Poetry by Ivan Jenson

Foiled Again

just pretend to listen
to the sound of
sound advice 
and nod affirmatively
when being scolded
by the scalding 
heat of another person’s
hot air
spoken with either 
the ether like pitch
of a helium inhaler
or the kettle drum
thump of a grump
then when they are done
spewing their Linda Blair
pea soup opinion 
excuse yourself 
wash that thought
right out of your hair
and keep on making
the best mistakes
this world 
has ever known

Achoo moment

for most
the epiphany 
comes too late
and for others
it is delivered 
undercooked
and far too raw 
to swallow
and then for
most it arrives
unexpected 
gaudily dressed
in peacock colors
with a mariachi 
band and a twenty 
foot banner which
spells out exactly
the blazing, brazen 
fact that this moment
above all others
should be celebrated
for the mere 
fact that it is sandwiched
by half-baked loafs
of past and future
and salt and peppered
by joy and pain
and many are so 
startled by this 
practical joke 
of a truth
that they 
fail to 
seize the day
and instead 
sneeze 
the revelation 
away 
in a magnificent 
bacterial spray 

World View

if it will make
you happy
I am willing to
review and redo
as well as revoke
everything that
I said in my
foolhardy fashion
which is known
for being headstrong
and dead wrong
as often as it is right
and if it makes you sad
then I am willing to
collapse my
inflatable ego
and lower my red
and replace it with
my white flag
of surrender
but if it all is
the same to you
anyway then
I will do nothing
but listen
patiently to
your pouty
pretty opinion
on global issues
that we both
know squat about 

Ivan in an East Village cafe.

Ivan Jenson’s Absolut Jenson painting was featured in Art News, Art in America, and Interview magazine. His art has sold at Christie’s, New York. His poems have appeared in Word Riot, Zygote in my Coffee, Camroc Press Review, Haggard and Halo, Poetry Super Highway, Mad Swirl, Underground Voices Magazine, Blazevox, and many other magazines, online and in print. Jenson is also a Contributing Editor for Commonline magazine. Ivan Jenson’s debut novel Dead Artist is available as a paperback and on Amazon Kindle and Nook. His new novel, a psychological thriller entitled Seeing Soriah is now available as an eBook or in Paperback on Amazon. A collection of Ivan Jenson’s poetry, “Media Child and Other Poems” will be published in 2014 by Hen House Press, New York.