Matthew Henrickson
The Oracle at Ducky
Humor, a morbid, prophetic duck told me, is the sinew of poetry. Albert Camus told all of us, “One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness.” Poetry is humorous because it is absurd; it is a morbid duck at Delphi. The Universe is a big joke no one gets, but the details are hilarious. As Stinky Wizzleteats tells us in the happy helmet episode of Ren and Stimpy, “A fly marrying a bumblebee, that’s very funny!” Nature is a clusterfudge of mistakes real and imagined. Fibonacci’s spiral testifies to that. Wisdom, also, is funny, because wisdom is absurd. It often comes too late. Irony is funny. MacBeth is hilarious, from a certain vantage point. And those humorous by nature, Oscar Wilde and his entourage, have an incurable sadness. When you suddenly have to take anything seriously and aren’t already sulking in the infinite tragedy of daily life, you tend to get sad. Meanwhile, poetry lets us stand in the wacky distance and watch the fires burn. ________________________________________________________________________________________________
Death Certificate
After realizing the angel in the ditch
was my Batman comic torn up
by the lawnmower, I didn’t cry.
I wore a blanket for my cape.
Now I sit on the curb as on a dime.
I need the sandwich beat out of me.
When I was hungry I read
an almanac turned into a breast.
I’ve started over many times.
I hold the door for a stranger
and try to not look at his face.
My shoes mortgaged for a bus ride,
I have killed my brain
with the worm I made a hero.
I pretend the worm but can’t feign sleep.
Shall we redeem the violet in a sewer?
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Matthew Henriksen has recent poems in Third Coast, Handsome Journal, and The Cultural Society. He edits Typo, Cannibal, and Narwhal in Fayetteville, Arkansas.