Poets Against War continues the tradition of socially engaged poetry by creating venues for poetry as a voice against war, tyranny and oppression.

David Salner

59 years old

I have worked as an iron ore miner, furnace operator, garment worker and machinist. My work has appeared in Threepenny Review, Prairie Schooner, and many other publications. My first book of poems was published in 2002 by Pudding House.

In Another Mug Shot

      First appeared in Threepenny Review
     Summer 2003  
      
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The camera picked up
the light on the plastic
of my fake leather jacket.
Also, my hair was too long
and my mustache
gave me the shifty look
often found in mug shots.
In fact it was a mug shot
taken in the basement
of the Hall of Justice
in 1968—or Injustice
as we called it. Now,
it’s almost December
2002, and I’m getting ready
to welcome my daughter
home from college. My hair
is shorter and my beard
neatly clipped, but the
mug shot would come out
with the same shifty look.
The change is in something else—
not in the way I look or
the suit jacket I’m wearing
instead of fake leather—
but in the background
of the mug shot. Can you
see it—the war taking shape?
It shines like a new war,
like only a new war can.




  

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