Poetry
chordz
i love u like high school
i miss u like dogs
barking into class
with a bad bad look in ur eyes
and a green v in ur hand
original
Lessons
Steve told me to tighten my belt,
talking, as he was, about money,
not my new corduroy pants. Money’s
new politic tightens its grip on me,
week by week transposing me
to a different key. Louis told me
otherwise. Long scores of freckles,
the first pants of love — he tightened
like a symphony on me. Steve told me
I won’t have enough money to eat. Louis told me
I have never been so hungry.
Lesson (Steve told me)
Poetry forms failed me. I’m still looking
for that immediacy of expression, of breath:
the sentence. Talking to Jack about villanelles
was Hell for me. Talking to Jack was
the missing fourth line, the absent rhyme
when it sounds in the last stanza. To me
it was more beautiful in concept. In concept
there were no bars. Poetry forms
ruined me, my life, my sentence. I’m still looking
for that immediacy of expression, the way
the mouth forms a sentence.
Lesson (Poetry forms)
Lesson (What killed me)
What killed me was not an accident.
What killed me was every wine-
drunk evening; every embarrassment
on constant reminder. On our first date,
Bruckner told me what killed him:
when he nearly lost the manuscript
for his last symphony. I kiss that man
but cannot live with him. Don’t ask me
if it was worth it — my life, my poetry —
if I should too have lost it. Don’t ask me this,
you know I’ll tell you to do it.
Jackson McCarthy (he/him) is a poet and musician from Auckland currently studying in Wellington. He is of mixed Māori and Lebanese descent. He was a finalist for the Schools Poetry Award 2021, and was recently one of the Starling Micro-Residents at the New Zealand Young Writers Festival 2023. You can read more of his work at linktr.ee/jacksonmccarthy.
