Mark Williams – Writers Resist

It’s Complicated

By Mark Williams

I’m scrolling through my Facebook feed—sunsets,
cats, lost dogs, cats—when I see a post
from a friend I’ve known for thirty-plus years. Someone
like someone you know, I bet. Your someone
might roof Habitat homes, deliver meals to shut-in’s,

conduct sing-a-longs at elder cares, teach kids to read.
Without divulging my someone, I think it’s fair to say,
on balance, his scale tips to the good—
as your someone’s scale tips, most likely,
on most days, anyway. The post in question

refers to a certain President of the United States
who wants to outlaw semiautomatic guns, a first step
in outlawing all guns and if you are not afraid to show it,
re-post this, it says. This, three days
after the most recent carnage. How is this possible?

So don’t be surprised when your friend re-posts or compares
bullhorns in Nashville to handguns at the Capitol
or spouts the dangers of firearm registries. But
if you figure things out—how a someone like this
can be a someone like that—let me know.

I could be dying to hear from you.

Mark Williams’s poems have appeared in Writer’s Resist, The Southern Review, Nimrod, Rattle, and The American Journal of Poetry. Kelsay Books published his collection, Carrying On, in 2022. His fiction has appeared in The Baffler, Eclectica, The First Line, The Write Launch, and Cleaver. He lives in Evansville, Indiana.

Image credit: Golden Gate Blond via Cyberbullying Research Center under “Fair Use.”

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O Captain! Some Captain!

By Mark Williams

after Walt Whitman

O Captain! Some Captain! Our fearful trip’s not done,
The ship is foundering, front to back, the prize we sought’s not won.
The port is far, the chants I hear, the people all protesting,
While follow eyes the unsteady keel, the vessel grim and shaking;

But O heartless, heartless heart!
O the beating blood as red
As the MAGA hat that lies,
On your self-serving head.

O Captain! Some Captain! Rise up and hear the news;
Black Lives Matter flags are flung, for you the bullhorns shrill.
Not for you, bouquets and wreathes—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you we call, the marching masses, our angry faces burning;

Some Captain! Some leader!
You nearly fell on your head.
It’s a nightmare: if on this deck,
You wobble yet next year. O dread!

You Captain answer not our questions, your lips are pale, speak swill.
A leader who intends us harm, your pulse beats all for ill,
The ship’s not anchored safe and sound, its voyage far from done,
If from this trip this vanquished ship does not come in, you’ve won;

Exult not O shores, ring not O bells!
I walk with mournful tread, where
If you steer this ship next year,
our nation sinks cold and dead.

Mark Williams’s poems have appeared in The Southern Review, Rattle, Nimrod, New Ohio Review, and The American Journal of Poetry. His poems in response to the Trump administration have appeared in Writers Resist, Poets Reading the News, The New Verse News, and Tuck Magazine. He lives in Evansville, Indiana.

Photo by zhao chen on Unsplash.

To the Twenty-Five Percent of You

By Mark Williams

Consider the time my dad and I took classes at the Exum climbing school in the Tetons, and one of our classmates was Carol Lawrence. Maria of West Side Story Carol Lawrence. Nicest woman you’d ever want to meet, Carol, and who wouldn’t want to meet her, with that voice and pleasant smile and small feet—perfect for Broadway stages and mountain crevices. So when our wiry climbing instructor invited the class to a meeting at a backwoods cabin that night and Carol asked if she could bring her husband “Bob,” as in Camelot’s “If Ever I Would Leave You” Bob, who wouldn’t want to meet Robert Goulet, even if you were more into Neil Young and the Stones. Only when we get to the meeting, neither Carol nor Bob is there. For that matter, besides the instructor, Dad and I are the only ones from our climbing class to show up. There we are, Dad, me, and twelve or fifteen others sitting in uncomfortable chairs in a rustic cabin listening to the wiry instructor talk about actualizing this, shedding that, and something about dynamics. But before he tells us how to actualize or shed or what he means by dynamics, he has an exercise for us to do. “Pair up,” he says.

I’m always hesitant to describe anyone’s physical characteristics in unflattering ways, so let’s just say that my partner, a young man with chestnut, shoulder-length hair and a narrow face, looks like a horse and leave it at that. “Now, for the next thirty minutes, look into each other’s eyes and let your mind go where it goes,” the instructor instructs. Where my mind goes is, he looks like a horse, followed every so often by, don’t start laughing. I’ve read where three-fourths of Trump voters will vote for him even if he shoots them in the middle of Fifth Avenue first. But to the other twenty-five percent of you who went to the cabin in hope of seeing Carol Lawrence and meeting Robert Goulet (so to speak), but now find yourself stuck in an uncomfortable position, when you feel the slightest tap on your shoulder, conscience, or whatever, whether it’s your father tapping or not, listen to him when he says, “Let’s get out of here,” and get out.

Mark Williams’s poems have appeared in The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, New Ohio Review (online), Rattle, Nimrod, The American Journal of Poetry, and the anthology, New Poetry From the Midwest (New American Press). Finishing Line Press published his poem, “Happiness,” as a chapbook in 2015. His poems in response to the Trump administration have appeared in Poets Reading the News, Tuck Magazine, and The New Verse News. This is his second appearance in Writers Resist. He lives in Evansville, Indiana.

Photo by DDP on Unsplash.

Clowns

By Mark Williams

Anytime Giuliani talks on television the words “available
for birthdays” should flash beneath him on the screen.
– Paula Poundstone

Dear Paula,

Are you sure you thought this through? I mean,
it’s possible some kid’s mom might just call, thinking,
Once a great man, always a great man. And who’s to say
that kid doesn’t have a friend who’s coulrophobic: afraid
of guys like Rudy. A wiener dog blew up in the friend’s face,
and now he walks into the party and there’s Rudy
with that sneer of his, twisting a balloon like it’s the truth.
Only now we know a balloon isn’t always a balloon.
In the mouths of some, a balloon is an elephant, a butterfly
or swan. And speaking of elephants, you probably know
the idea of sending in clowns started with the circus.
A beautiful flying trapeze artist falls to the sawdust
and the cry, “Send in the clowns!” fills the Big Top.
Then the clowns come in, and they’re so busy squirting
giant flowers and squeezing into tiny cars
that we forget the trapeze artist is no longer flying—
or beautiful. As you’re no doubt aware,
Stephen Sondheim wrote “Send in the Clowns”
for Desiree Armfeldt (played by Glynis Johns) to sing
in Act Two of the 1973 musical, A Little Night Music.
Rejected by her lover, Fredrik, Desiree sings,

Where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns …

But as for calling Rudy and sending in his friends, Paula,

Don’t bother, they’re here.

Mark Williams’ writing has appeared in The Hudson Review, Indiana Review, Rattle, Nimrod, The American Journal of Poetry, Poets Reading the News, New Ohio Review (online) and the anthologies, New Poetry from the Midwest and American Fiction. His poem, “Carrying On,” will appear in The Southern Review this fall. He carries on in Evansville, Indiana, where he wishes balloons, not animals, were used at the annual Thanksgiving circus.

Image from the original Broadway show.