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Mark Danowsky

      Mark Danowsky is author of the poetry collection As Falls Trees (NightBallet Press, 2018). He is also the author of Nightfall, Becoming aware of the tide and Careen microchaps published by Origami Poems Project. His poems have appeared in Eunoia Review, Gargoyle, The Healing Muse, The New Verse News, Peacock Journal, and elsewhere.

He’s Managing Editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal ( http://www.svjlit.com/ ).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Mark's Origami microchaps & poems are below. Click titles to download the one-page PDF micro-chapbook.

Origami Microchap

 

Selected Poems

 
Endless Love    

Click title to download PDF micro

Mark Danowsky CVR 2021 

Cover collage by JanK

 

 

Sensuous

I see pain
Want to offer pleasure
Purple
Magnolia blossoms
Scattered
Petal angels

 

Linger

that scent
on your hands after
arranging tomatoes

 

Nudges

If only
I could
know all
the ways
to make
your day
just that
much better

negative spaces

like the time your loved one sleeps
on your chest while you lie awake
feeling the minutes pass
perhaps in significant discomfort
still you dare not shift
as what will be remembered
is only the moment stirred from gentle bliss

 

Liberation

Skin to skin, we write
a poem that has nothing to do
with the act, itself
a kind of poem, though not one
I’m eager to categorize
as free or formed—instead
let’s try and focus on the facts:
goodness in the moment, light
scintillating without concern for direction

 

[ your nude figure ]

your nude figure
draped across me
shadowed contours on display
I read in near dark
just convinced
this is one form of unity

Mark Danowsky © 2021

Careen    

Click title to download PDF microchap

Mark Danowsky CVR Careen 2020

Cover art 'Underwater' by

Lauri Burke w/collage by JanK

 

 

 

in the car I see

I am number three
on speed dial

 

Quota

This sad human need
to know so many
people out there
love me
love me in a given moment
or else I'm shattered
mind and body
break against the shoreline
of a hungry black hole

 

Hold The Line

Staying on the line until you fall asleep

I do not know what I get out of this

I may be getting a handle on when to walk away

 

Lovelorn

must be nice

when we pine after each other

for good reasons

 

[how many trips now]

how many trips now
I go & leave behind
a person with feelings
I am unsure I can reciprocate

 

Blip

The day closes in
I’m still
Unchosen
Losing to myself
Over nothing
Never planning
If I can help
I don’t
Think about some day
I’ll leave you
In orbit

 



Mark Danowsky © 2020

Nightfallen

   

Click title to download PDF microchap

Cover art Begin. End. Again. Again #9
by Jason Hancock
 
(Read about Jason on his Artist Page)
 
Every Origami Micro-chapbook
may be printed, for free,
from this website.

 

Night Spaces

I get up to use the bathroom
and all is dark. No little red
or green points of light
only the blue beams
seen from the stovetop
at the right angle.
This has not happened
since we lived in Autumn Park
after graduation. Before the advent
of Smartphones. Before we had
a decent coffeemaker or wireless
towers, routers, printers—friends
I sometimes try to make them
when I can’t find sleep
and end up sitting in near darkness
among the false stars.
 
- Night Spaces was published in Cordite,
Issue 49 (2015)



Recluse
 

At first, no signs
of trouble. Then odd
patterns emerged.
Hours after the incident
the site turned black
sloughed off
left depression.

 

Recluse published in
Right Hand Pointing, Issue 83 (2015)

Dark Remix

Unbearable quiet
except in my head
where songs & shows
loop fragments

 

Dark Remix published in ALBA:
The Journal of Short Poetry, Issue 29 (2015)
*

Before sleep takes

I close my eyes
trying to sleep
but the faceless
lean in
whisper
& I bend my ear
to humor them


Before Sleep Takes published in ALBA: 

The Journal of Short Poetry, Issue 25 (2013)

 

-

The City is a River

8 cops showed up on a work night
shined spotlights on the dumpster
& fire escapes out back
then departed within minutes
leaving behind the last
moments before bedtime

 

- The City is a River was published in
Right Hand Pointing, Issues 63 & 64 (2013)

 

The Dose Not Taken

A robin’s egg blue pill sits
on the edge of the bathroom sink
breaking down a little more daily
until it’s nothing
more than a white powder
waiting for a brush
of wind as we pass by
or a wag of the dog’s tail
to be forgotten

 

The Dose Not Taken published in
The Broadkill Review (2016)

*

Mark Danowsky © 2016

Becoming aware of the tide

 

 
 
Cover: Calling Down the Moon
by Lauri Burke

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Downhill Drift – Gyroscope Review
(Issue 16-1, Jan. 2016)

The New Navigator
Mobius: The Journal of Social Change
(Winter 2014 - Vol. 25, No. 4)

Becoming Aware of the Tide
Burningword Literary Journal
(Jan. 2016 issue)
 

The White Horse in Lone Pine

On the return trip to Moon
Pennsylvania where the airport is
we spot a white horse in Lone Pine
gallop from mountainside
clearing into dense leafless forest
 
After not seeing each other for 8 years
I want to find meaning
as if absence and presence mirror
types of experience or not knowing
when there will be a next time
 
Downhill Drift
 

A church sign reminds me
If you are coasting
then you are going downhill
as if the penny in the handgrip of the driver’s side door
slow sliding was not selfevident we heathens can coast
while mindful
-

Becoming Aware of the Tide

Just today I feel older
Driving to the vet
Driving 17 miles for a hat I left behind
at a monthly meeting
rock album - Listening to a folk
awash in distracted serenity
Ebbing as soon
as it draws attention

Mark Danowsky © 2016

 

The New Navigator
   Our moods do not believe in each other.
    -  Emerson


The car’s computer keeps on
switching tracks, insistent
insistent, one moment
I want to learn
the next, relax, sit back
listen to building music.
It never plays
anything heavy or fast
— or lets me lend a hand
not since the speeding incident
two Thanksgivings ago.
If only we had options
to override like the good old days
when everything went wrong all the time
but we knew what it meant
to be made by us.
-

 

Accidental Pine Warblers in the
Superstore Parking Lot

There were two pine warblers
in one of four stunted elms
sequestered in the parking lot
When I returned to refill xanax
I found one dead on the asphalt
but saw nothing of a mate
A deer path runs thru our yard
and five show as I write
as if to speak loud we are kin