The August Second Selected Poet is Joseph V. Danoski

Please feel free to email Joseph at: Dojonaki@Netscape.Net

DRINKING IN THE DARKNESS

Drinking in the darkness
Can be dangerous
To your health—
When you’re an empty vessel
Open to suggestions,
Talking to yourself.

There’s darkness in the dead of night
And dark spots on the sun.
There’s darkness in the broad daylight
That comes to spoil the fun.

Too much darkness can make you sick,
Sticking to your lips
Black and thick.
Feel it filling your heart and soul
As you drink it down
Dark and cold.

There’s darkness in the government,
A dark side to business.
There’s darkness after life and death
Beyond all forgiveness.

MR. SCARY

Black and desolate at the edge of town,
In an abandoned cemetery;
Shrouded in mystery,
Stands the strange old tree
That the kids call Mr. Scary.

It’s said that this specter for centuries fed
Upon the gruesome nourishment
And dregs of the dead;
Like a nightmare dark in the light of day—
Like a golem growing from the graveyard clay.

See its twisted limbs against the twilight,
Where the night birds come to roost;
And dark figures in hoods
From the haunted woods
Gather like Druids to draw from its roots.

Some say, like a mandrake, you secretly sprang
From the grave of a man
Who was innocently hanged;
With a monstrous shape and a knothole face—
With the rotten soul of this unholy place.

Dreaded tree of life in the dead of night—
Silhouette against the moon;
In the shadows of doom
And your midnight gloom,
Standing like ruins through each afternoon.

INSANITY IN THE FAMILY

I’m a crowd of one, and We are many—
Friendly enemies and evil entities;
Forefathers, mothers,
Sisters and brothers,
Constantly contradicting
One another.

I’m always walking and talking to myself,
Worrying about my mental health;
With the sadness and sense of tragedy
Of the insanity in the family—
Blackbirds in the branches
Of my ancestry.

At the roots
A corpse lies rotten
In the fallen autumn leaves;

And the fruit
Contains the seeds
Of some dark and dirty deeds.

All these generations
Can’t erase the stain of shame;
The legacy of sins I carry in my name.

My emotions are always out of control,
Containing the pain inside my soul;
With the sickness and the insanity
Of the family inside of me—
Black sheep in the shadows
Of my ancestry.

Joseph V. Danoski lives happily on the “plains of his imagination” in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He published his first book of poems titled Shock Waves: Letters from the Edge back in 1987, under his pen name Jonathan Konrad. This book is still being sold in local bookstores, and has been reviewed favorably a number of times.

Through the years, Joseph has had quite a few of his poems published in the city’s newspaper, The Berlin Reporter, where for a time he had a byline in its poetry corner. In 1997 he was asked by the Chamber of commerce to write something appropriate for the Berlin Centennial Celebration. After researching the history of the area and the paper-making industry, he wrote a poem titled “The City Built from Trees” which he read at City Hall.