Invocation
Okay, this is it, shut
everything out,
the sounds, the heat, infernal visions.
Relax the spot behind the eyes,
calm the heartbeat, head, and fingers.
If something’s flying, let it pass,
unless it makes the wind chime
tingle.
Cut the light—especially the light.
It’s vital that one’s cup be drained of any
stale solutions it holds. Dab it dry with
cotton rag, guard the lip from ash and dust.
All
this done it won’t be long.
Quiet now, here comes the ghost,
that thin, slow spiral playing bones.
The pen perks up, the pages shudder,
not letting on, but it shows.
Can’t
contain myself
to keep from asking
why it appears so empty-handed.
Haven’t you forgotten something?
You were supposed to fill this hole!
Effing
muse takes a leak in my ear,
says it just stopped to use the head.
Now,
wait a minute. This won’t do.
I’ve been waiting. Seems like years!
You’d better give me what I prayed for
or that lobe won’t be the only one pissed.
But it says Sorry scribe, gotta go.
And if you can’t treat me with more respect,
I may not come back again.
For just a second, I’m afraid.
No more word play, no more lines.
But as it turns, I scream, Enough!
Then I guess there won’t be any others!
I suck up my fate with a
fountain pen
and roll the essence in a paper.
I may want it to work once more,
and if it won’t, I’ll smoke it later.
(from
the unpublished “Karma at the Merry Muse Reunion”)
Dietary Restrictions
At lunch, it’s the same thing
every day,
deciding whether to eat or write,
on the one hand wanting to be creative,
on the other nothing I haven’t tried.
No obscure parts of meats
in shapes that can’t be identified.
No hot-dogs because they’re phallic.
They should’ve been made into a patty,
then I wouldn’t need two kinds
of buns,
and wouldn’t always have the wrong ones,
and I don’t know where these bits come from
so don’t give them to me.
I can’t stand those nuggets
either.
I can only imagine where they’ve been,
if they’ve ever seen the light of day,
and what a chicken looks like without them.
No reproductive or vital organs
for me please.
I don’t want to kill the thing just to survive.
No tongue, because I know what I’ve done with mine.
Nothing bleeding, or with eyes, or an I.Q. higher than mine.
Nothing that looks like it could
start to cry.
the sounds, the heat, infernal visions.
Relax the spot behind the eyes,
calm the heartbeat, head, and fingers.
If something’s flying, let it pass,
Cut the light—especially the light.
It’s vital that one’s cup be drained of any
stale solutions it holds. Dab it dry with
cotton rag, guard the lip from ash and dust.
Quiet now, here comes the ghost,
that thin, slow spiral playing bones.
The pen perks up, the pages shudder,
not letting on, but it shows.
to keep from asking
why it appears so empty-handed.
Haven’t you forgotten something?
You were supposed to fill this hole!
says it just stopped to use the head.
I’ve been waiting. Seems like years!
You’d better give me what I prayed for
or that lobe won’t be the only one pissed.
And if you can’t treat me with more respect,
I may not come back again.
No more word play, no more lines.
But as it turns, I scream, Enough!
Then I guess there won’t be any others!
and roll the essence in a paper.
I may want it to work once more,
and if it won’t, I’ll smoke it later.
deciding whether to eat or write,
on the one hand wanting to be creative,
on the other nothing I haven’t tried.
in shapes that can’t be identified.
No hot-dogs because they’re phallic.
They should’ve been made into a patty,
and wouldn’t always have the wrong ones,
and I don’t know where these bits come from
so don’t give them to me.
I can only imagine where they’ve been,
if they’ve ever seen the light of day,
and what a chicken looks like without them.
I don’t want to kill the thing just to survive.
No tongue, because I know what I’ve done with mine.
Nothing bleeding, or with eyes, or an I.Q. higher than mine.
Nothing with a shell: No eggs, or other embryos.
No snails, nothing that leaves that rainbow shit behind.
Nothing I’ve stepped on, no insects or rodents of any kind.
Nothing
that lived in a swamp,
whether it hopped or could fly.
Nothing that I don’t have to bite,
if it slides down my throat, I don’t want it.
