J. K. DURICK - POEMS

J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Leaves of Ink, Front Porch Review, Poetry Superhighway, Algebra of Owls, and in the anthology, Along the Way.

​ July 17, 2018

​When will we finally decide, resolve, step out, move on
from all this. History always has trouble sympathizing;
looking back on us they won’t be kind. I can picture
a noted historian, standing at his/her lectern pronouncing
judgment, analyzing step by step, trying to explain what
we have done, did to ourselves; his audience quietly taking
notes, revising events in their minds, knowing they would
have done better, cause and effect work best when filtered
through time, through distance. Let’s sit in the back row of
the lecture hall and listen to ourselves described, things we
are doing and/or not doing, watch them take notes, laptops
open, the date at the top of the page, then the list of names,
dates, events, see if they got our today there, today as we
stand/sit ready to decide, to resolve, to step out, move on.

​Suspect

When they come for me – and they will --
there won’t be all the noise and bustle
we associate with such things, no sirens
or flashing lights, or squealing tires …
they’ll pull up slowly, first one car then
another, enough; they’ll sit for a moment
consulting files, talking, quietly planning
their approach, two to the front door and
one along the side yard to watch the back,
as if I would light out the back door and
over the back fence, off to a life as fugitive,
a suspect on the loose, my picture on
the evening news, last seen running through
the neighbor’s yard, being chased by their
chihuahua, the voice over would continue on
to say that the fugitive is considered unarmed
and harmless, but instead I’ll answer the door
and let them in and will tell them what they
want to know, not resist or light out for them
territories ahead of the rest. It’s easy to imagine
my neighbors watching my perp-walk and saying
they were always sure they come for me, and
evidently they got their man.

​

​ Parties

​and sometimes they go on too long, so long that
the point of it all is lost in a haze, and all the people,
the original people you invited, you wanted to be there,
have left and you are surrounded by some background
characters you barely care to know, and all the rooms
fill up with words, too much of too many things, smoke,
spilled drinks, and voices so loud that they have become
a symptom, something the neighbors will complain about
tomorrow, if they don’t call the police tonight, like so many
times before, but you have lost control of this, like too many
other things in your life, and so you just let it go on, watch
it play out, too tired to join in or stop it, it’s what parties
become when they go on so long you forget why they are.