Poetry: Mark Antony Rossi

Mark Antony Rossi's poetry, criticism, fiction, creative nonfiction and photography have appeared in The Antigonish Review, Anak Sastra, Bareback Magazine, Black Heart Review, Brain of Forgetting, Deep Water Literary Journal, Dirty Chai, Enclave, Expound, Farther Stars Than, Flash Fiction, Gravel, Indian Periodical,  Japanophile, Journal of Microliterature,  Kulchur Creative Journal, Mad Swirl, On The Rusk, Purple Patch, Scrivener Creative Review, Sentiment Literary Journal, Snapdragon, Syzygy Poetry Journal, The Sacrificial, Toad Suck Review, Transnational, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Wild Quarterly and Yellow Chair Review. He is currently the editor in chief of literary online journal Ariel Chart. 

Mark Antony Rossi

The Spirit of America

The spirit of America
Remains rooted
In the risk
Of living free
And living free
Is not a free proposition
It requires sacrifice
It requires diligence
It requires a spirit
That needs to wander
Lost or found
In the desert where doubt
Is tested
And trust made perfect
Under powder blue skies.

Refuse Tomorrow

The purple tint in their night sky
Was never more compelling
Until the artificial release
Of planetary gasses
Magnified the effect
The smallest of creatures
Making home on the outer plains
Diminished with time
As the policy moved forward
And the gasses changed life
The purple tint in their night sky
Was never the same again
Nothing seemed natural
Nothing seemed normal
They traded a better life
For the lives of the lower
For the ways of the other
For the coin of the realm
For the price of the popular
They sold yesterday for tomorrow.

Setu, July 2017