qarrtsiluni

by John Vick

It was an army of bishops. It was an army. It was a religion. It was terror on Earth and terror after unrepentant departure. It was a cavalcade of irrationalities played out as monochrome duty — scrap the artists — scrap the journalists — scrap the trade biographers. But no one spoke until the sieve clogged with rape — felonious and torts a gogo — the kind one pursues like an unwilling ascent of K2, questionable even as to status, painful as to personal likeability.

Sales skyrocket on water from Lourdes, and the grotto’s river of disbelief runs strong in response to futures’ investments. Nothing like mad men to take over the immersion of that which was created at the time of hurling rocks and sun worship. Production was cut out of the picture. There was still no need for words. Creation. Production. Immersion. And the exclusion of all reflective, recording, and resonant. The way of give me that and I’ll take one of those things I don’t need resounds in a Socialist’s yurt, as Victoria Falls seems convenient for a spontaneous picnic.

He always said, “beatnik,” and didn’t venture into preferred nouns of kindness, progressiveness, and legitimacy.  There was a way of going mad. There is a way of going mad. There will always be. And fortunes come like singing Waltzing Matilda, in grammar school; the feeling of internationalism. The feeling one might sing The Internationale while a child falls to sleep after stories of individual honor, team strength, independence and interdependence. No harm in vanilla anxiety, yet no need to feel wrong, either.  It wasn’t meant to be painted on that hobby-horse or etched on the origami crane. Nothing lackluster, nor artistic self-distain.

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John Vick was born in Mississippi. His family moved across the continent to Canada in the mid-60s, and when he was 11, he moved to Oklahoma with his parents and finished high school. Since then, Vick has lived in Texas, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, and currently resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He served in the military for two years in the mid-80s. He’s placed poems in a variety of journals, and his chapbook Chaperons of a Lost Poet appeared from BlazeVOX in 2009.