Donald Mangum
A. D. 2025
Eras end. Countries collapse. Democracies die. Wars begin. It happens
everywhere. It could happen here. It has happened here. It could happen again.
Ben Mathis-Lilley, “Today’s Trump Apocalypse Watch: 10 Minutes Till Midnight,” Slate
The center did not hold. However, the Gross National Product continues to rise.
Walker Percy, Love in the Ruins
Earth continues to unwind. The wind
spins, pummels,
sends forth seeds.
The sky continues to speak.
The dead carry on. After all,
we are professionals. While even the worst
lose conviction,
studies continue to show,
speakers pace,
inquire, nod wide-eyed
knowing smiles.
Laughter is still required.
Data drift,
fall like ash. The tide
recedes, hesitates,
moves.
We wander, sometimes
pace the river bank,
hands in pockets, drained
of sins. Larkspur waves,
miraculous for an instant.
An odd sensation at the base of the skull is gone
even as it begins.
The unraveling of language continues.
Words clatter
like shells. Bones
of logic trick or amuse. Analysis
is dogged. The evening
swallows the day,
and turning in,
we still pray
our souls be kept, our days
be more than incremental
deaths. And still the world is sung
in the voice of a sparrow.
Donald Mangum’s fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Mississippi Review, Confrontation, Indiana Review, Florida Review, and elsewhere. Donald’s novella, The Roar Beneath, was published in 2016 by Mint Hill Books. Donald is a retired philosophy and English teacher living on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
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