UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY
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JASON RYBERG ALL AT ONCE, IT HAPPENS This time The Universal Fortune Cookie Reads, curiously enough, “things are not as they seem.” One might even Be tempted to, matter-of-factly state, That, as of late, things have been “mildly discombobulated” or “slightly de-centered” or, at best “precariously balanced.” Words are shifting in their moorings, People mistake you for long-lost cousins And your contract with reality Is up for re-negotiation. For example, one minute you’re standing on a street corner in downtown Sturgeon Bay, waiting for the light to change, a rare, out-of-print Carl Perkins album tucked up under your arm and a twelve-pack of Stag in your hand, when a guy with a Walt Whitman beard leans out from the window of a passing van and says, with genuine universal unconditional love “how’s it goin’, man?” The next, You’re suddenly plunging, Headlong, through all the wayward And wildly rioting leaves of late October. All at once, it happens- On a winding tree-lined road Somewhere on the fringes of Sonoma County, They tumble and whirl, Surge and seize and sweep their way Across the continent like massive, skittish schools of tropical fish, A furious and irradiant carousel Of chaos and insane color Washing over the car, the road, Blocking out the sky and the world Like a roving hybrid dream Of starfish and exotic jungle butterflies… Maples, Lindens and Cedars, Pin Oaks and Box Elders, Cottonwoods and Sycamores, White Birches and Elms, Black Cherries, Ashes and Osage Oranges… A nebulous and amorphous tide Rushing deep inland To gather you up in its grand scheme And carry you out to the still breathing, Still with us, still very much alive and kicking Great unknown. SUNDAY MORNING, 7AM (OR SO) It’s Sunday morning, 7AM (or so), and the coffee pot is whispering its little secrets to no one in particular and the sky looks like its threatening to unload. And, from the kitchen window, we can see a burly tomcat playing with something it’s caught, down in the alley, behind the hardware store- a cockroach or mouse, maybe; joyously swatting and tossing it about and then, suddenly, indifferently, letting it go. An absolution or reprieve of sorts- Who knows? Sometimes the world is inexplicably alive with such innocent, amoral and otherwise misdirected mercies when the Good Lord or Vishnu or Great Earth Mother or whoever is momentarily distracted by some cosmic occurrence, somewhere, and the focus of their energies is suddenly shifted from whatever the current object of their loving vivisection happens to be (who knows; the cockroach, the mouse, the cat, maybe you, hell, maybe me). But elsewhere, this morning, we can see with the floating magical eye of the poem, a red-breasted robin preaching from atop a piece of PVC pipe, a pair of red shoes dangling from a telephone wire, a sky-blue tricycle (on which so much depends) beside four white plaster chickens, and, Maple leaves, like propellers cut from brittle rice paper or sheaves of ancient papyrus, spiraling down in little, meandering gyres through the bright autumn air. And somewhere (the picture is not as clear here), in a motel room out near the highway, maybe, or, in a westbound car, let’s say, just now whizzing by that very same motel (bound for Gnaw Bone, IA or Talala, OK), or, in some drafty downtown apartment above a hardware store (that never seems to have what you’re looking for), the radio is torturing some sad and desperate chump with love song after merciless love song. Otherwise, not much else is happening. Jason Ryberg is the author of seven books of poetry, six screenplays, a few short stories, a box of loose papers that could one day be loosely construed as a novel and a couple of angry letters to various magazine and newspaper editors. He lives in Kansas City, Missouri. His latest collection of poems, Blunt Trauma (co-authored with Iris Appelquist and released by Spartan Press), is most easily found at www.prosperosbookstore.com. |
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