John Thomas Clark
MAN OVERBOARD
In the beginning, you lose your balance, trip,
Fall floorward, not knowing why. Buttons slip
From your grasp. So does the small paper clip,
Shoelaces too. Next, your steering wheel grip
Goes. You lose your patience because you’re hip
To doctors who simply dispense mere lip
Service when your job’s lost to this iceberg tip;
You’re Titanicked. Adrift. Lifeboats of flip
Comments surface; captains’ voices adrip
With cold truths flow. An ocean of icy rip
Tides foams, froths up to swamp your life raft, strip
You of your dignity, your faith. You flip
Out, lose awareness, whirlpool off. You slip
Away, an emptied vessel, an abandoned ship.
* * *
THE WICKER MAN1
Searching, searching for his original sin
He looks down inside his long wicker frame,
Reviewing each sooty inscape goatman
Climbing up his memory. With fault flames
Fanning, firing, fueling his scrimdepth dark
Past, he sees each ascending ashen-faced shade
Doff its coalcloak, ignite, incandesce, then fade,
Fall. In this pyreprogression, with each spark,
Each flicker, he whiteheats his brain with names,
Places, but finds no fire escape coatman
To clothe his conflagrated conscience, blame
For being fired from his original skin.
When medicine can find no reason, you firestorm
Your foibles, your failings, but you never get warm.
1. The Wicker Man - the ancient Celts built giant wickerwork frames, shaped like men in which were placed animals and sometimes evildoers. These structures were then set afire as offerings to the deities.
* * *
TAKE IT AWAY
When Morann1, son of Carbery Cat-head,
Was born so blemished, he was ordered dead
By his father. One of the fairies said
Take him to the sea; let nine waves2, instead,
Wash over Morann. When the ninth wave spread
Upon him, then, was it lifted - the red
Blemish was gone. I would find that seabed
Of Morann. I would lie there in sacred
Silence. Every shred of my naked
Being would anticipate the blessed
Release with each wave. As the ninth wave wed
To me, its cleansing foam would wash my dread
In its purgative pool and watershed
My life… Perhaps, before my soul has fled.
1. Morann – a famous Brehon (judge) in ancient Ireland, c. 1st century CE
2. Beyond the ninth wave, ordinary circumstances did not apply in ancient Ireland.
A retired NYC teacher, John Thomas Clark’s poetry has appeared in The Recorder – Journal of the American-Irish Society when edited by Derek Mahon and again when edited by Eamonn Grennan. Clark has penned The Joy of Lex which he describes as an upbeat romp of seventy-five sonnets and a crown which tells the story of life with his lack lab Lex,"the best service dog in the world." He has also written Othering – a manuscripts of 150-175 sonnets which recounts the journey of a person who others, who becomes “an other” as he faces a growing physical disability.
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