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Writer's pictureA Too Powerful Word

John Fitzgerald



John M. Fitzgerald is a poet, writer, editor and attorney for the disabled in Los Angeles. A dual citizen of the US and Ireland, he attended the University of West Los Angeles School of Law, where he was editor of the Law Review. His first book, Spring Water, was a Turning Point Books prize selection in 2005. He has also published Telling Time by the Shadows (2008), The Mind (2011) and Favorite Bedtime Stories (2014). His poems have been included in anthologies and many literary magazines. He lives and works in Santa Monica, California.




Epigram


From Herotoclus , the Uncouth:


"You fucking people come here expecting poetry?"


Note the Ancient Islandic translates more literally:


"you children of goats come here expecting poetry?"


He was scheduled to read outside the library on the island

the very moment of the famous utterance.


In all fairness Herotoclus was, at the time,

the only one facing the tidal wave.


One can see though how he deserves his moniker.






Fairy Tale


Once, there were four brothers.

One owned all the water.

One owned all the fire,

one owned all the food,

and one all the air.

We stuffed these leeches in a hole

and ate and drank and breathed.







Tooth Fairies


They come, or cross over, in measured degree

proportionately as I ignore them

to provide for orderly creation


Make any point possess the whole

and understand the secret

of the teardrop that I came from


Allow the smoke to dissipate

the reek to wane, or rearrange

as I was saying


All I really need

has been revealed to me in fairy tales

They fashion piano keys from our teeth


to produce that twinkling sound in flight

It's thriving trade, so they have charts

much as butchers do for meat


Canine, molar, bicuspid

each fetches its particular price

But as I said, they enter in


and run around through holes in my head

like bugs weighing my mind

beneath my pillow as I dream


They leave as payment

the equivalent of my aspirations

which is always a quarter


They come only at night

because all the world fears a human being

and when we catch one


we tie it to strings

and drag it behind cars at weddings

for the musical sparks left in its wake



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