Poetry By Daniel McGinn

        Sunghwan Yoon CC




Faces in the Cliffs
 
Some people don’t have regrets. I can’t relate
to those people. I never could. I regret mistakes 
I made yesterday. I disappeared into rooming 
houses and hitchhiked for a few years. My past 
didn’t know where I was. I hoped it wouldn’t 
find me. The past didn’t care about me. I was 
grateful for whatever drugs fell into my hands. 
I would take them all. There was a time when 
I didn’t trust people who didn’t do drugs. I didn’t 
trust people. I became narcissistic like church 
people. Everything said to me was run through 
a filter of belief and disbelief and if I had 
swallowed too much I’d remind myself this was 
only for the moment. I’d taken a drug and chose 
to allow it to take me. There was a time when I 
couldn’t function. I’m okay now. When you talk 
about faces in the cliffs, it reminds me of voices 
in my walls. When they were loud, mine was just 
a whisper. I saw a lot of things and then I broke. 
I walked off the job at the sandwich shop. I couldn’t 
stop crying. I took a psychic break. It’s never been 
easy to write about this. People who have never 
been there tried to define it for me. What do they 
know? They weren’t there. I can tell you I’m sober 
now, in this moment. I’m a different person, having 
children changed me. I’m grateful for that. Look 
how fragile we are. Look how beautiful.



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Curbside

I don’t know why I’m dissatisfied.
I went to the store today for sweet potatoes.

I parked at the curb in front of my house
and sat there for a while, just to be alone.

I remained in the car for longer than anticipated.
I felt the clean and cold that follows days 

of dark clouds and constant rain.
I listened to my right knee complain. I injured it

when I was a young man. It still aches sometimes,
even when at rest.

I have a deeper pain that will never be resolved. 
It urges me to go back to bed in the middle of the day

so it can wake me in the middle of the night.
Today, I took a few deep breaths and filled the car 

with my own germs. I didn’t say anything. 
I just felt how I felt. 

I don’t know why it's hard sometimes
to walk back into my home and resume my life.

It’s usually easier than it was today.  
This is the place where I live. 

There is nowhere else to go.




Daniel McGinn is an old man. He competed in the nationals as a member of the 1995 Los Angeles Slam team. His work has appeared in The MacGuffin, Nerve Cowboy, SurVision, Spillway, and The OC Weekly along with numerous other magazines and anthologies. Daniel received an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts at the age of 61. His most recent chapbook, Drowning the Boy, was published by SurVision Magazine in Dublin Ireland. It is the winner of the James Tate Poetry prize for 2021. 
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