Practical Matters​

Issue 17

       i.         Only the Necessary 
​
In old Ephesus, the seven slept
for two hundred years or so
 
until Decius the persecutor
was long dead and a new
 
dispensation in place, safe
for John, Maximian, and the rest,
 
who, upon learning of the shift
soon died with praise of God
 
upon their lips, having risen like Lazarus,
to slumber anew until the final test.
 

       ii.        In Medias Res Viventes
                                                                      
But I cannot sleep yet
in my quickening time
 
though a cool bed of stone
sounds tempting if just
 
for a summer spell, as caves keep
a constant fifty-two degrees Fahrenheit
 
and the heat of life now rises
far above the level of comfort
 
so spikes the sweat of body
and mind into swell of salt rain
 

       iii.       The Process                     
                         
So it is epektasis I must expect since without stop,
on the way we are toward the end
 
that begins the always only after having
completed what I am ever doing now
 
and again—again—as mortals must,
constantly inconstant creatures
 
moving at the speed of life only relative
to the Pole Star of no precession
 
and no progress, an inspiration, still,
for all here and there in ceaseless locomotion

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John Zedolik has published poems in many journals around the world and recently published his sixth collection, Triple Muse. His other collections are Lovers’ Progress, 2025; The Ramifications, 2024; Mother Mourning, 2023; When the Spirit Moves Me, 2021; and Salient Points and Sharp Angles, 2019, which are available through Amazon

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