From The Adirondack Chair

When young’uns (poets mostly)
say elder

They spout it 
having concluded 

that anyone over 39
sat a couple of rows back 
from Sappho 
in grade school

In the days and weeks before 
bistros 
where they freestyle 
long past midnight 
fell to earth  

While you
erstwhile scribe emeritus 

Hair white as 
this gentrified city 

dream of days and weeks 
of flawless skies 


Kelly Donaldson Jr Reflects On The Changing Same

Dogs have always loved me.

It's genetic 
I used to tell the regulars
at Clifton's Barber Shop

The shop whose picture window
gave regulars a vivid view
of the moving vans 

ferrying soon to be
ex-white neighbors 
to less terrifying lands.

Now Clifton's 
and most of the regulars 
exist only in memory.

But the dogs 
on the other end of 
high end leashes
approach me with 
the same 
love 
I've always been blessed
to engender.

The nervous 
and or averted eyes
of their owners

are as familiar
as the ghosts 
of the city
which raised me.

Some of whom
are commemorated 

On equally lonely
historical plaques 

Reuben Jackson is the Archivist with The University of The District Of Columbia’s Felix E.  Grant Jazz Archives. He also co- hosts The Sound Of Surprise on WPFW in Washington, D.C. His poems have appeared in over 40 anthologies. His most recent book is entitled Scattered Clouds (2019, Alan Squire Publishing).

IMAGE: “Sunglow Ranch. Cochise County, Arizona. Chiricahua Mountains” by kretyen under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.