catch her, if you can
This darling of C-SPAN
Makes Hannity look like a caveman
A madman
Just keep dishing that garbage, man.

She just got there they whine
Obsess about her hem line
Confused she’s not a concubine
Don’t understand the green lifeline
Blow up and keep stepping on that landmine
Not bowing to a dollar sign
Or mainline
Made a cutout of her next to the “Socialist breadline.”

Every day’s another slight
Another note that she’s not that white
More from the deranged alt right parasite,
More from the slant-head luddite,
More from the establishment snakebite-
To them she’s kryptonite
She a Jacobite, a blazing light, a frigging muscovite
But the reality is, she’s smart, integrity and up to the fight.

SYZYGY by Marc Janssen

When things align

If I put this block
Next to that in this empty
Space, attraction

Multiply gravity

If I put this block
On the ground it sleeps nicely
On the larger block

Earthquake

If I slip this block
Between these other two blocks
They’ll rip it to shreds

Just to be together
Just to be together