“[W]e shall recognize in that work and in life that is inseparable from it
the pure and victorious attempt of one man to snatch every instant of his existence from his future death.”
—Jean-Paul Sarte
last day of June
through kismet I crash
accordion-style into
Camus 🡪 O’Connor 🡪 Starck
injury-vibing
together by the side of this
collective human road stil
looking in vain for Gallimard’s dog
morning I read how Camus
chose friendship over safety
on that holiday winter road
back to Paris from Provence in 1960
Camus claimed I know nothing more stupid
than to die in an automobile accident
and contrarily
Death is not absurd or meaningless
at night by chance I collide into
O’Connor’s “Dharani” poem
in which he laments O Camus
if car crash should come
then remember hearing Clem Starck
read this poem March 18, 2023
with clearest Clem-ticulation ever
after “Dharani” collision I see FB post
a gathering to celebrate Clem’s life
in Port Townsend June 29 &
my mind is doing donuts
so now all 3
this fated timeless triangulation
have travelled beyond the corporeal
to the ether completing
today’s circle of death
vehicles of regret
tunnelling onward we are
always skipping trains or
hailing cars
to arrive at annihilation
becoming absurd fodder
select seed
for forests’ next
lot of old growth
anyway
Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and educator Mark Strohschein resides in Washington state. His poems have appeared or will appear in Cincinnati Review, Kansas City Review, Flint Hills Review, Cirque Journal, Bryant Literary Review, Barren Magazine, Lips Poetry Magazine, The Big Windows Review, The Milk House, The Mantelpiece Literary Magazine, and many other journals and anthologies. His chapbook, Cries Across Borders (Main Street Rag, 2025), was a semifinalist for Button Poetry’s 2023 chapbook contest. His chapbook-length collection, Sanctuary of Voices (Ravenna Press), will be published in late 2025 as part of its Triple Series. Strohschein is a proud board member for the Skagit Valley Poetry Foundation and a student in Pacific Lutheran University's Rainier Writing Workshop MFA program. Two of his unpublished books of poems—We Share the Same Road & Other Poems (2024) and Let Us Begin Again (2025)—both earned honorable mention for the Sally Albiso Award.
