From the Anthology 

Reflections of the Land

Renaissance Land

Jeffrey Scott Janison

Dying industries breed creativity / What else

are we supposed to export / We make our

only models.

You can ride the rust belt / See where the

tracks meet the end / Underneath steel

buckets / Paling in comparison / To the

monuments of capitalism.

They rise like altered beasts / Each addition

a twisted appendage / To its consumptive

mass / Eating the raw and regurgitating the

formed.

On the banks we watch / The bulk carrier

crawl down the river / Heaving itself as it

goes / It is a blue whale chasing the ghost of

its last meal.

Our identities are changing / The factory

floors are turning / Into studio apartments /

Into places where art lives.

When the metal moves out / The mind

moves in / Surviving in a state of harmony /

Dependent on itself / Turning swarf into soil

/ To plant our vision of the future.

Author Bio

Jeffrey Scott Janison is a poet, writer, and editor living in Lakewood, OH. His work tends to focus on exploring the values within society, nature, and love. He writes with a gritty sincerity that reflects his desire to find universal truths, which was most likely influenced by reading Calvin & Hobbes as a child. You can find him at his desk, out in the wild, or stuck in line at Starbucks.