Man's Fortunate Feast, by Lisa Jarnot

Man's Fortunate Feast

for Mendy

The fatigue of feast,
the umbrellas and the
suits and ties, the
thunder of it,
floating into panther
fatness full
the checkmarks
that accompany the page
the gluttony of the flower prints,
the tight skin of the sterilepear
gone spawned, consumed in leaf

no more lamb chops for you,
no more scrambles eggs and greens,
no more aardvark statues,
no more American flags,
no more caterpillars to
torch out of the trees,
cut wood, dead wood,
white pine branches,
drooping cypri,
dog asleep under the brush
also gone,
sun gone in the gray
swimming hole a stage prop,
water from the creek
feeding agile garlic greens in May.

whose wallet, whose welfare,
whose heart, whose feathers,
whose darkness is the
darkness of a missing bird,
a tunnel of mind, an income of
herbaceous bruise, who is
an who is not, voracious
braeken gone.



from Night Scenes
published by Flood editions



Lisa Jarnot's latest book is full of joy. It makes me happy as I read through it. Through wordplay that reveals itself as wisdom, through tweaked sonnets & through surprisingly direct observational poems, this book conjures a world that genuinely gives me hope.

It is this kind of conjuration that makes me fit it with two of my other favorite books of the last year, Anne Boyer's The Romance of Happy Workers & Dorothea Lasky's AWE. All three use different means, topics & ideologies, but they all attempt to present a better version of everyday experience through the work of the book. I'm into it.