Mark Danowsky


An Ekphrastic series based on Abandoned America: The Age of Consequences by Matthew Christopher 

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church
        	Germantown, Philadelphia, 19144
 
I remember the photographer
came around to document the site
before the transformation
 
We were not allowed inside
though I walked my dog
around the church’s perimeter
for six rough years
 
In the photographs
bare bulbs hang
from forsaken archways
 
A long chair
where you would expect
a podium
 
An exit sign
left for the ghosts
of service’s past
 
The crumbling 
white altar remains
an epic fantasy vision  


 
Abandoned Prison
 
Most sad of all
viewing the countless
rusted iron bars
is knowing before
these bleak cells
held bodies & minds
 

 
Rusted Yamaha
 
An old checked flannel
over your broken back
 
Your insides exposed
& left to decay
 
But I’m confident
you once shaped a life
 

 
Badge of Graffiti
 
Your utility remains
 
A place for youth
to make themselves bold
 
You, a brokedown furnace
towering through rafters
 
More than 100 feet of metal
standing easily for a century
 
 
 
Great Halls
 
Wild, our audacity
to build vast structures
 
Opera house
Auditorium
Generation station
House of looms
Sacred Space
 
Then, leave them
to rot

Mark Danowsky is Editor-in-Chief of ONE ART: a journal of poetry. He is author of several short poetry collections including, most recently, Meatless (Plan B Press). His poems and other writing have been curated in many journals including Alba, The New Verse News, anti-heroin chic, Right Hand Pointing, The Broadkill Review, Gargoyle, Otoliths, and elsewhere.

 
 

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