Ares in the Third Millennium

It's all right there:

The post office done imperially,

but unlit.

Its windows dirty and scratched,

secured well though inelegantly,

insignias faded, limestone stained

by water, smoke and mold.

Beside it, a church announces

there is only one kind of whimsy,

one kind of power, one far-off and fatal truth,

only one throne.

But the ads on the cabs,

bus shelters and subway entrances

proclaim the opposite, the million permeations,

in their squalid totality.

That's only one of the wars

being fought for my soul tonight,

though the contenders

in the near-incomprehensible scrum

of the early twenty-first century

say there is no war—

just the best of all possible worlds

Colin Dodds grew up in Massachusetts and completed his education at The New School in New York City. Norman Mailer wrote that Dodds' novel The Last Bad Job showed "something that very few writers have; a species of inner talent that owes very little to other people." Dodds' novels What Smiled at Him and Another Broken Wizard have been widely acclaimed by critics and readers alike. His screenplay, Refreshment—A Tragedy, was named a semi-finalist in 2010 American Zoetrope Contest. Two books of Dodds' poetry—The Last Man on the Moon and The Blue Blueprint—are available from Medium Rare Publishing. Dodds' writing has also appeared in a number of periodicals, including The Wall Street Journal Online, Folio, Explosion-Proof, Block Magazine, The Architect's Newspaper, The Main Street Rag, The Reno News & Review and Lungfull! Magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Samantha.