2026, Day Book, Ohio River Valley Literature, spring, the no-scape

Its Own, Overpacked and Underexplored Continent

4.7.26

What then what?

Some mornings
all there is
is rage and them
that lit the fire
claim
they will not
own it
instead
they cry
calling themselves
burn victims.

4.8.26

I dreamt of my grandparent’s house on Bantam last night. My daughter and my wife were talking about moving in and who would take the master bedroom. In a dream state, the house is always smaller than I remember and I always take note of it, and I think about the large attic that was its own, overpacked and underexplored continent. I think to remind them about the central vacuum system and how the guest bedroom was an uncomfortable flotsam of furniture one of them will want to redecorate. The old horse barn, the large field, the woods I explored when I was growing up feel like distant lands and the front windows of the house are covered, like they’re boarded up on the outside except for a sliver of light. I wonder if the creek still runs through and if the walnut and apple trees still fruit on schedule. They are talking around me and I realize they are not aware I think I’m dreaming.

[Daybook 2026 // Spring 4.7-4.8-26]

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Mick Parsons
Mick Parsons

Poet. Essayist. Fictioner. Steamboat fireman. Bit of a grackle.

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2026, Ohio River Valley Literature, poetry, the no-scape

[The Water Dragon in the Year of the Fire Horse]

The soundtrack for reentry involves a strong base line
an electric guitar, and deep earth anger focused
into high beam love.

What the mistake is, is believing love just is light.
Love is also the dark byproduct, the will, the drive
the expansive power to move the engines of all the worlds.
Love lives in the dark and shimmers and calls forth.

Rolling out to Baltimore on a not too full bus, I remembered myself.
The mind unknotting itself, the bones
untangle and unfurl. I am the night hawk of light and shadow
an eclipse, a solar wind, a lunar soul, a wing, a song, a convection current, a prevailing wind.

These wings, these feet, these lungs inhale
thunder and exhale lightning. Returned, rested, and embraced
I breathe fire and plumb the deepest channels
upon which the entire globe floats.

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2024, Ohio River Valley Literature, poetry, the no-scape, Working Class Literature

someday it will rain

it’s not about living forever: that fool’s errand

chasing after the memory

of who you thought you were

life as noun – the subject / object

of marketing ads you think you’re safe from ‘cuz you scroll

the algorithm of wrinkle-erasing photo filters

quipts on the generational skirmishes

blame games / selling you a memory you never were:

life as a verb – best served to live

until we don’t. burn. this day is fuel not ash

burn knowing someday

it will rain

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