NVN Wednesday: A Perilous Moment

“Lightning” by Jeremy Nathan Marks and “How to Spot a Fascist” by Helen Jones

LIGHTNING

by Jeremy Nathan Marks

*

Trying to make sense of lightning is about more
than science. How long should students lower
their heads, consult their books, run computer
simulations and not look outside.
 
By the time you read this message a bolt will
have struck in dozens of locations, though
you might not have registered the flash. The smell
of ozone in your nose, learning to count for thunder.
Did you know lightning can be silent. An owl.
 
Friction travels from cloud to cloud. It’s over my head
I’ve heard
told. There’s a space in the great codes for interpellations,
gnostic meanings, hidden from the rabble: debates about what’s
in plain view
 
Can someone without sight see a storm.
What if they also cannot hear.   
Lightning can be a figment of the mind:
logos. But if we cannot make observations
what is science.
 
Every one of us has dreams. There were heat storms
over my crib. I couldn’t talk but in my gut I knew some
thing was wrong.
 
Let the infants cry. For the betterment of science.
Watch them, how they respond. From the blur comes
a woman’s features. Mother? But not the storm.
 
They cry because they know she’s an electric force,
violence with the texture of milk—

*

Jeremy Nathan Marks knows that his own instinct to try to enucleate the problem is a self-deception. But he's stubborn. He lives and writes (stubbornly) in Canada.

*

HOW TO SPOT A FASCIST

by Helen Jones

AI-generated graphic by NightCafé for The New Verse News

*

Don’t think they come with jackboots in the dawn
Or kick your door in on a freezing night.
Now fascists take control with Facebook ads
And Tik-Tok videos to make you laugh,
Let you believe that facts can just be changed,
Decide reality is just a trick.
 
Then suddenly your job has disappeared
Raw work-experience kids have wiped you out,
Universities are threatened, books are banned,
Medicaid blown apart and foreigners locked up,
Poor people die and old alliances break.
 
          Fascists begin with elections
          When you are not paying attention.

*

Helen Jones was born in Chester, U.K. She gained a degree in English, many years ago from University College London and later an M.Ed. from the University of Liverpool. She is now happily retired and spends a lot of her time writing and making a new garden. Her poetry has been published in several journals in the U.K., and she is currently working on a novel set in fifth century Deva.