Two Salsa Poems by Joshua M. Hall

Random Saturday at Salsa

 

No more docs for half a year,

nor loves till who knows when.

 

But there’s always room to dance

through abyss’ gift of emptiness.

 

And if nothing else be creatable

ex nihilo, let there be swift joy

 

between last week of sorrow

and next week of sorrow.

 

Copyright © 2025 Joshua M. Hall. All rights reserved.

*****************

 

New Year’s Day Salsa

 

a cozy dance studio’s

fogged up windows

dim to the world

a few misfit friends

well on their way

through the recurrence

eternal

 

quinquagenarian

Benz dealer

dances close to a

biochem candidate

half his age and I

cradle Megan’s

self-made oreo mint

birthday cake

 

while Julio straightens up

and Ivan stares

into the web spun

round the world

 

2:30am and no one

wants to break

the fog

 

Copyright © 2025 Joshua M. Hall. All rights reserved.

****************

Joshua M. Hall’s work has been nominated by the editors of Verdad literary journal for the 16th annual Best of the Net Anthology, and selected as a “Poet of the Week” by Poetry Super Highway. He has published 113 poems in literary journals, including North Dakota Quarterly, and Grub Street. With a PhD in Philosophy from Vanderbilt University, he has also published 81 peer-reviewed journal articles, five of which have recently been republished in Spanish translation, and coedited Philosophy Imprisoned: The Love of Wisdom in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Finally, he has thirty years’ experience in dance. For more on Joshua M. Hall see: https://ua-birmingham.academia.edu/JoshuaHall

He includes this quote for our reflection: “Bless the poets, the workers for justice, the dancers of ceremony, the singers of heartache, the visionaries, all makers and carriers of fresh meaning.” — Joy Harjo, U.S. Poet Laureate (Muscogee Nation)


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One response to “Two Salsa Poems by Joshua M. Hall”

  1. Aili Whalen Avatar

    Thank you so much for sharing these poems with us, Joshua! I remember that feeling, of holding on to the birthday cake, not wanting to go out into the “real world” and break the fog of the danceworld.

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