Jon Wesick

My Disappointment Dreams of Jail

Steel doors, concrete benches
If disappointment stays out of trouble,
he might get out before getting raped
but someone stole his shoes
after a guy in frilly panties jumped in his bed.

My disappointment faked interest
in plasma frequencies to work
among banks of humming transformers
at a national lab. They hired someone else
so he took a job in Nowheresville, Ohio
and got laid off six weeks later.

My disappointment reenrolled
in all the classes he took at university.
He seldom sets foot on campus.
When he does, the pitying looks
and pointless syllabi send him home
to stare at wallpaper and linoleum.

My disappointment pleasures a woman
who neither responds nor reciprocates.
When he reaches for a condom,
he wakes up alone 

Duende

Mouth open, teeth rotten,
vocal cords bleeding.
It’s not so much singing
as screaming.

Those gone complacent
from parroting the powerful
have silenced him for decades
but he has the microphone now
and, by God, he’s going to use it

RIP- Shane MacGowen, lead singer of The Pogues

2023/XII

 

Jon Wesick has written over a million words in poems, short stories, and novels. Hundreds of his works have appeared in journals such as the I-70 Review, Misfit Magazine, New Verse News, Paterson Literary Review, and Unlikely Stories Mark V. He is a regional editor of the San Diego Poetry Annual and host of the Gelato East Fiction Open Mic. His latest book, Reductio Ad Absurdum, is a collection of parodies. He lives in Manchester, New Hampshire and longs for gene editing to bring giant wombats back from extinction. http://jonwesick.com