Jason Fisk lives near Chicago with his wife, daughter, and two dogs. He is currently teaching at a residential school populated by students who have been identified with emotional and behavioral disorders. You can visit his website here.

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SELECTED POETRY

by
Jason Fisk

SURVIVAL

The young boy walks
along the sidewalk.
Wool cap hiding
thick hair from the
bleaching summer sun.
Holding his mother’s hand
he points at two birds, both crows,
fighting to what seems like death
only ten feet away from him.
One pinning the other
to the ground
and ferociously pecking.

Struggle, turn, peck, tear.
They took turns
pecking and ripping
each other.

His mother looks,
and then looks away.
”Come on Charlie, we’re late.”
She pulls him along.
He stares.
He struggles to free
his hand from his mother’s.
Mrs. Darwin looks down,
“Charlie, we can’t, we’re late.”
Her urgency dragged him past.
He continued to watch
over his shoulder,
watched their fury
rip and flap.

Reality faded as he walked
on with his mother,
and imagination grew.
It grew questions.
It grew splattered blood
on the sidewalk.
It grew broken necks
and bent wings.
In his imagination
he watched the crows
until one died.

And young Charlie felt
need for the first time.
Not the need
to do something,
but a need to
explain it all away.

© Jason Fisk

---

EUROPEAN PSYCHIC

He had a pain in his leg
and had not been to the doctor
in over forty years.
Something his wife hated,
something he was slightly proud of.
He didn’t want to worry her
but he was sure it was cancer.

He decided to see a psychic,
he passed one everyday
on his walk to the park.
European Psychic the sign read.

The room was sufficiently
gaudy and convincingly
European, despite his never been.

She was surprisingly plain
as if she’d taken a break
from her cleaning
to tell him when
he was going
to die.

He left quickly,
putting on his hat
mid stride.
He walked about
a hundred feet
before his mind locked
his body
in its
place.

He suddenly couldn’t decide
how he should breath.

Should
he
conserve
his
every
breath,
hoping
to
change
his
predicted
fate,

or should he breath rapidly, trying to get in every breath possible before he died?

© Jason Fisk

---

THE DETAILS

By the time I was 12,
I could tell a ’55 Chevy
from a ’56 Chevy
from a ’57 Chevy.
My Dad’s first car was a ’56,
the least popular of the three.
I used to walk through
classic car exhibitions with him,
listening to the stories
sparked by the glint
of chrome and hue of paint.
Memories twisted
through leather car seats,
in driver’s windows,
over wooden dashboards
hugging fat
white wall tyres.

I drove your mother
to the hospital in a Buick
like this one when she was in labour
with your sister, he would say
as he stuck his head the car
and looked around his memory.
Mine was a four door though.

Lately, I’ve gone to a few
classic auto shows,
alone,
looking for my father’s
memories in the cars,
I wish I’d paid more attention…

© Jason Fisk

---

MUSICOLOGY

The Red Lion Pub
sat along the Thames
with its dim light
and low ceiling
that sat everyone down.

Rainbow Trout pulled from
water only yards away
scales left on
a pint of Abbot sent
the trout swimming
down my throat.

And four greying gents
smiling cheeks
rounded and reddened
played the music of their youth.

“Pretty cool, huh?”
I said, cupping my hand
over the precious flame
gravel grinding beneath my soul
before reaching
“your” smoke free car.

“The guy playing the standing bass was off. He was behind the others all evening,” you said.

I finished my cigarette
in the car
on the way back
to the hotel.

© Jason Fisk

---

THE HOMECOMING

They all returned to her
cold Minnesota home.
They returned living different
lives from when they left.
They unpacked
their car cramped bodies,
shoulders and necks
still tense with snow storms
and travel. The son
that would say anything
suggested the bar down the street.
She viewed it as an adventure.
Her children’s faces
in adult bodies
sipping their age,
drinking away the years
wedged between them.
She smiled at the freedom
she saw in her children,
and the drinks kept coming.
She laughed out loud
as they sang on stage.
She couldn’t remember
the last time she saw
her children feeling so free.
A sort of pride sat
in her core like an ember.
Later that night, she woke crying,
wanting more for her children.

© Jason Fisk

---

FADE

In his dingy, cluttered living room
solidly laying on his left side
head propped up by his arm
he stares out the abnormally
long window as afternoon people pass
not stopping to look past their reflection.
The gathering window dust protects
his wide yellow t-shirt and underwear clad body
from shame he once knew, but never cared for.
His ashtray keeps time as it sits near on the couch
fingers blindly probe it for the remnants
of the morning’s escape.
Finding it, his head drops
with relief, onto the couch.
He quickly brings the joint to his lips,
his sweet smelling escape opened by flame
he watches cars blur and the divorce the bills
the scheduled visits the awkwardness.
It all fades.

© Jason Fisk