Let’s Call It Paradise: A Poetry Concoction

My newest poetry collection, a mixture of composed, collage and visual poems called Let’s Call It Paradise, has been accepted for publication by San Francisco Bay Press. The book focuses on the current stage of our existence on a planet that is now in jeopardy and tries to bring light to the dire consequences of our way of living (the political, social and environmental consequences) through the lens of consumerism. Some of the poems have been described as post-apocalyptic. There are, however, some light hearted poems as well.

Over the coming days and weeks, I will be posting excerpts from the book.

Here is the opening poem:

Siren Song
 
Come, let us go now, to a place beyond dreams.
Let us arise and go now, through the fond,
murmuring streets, through the blind, stuttering
boulevards, where siren song stills the air,
where the minute’s wheels wend our way to that
elusive rapturous bliss. Let us rush
 
now, you and I, like the honeybee to
its hive, to the merry, manic marmalade
malls, to the towering halls of dithering
tongues, to the glittering temples that
mesmerize all: where those who seek know
not what they crave, yet surrender to pipe
 
and drum and sweet serenade. There in short shrift
shall we find our solace. There, castoffs to shores of
grief and joy, like ghosts, like waves dashed upon
rock, we’ll drift past glimmering galleons, covet
the treasures of shipwrecked men, grope for beads,
for baubles and gems, while all the while we sink and
 
swim, swim and sink, and the siren song
sweetly scuttles our unsolaced souls.
Come quickly now, submit at once to this hasty
urge: not greed nor grail shall accept one dram,
nor glass render reason, nor brass surrender
seasons we cannot escape. Let
 
gold and silver release their grasp, and jewels
their hapless, jaded clasp, yet snow shall not
discharge nor rain postpone the swift completion
of our most sacred rounds. Hurry now! Rise up!
Let desire trumpet the way!
Let us in full fanfare not delay!
 
Let serendipity draw us fast from these
transient, abandoned alleys to the splendid
golden valleys, where tree and grass defy
 
the sky, where silken flowers in concrete lie.
Let spouse nor child obstruct the way.
The time has come to submit and pay.

Copyright 2020 by Mike Maggio