Nothing
burnt, or rare,
nothing with a white sauce on it.
Don’t go to any trouble, though.
I have a foot to chew on, can eat my words,
swallow
pride, or starve.
That leaves corn flakes, peanut
butter, and red balsamic.
A man can’t live on bread alone.
(from
the unpublished “Karma at the Merry Muse Reunion”)
No snails, nothing that leaves that rainbow shit behind.
Nothing I’ve stepped on, no insects or rodents of any kind.
whether it hopped or could fly.
Nothing that I don’t have to bite,
if it slides down my throat, I don’t want it.
nothing with a white sauce on it.
Don’t go to any trouble, though.
I have a foot to chew on, can eat my words,
That leaves corn flakes, peanut
butter, and red balsamic.
A man can’t live on bread alone.
The Likeness of the Universe
Look at him, face down in his cereal,
curls tangled in curds. What do goddesses
see in him, that they visit him like Magi?
Ah,
what use inspiration, without a poet?
He expresses more Musesque DNA
than any daughter of Mnemosyne.
They intoxicate one another.
He’s humbler under that mocking exterior,
bubbling magma beneath the core,
sowing soundlessness in syllables
between the spaces of poiesis.
The
heir to time is progeny of archetypes,
bespirited in his quest for purpose,
a microcosmic mirror of the essence,
a hologram holding the whole in a vision
that spans dark matter of contradictions,
a channeler of the echo of creation.
The
arbiter of entendre is not the cosmos, but
its reflection, a semblance in metaphor, form,
and rhythm. His ancient father governs
chronology, his mother laws of evolution, his
sister randomness and chance, but he tempers
their deafening thunder, revealing family
secrets, interpreting patterns and symbols
to bring forth what heretofore wished to exist.
Reality
and order may shape material of being,
but with logic so toxic to lyric ambition,
it is only the Likeness who renders it beautiful,
fashioning comprehension from chaos.
He traverses the staircase intersecting planes
of dimension, transforming existence
into a silhouette fashioned of fairy tales.
He
embodies celestial and physical,
but whispers what neither alone can provide:
a magic conspicuously absent from a
dispassionate universe. He immortalizes story
and they reward him pyrrhically for it.
(from the unpublished “Karma at the Merry Muse Reunion”)
curls tangled in curds. What do goddesses
see in him, that they visit him like Magi?
He expresses more Musesque DNA
than any daughter of Mnemosyne.
They intoxicate one another.
He’s humbler under that mocking exterior,
bubbling magma beneath the core,
sowing soundlessness in syllables
between the spaces of poiesis.
bespirited in his quest for purpose,
a microcosmic mirror of the essence,
a hologram holding the whole in a vision
that spans dark matter of contradictions,
a channeler of the echo of creation.
its reflection, a semblance in metaphor, form,
and rhythm. His ancient father governs
chronology, his mother laws of evolution, his
sister randomness and chance, but he tempers
their deafening thunder, revealing family
secrets, interpreting patterns and symbols
to bring forth what heretofore wished to exist.
but with logic so toxic to lyric ambition,
it is only the Likeness who renders it beautiful,
fashioning comprehension from chaos.
He traverses the staircase intersecting planes
of dimension, transforming existence
into a silhouette fashioned of fairy tales.
but whispers what neither alone can provide:
a magic conspicuously absent from a
dispassionate universe. He immortalizes story
and they reward him pyrrhically for it.
*John FitzGerald is a poet, writer, editor and attorney in Los Angeles, USA. A dual citizen of the United States and Ireland, he attended the University of West Los Angeles School of Law, where he was editor of the Law Review. His first book, Spring Water, was a Turning Point Books prize selection in 2005. His poetry collections include “Favorite Bedtime Stories”, finalist for the Julie Suk Book Award, and “The Mind”, semifinalist for the Alice James Book Award, (both from Salmon Poetry). Other works include “The Essence of Life”, “Primate”, a novel and screenplay, and the non-fiction “For All I Know”. He’s been widely published in journals and anthologies. He was awarded the Naji Naaman Literary Prize for Creativity in 2022.