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POETRY|SOCIAL COMMENTARY
Postern of Fate
Inspired by Agatha Christie and James Elroy Flecker
On March 31, I finished reading a murder mystery by Agatha Christie called . She pulled the title from a poem called “” by James Elroy Flecker. The book itself was about the long-term underground growth of groups who are “the enemy within.” The story follows a tale that begins with spies and fifth column espionage before WWI to remnants of those groups rearing their ugly fascist heads during WWII and again in the early 70s, when the book takes place.
I couldn’t help but think about where we are today as I finished the book.
On April 1, the first day of National Poetry Writing Month (), I began writing poetry inspired by the premise of the book. I posted it to one of my social media accounts, where I’m certain it received a dubious response. Some liked bits of it, others clearly ignored it or missed it.
The reality is that it is not the best poetry ever written. It’s not even the best poem I’ve ever written. I’m barely a hanger-on to the coattails of the better writers in the Arizona poetry scene these days. For, while there was a day when I was sometimes chosen to feature at readings wherever I was living…Phoenix and Mesa, Arizona; Houston…