Poetry In a Time of Castigation

 

Poetry In a Time of Castigation

 

Now you will see what will happen, said the old woman.

Now the fear is on you, said the old woman.

Cast a rhyme

Cast a rune

Cast around for an escape

Casting call for the last plane out

before the hurricane.

But you’re stranded here

in the smothering heat.

The cloying incantation of mold

black and furry on all your walls.

The white man with the rolling blue eyes

takes aim with his Ruger.

 

 Anne Higgins

  

Anne Higgins teaches English at Mount Saint Mary’s University in Emmitsburg Maryland,  USA. She has had about 100 poems published in  a variety of small magazines. Five full-length books and three chapbooks of her poetry have been published: At the Year’s Elbow, Mellen Poetry Press  2000; Scattered Showers in a Clear Sky,  Plain View Press 2007; chapbooks: Pick It Up and Read, Finishing Line Press 2008, How the Hand Behaves, Finishing Line Press 2009, Digging for God,  Wipf and Stock 2010,  Vexed Questions, Aldrich Press 2013,Reconnaissance, Texture Press 2014, and Life List, Finishing Line Press 2016. Her poems have been featured several times on The Writer’s Almanac