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Poetry by
John Vick
The Truth Is Out There by Nadia J. Mahfix
excerpts from
Chaperons of a Lost Poet
(BlazeVOX, 2009)
| But where are you headed, John?
And if you have no idea, keep the gearshift down
to the right. And once more try to get a grasp
on your intent. It isn’t paranoia to fear you are taken
as hilariously (and or pathetically) funny. You never know
because you question your insight.
What you mean to tell yourself
is that besides fearing your country,
its forty-third, you hate your passivity. You despise
the lack of outrage in yourself and everyone else. You loathe
the carte hlanche you give the empowered and wonder
if you have authority over yourself. There is a key
to your psyche’s desire to continue on. |
Simon and Garfunkel chord book
and me at the piano, hammering away
without the least rhythm. No leaning
toward expression in music. Simply pounding
on the keys like a two-year-old
beating on a xylophone. And the jinx was there;
it was in place and waiting.
| To explain the jinx, realize that the others
in the room will find you pedantic, or worse,
trying to be pedantic. The best way to handle it
is by just wrapping up—as briefly
as possible, please—and leaving the reader with a sense of fulfillment without
giving away too much. So, scan
the page, try to find common elements, some something
there to say:the whole thing happened quickly—
poems should all be about a single moment?
Learn the rules and follow them.
There are jinxes to be dealt with and the first is coming up fast.
Tick tock tick tock.
* * * *
| Your dream the other night still
disturbs: a raccoon in the great woods looking
as intelligent as you as it scurries
up trees in pajamas and bifocals.
You refuse to send work out. Your self-hatred
is misdirected, hitting the splashboard in the kitchen instead
of the toilet bowl in the john. You refuse
to hold my hand any longer
than etiquette demands. Are we at an impasse, or do you wish to continue?
A screen door slamming shut sounds
like a gunshot in this chilled air
when nipples rise out under
t-shirts. I feel a feather of sting on my
bare ankles. On the low side of balmy.
Nothing else happens, but that
car speeding off down the street,
the young woman singing to herself,
mp3s blasting in her ears.
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Yeah, right between Phantom Limb
and A Comet Appears, and what kind of omen
is that my friend? You feel on the downside
of some blotter? You feel on the downside
of your comfort zone and the hell
realm is going to be upon you fast. Indulge,
silly creature. Go ahead and indulge. If you think
these efforts will gain you anything
positive, step back, turn around— now say
“I’ve hoodwinked6 myself!” There,
feel better? |
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This is not about this issue of “multiple” personalities, (because we just can’t say „s p l i t”).
We do possess enough integrity to acknowledge each other’s place in what room there is left: long lists of pharmaceuticals and etcetera.
Nothing shall prevent utterances from this gallery of two, fabulous grandiose ideation aside.
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* * * *
And the whole truth is this: especially now, and more so in a minute, it is every forgotten word and passed-over thought. Thoughts of every kind and yes, those too, more than actions, as actions serve a function of utility.
With deeds done (and some hard to forget) you have forgotten many good things. Now it’s time to release from guilt about the bad, and that is Niagara Falls with seven rainbows.
Consider the “Little Marvel Stove.” Envy this: the zone of the sestina in question is out of my reach, but starting today, I do not care.
Apply mankind to yourself. Humanness as a driveway of more gravel than cement, bind yourself loosely to everyone.
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| We could have had some times if you hadn’t been so butterfly-
shy. I’m playing gullible to the concept of this departure,
by the way, because
it isn’t any more permanent than riddance
of that skirt
and all the evidence
in its wake. All illusion11 covering up
secrets the rest of us will never
know. It’s okay, really. Not
that you care, or would send flowers. You never
listen anyway, always sitting outside trying
not to think about what
that plastic statue is saying to you. And now,
paparazzi camera-flashes light me up.
They can’t get enough of me.
The urgency of the snuff. |
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It comes as red silk in motion. There is a mirrored platform as I rotate; a ballerina in a music box, one leg kicking out, the other en pointe turning ever so blithely. He is in a smoke filled bar of old southern gentlemen. No one watches the dancer as he does so intently. A flash of several moments adding up to less than a nanosecond, but permanent such that the dance, the still-life of me in brilliant beauty, is accepted, embedded.
It comes as red silk in motion and the dress is memory manipulated for your own worthy causes. It is not timid. “Acceptance” is a tricky word. More palpable than “tolerate,” more desirable than anything, given the debacle of family, and the voices of a lonely man13.
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______________________________
6 04/10/1977 (The Kyrie). On half-an-hour-later knees, ring the chimes slowly three times. Stand up front and look like you have a clue. Pensive is the best way to go. Don’t reveal too much. Look easily disturbed.
11 07/15/2007 (navel). My father showed himself as a reflection in the morning’s bathroom mirror; a caricature of him and me, minus a few dozen secrets I’ll never know.
13 After 10:45 (falling off): A lot of behavior makes children nervous, so some hide red dresses all their lives. Some wear them in the sunlight.
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“Process” is difficult to grip with rhetoric, for me. I reduce my consciousness to the underlying state of mind. There is a step down, a total avoidance of writing, yet writing—in that I don’t care one bit what is going onto the page. The page is a playground. We don’t go to the sandbox and stay there. We wander to the monkey bars and slides too. We seesaw. We swing on truck tires and we really don’t plan the next step with play, in my eyes. We really don’t plan it.
Now, I think an immense amount of cunning operates in our subconscious and certainly that activity is planning things. Reactions/etiquette. The “auto-pilot” mode. I know the route to familiar places and that “auto-pilot” is certainly active on those treks. So there it is: access to the subconscious. The goal of course, is to control that automatic left turn, bus 16, the things we don’t recall with specifics after we have done them with absent mind, and turn the state of mind to our own devices, on the page.
A review of John Vick’s Chaperons of a Lost Poet by Rina Terry may be read here.
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