Max Heinegg Verse-Virtual 2016 October

October 2016

I live with my wife and two daughters in Medford, MA where I have taught English in the public schools for the last 19 years (the first five were in grade 6, the last 14 in high school). I am a songwriter and I adapt poems from the public domain (Keats, Yeats, etc.). The music can be heard at www.maxheinegg.com. I have recent poems accepted in Tar River, Chiron Review, and Crab Creek. I am also the co-founder of Medford Brewing Company, working as the recipe designer for our craft beers.

The Challenger
For Bob Ebeling

No one listens when you tell them the rings will freeze,
that in the cold, the seal of the shuttle’s
booster rockets will not hold.
Two days, to stave, to let the weather warm,
but Reagan has a glowing State of the Union
to give, & NASA, in go-fever, will not wait.

Among the Trojans, more than Paris, who lost Helen,
more than Hector, dragged before his family,
Cassandra was most doomed, her prophecy
scorned. No escape route planned,
the high walls of her city blazed, as the Greeks,
from the rooftops, launched children into the sun.

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