Donna Jagodzinski

10:00 A.M.

Blue skies lend themselves
          to poetry
Quite well.
But brown carpets on office floors
Know only dirty shoes
     and cigarette butts
          and the cast iron wheels
               on the bottoms of office chairs.
 
White clouds
      pinned on blues skies
And grey ashes
      ground into brown carpets
A medal on a dead hero
And mud on the jeans of a poet.
 
Blue skies and bloody heroes
     lend themselves to poetry
     quite easily.
But brown carpets on office floors
Are only friends to those
Who take time to meet them.

* * *

GAMES

Beware, the sniper
Splitting the grass like a snake;
Peering down from the heights,
      The tree branches hiding
            the gun barrel
            and the face of one who waits,
                 finger on the trigger,
                 with joyful anticipation
                      of his first victim
Till his mother calls him in for lunch.
 
See the wind blow
Across the lifeless, marble stones.
Below their silent feet lie countless little boys
     who were not called in for lunch
           soon enough.
They had to finish their game. 

Donna Jagodzinski has been writing poetry for many years. She was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1989. She was first published in 1978, in Aurora and has been published in many journals and poetry collections over the years. She has spent the last few years volunteering for the MS Society in Cincinnati. She is always accompanied by her service dog, Daisy, who has made many friends in the Society and who also walked in the MS Walkathon in 2008.