Poetry: Selections from Sean Meggeson

Recovery: A Philosophy Whopper Essay-Poem by Way of Ego Splitting, Jizz Interpretation, Lacan and Pistols

 

for C.S.

 

Let me get sorted.

 

Addict Perfume:   A dab to sweeten the morn.

 

    Check.

 

Massage Addict:  My bones beat into life for an hour.

 

    Check.  

 

Addict Clothing:   The rags on my back, some shame under my ‘at.

 

    Yup.

 

1-2, 1-2. 

 

Now I’m chafing. 

 

i.

 

Remember: 

As a youth, Plato addicted 

his arse to poetry,

lyrical and lacking in logic. 

Back then, totally had the shakes. 

 

My therapist—

charming gent in the UK—

calls it “misuse.”  

 

And, sure, Paul, I’ll admit: 

been misusing  

for centuries. 

 

ii.

 

Rigor honest:

One of my misuses started at a lecture by Derrida 

at Johns Hopkins,

October 21, 1966. 

(Day/year birthday mine.

Show the smiles.)

 

The center is not the center—

Frenchie spit-laughed those words then.

G’on. Try repeating them, angel-faced or shit-faced. 

 

Revocation/negations whereto my future was given

unto chic garbage words. Inferred conclusions.

 

(Mind, this was an era of chronic tugging for me.

Following Lacan, I used it as an anodyne for anxiety—but, Kristeva 

interprets spanked jizz as a sub for unwept tears. 

 

Arrested mourning so clocks.)

 

iii.

 

Later, I was half-recovered to encounter

Paul Ricoeur. He published something

on the day and year of my tennis  

camp expulsion, June 9, 1979:

  

The purpose of all interpretation is to conquer a remoteness. 

 

But by thirteen, I was faithless and super-lazy.

 

“Conquer”—dat Fench? 

 

Testify: My misuse-to-recovery continues. 

 

On tape: After 5 years of applied pounding, my shoulder unfroze thanks

to a Taiwanese Tuina Master, who bellowed at my tears:

 

I must use pain to kill pain! 

 

Backhand never better.

 

G’on, g’on: Let spray a punk-laugh outta yr schnoz  

to admit what matters. 

Oi! Heidegger! 

Your question:

 

Does time itself manifest itself as the horizon of beingbullocks?

 

    Check. 1-2. 

 

Poets still pogoing?

 

iv.  

 

John Berryman, 

Anne Sexton,

Sylvia Plath.   

(Rippity, RIP, RIP).

 

Totally partying  

their fucking faces off now. 

I love/hate ‘em now.

 

Aft all—truff, defo—

it was Jon Rotten bashed me 

into world, dragged my arse 

thru an un‘oly shit ditch so to air

 

a funk that today ‘overs

as a catholic bête noire  

‘bove steeples, kept 

from genteel souls

whose birthdays are e’er saintly.

 

    Check, check. 

 

Time for a tune, Johnny:

 

I’ve forgot the words, could you help me with it? 

 

God save the Queen!

We mean it, man!  

   

v. fin

 

What do they say?

The body, language?

Reminds me: Lacan threw a flower pot

out his window at a failed analysand.

I’d like to think it was Anaïs Nin or Nico,

and it had nothing to do with failure. 

They just walked away, 

toward the Seine, over Pont du Carrousel.

 

Reminds me:

Someone threw a Cadillac at me once.

It didn’t hurt.

That’s a joke.

Like a dream,

only better.

Without the pain.  

Dolphins

You flirted with the resort staff all night.

They adored you and touched you like

 

an opera singer chooses chocolates.

You held your head high with slitted eyes.

 

We sat in silence at dinner—octopus and fries.  

You left for awhile and came back flushed.

 

We walked back to the room in silence.

You left for a walk and came back in tears.

 

I asked you what happened.

You said, “Attacked by dolphins.” 

 

We stared at the TV for a few hours.

Flipping channels, there was Diff’rent

 

Strokes, The Golden Girls, and Dylan 

playing with an orchestra in Australia.

 

The plumbing farted a few times.

Night birds cackled like grade school kids. 

 

I fell asleep and four dolphins came   

to me as I skipped on the bottom  

 

of the sea, the Cuban heels of my

boots picking up sand, stirring 

 

squid, starfish and tube worms.

The dolphins laughed and sang, 

 

buried their beaks in my crotch.

Dorothy, Rose, Blanche, and Sophia.

Cosmic Crasher

My dog dreams, shaking and yelping,

She’s afraid and no one’s helping.

 

She makes her good-byes,

running under dark skies. 

 

She misses rolling lands.

She wants petting hands.

 

Oh, her tail, snout and ears.

Where are the human’s tears?

 

Was there ever a dream dreamt 

that didn’t hint our last descent?

 

From the human’s banana peel slip,

to Gregor Samsa’s big bug trip.

 

We are trapped, bound, and broken—

the unconscious, bitch, has spoken.

 

That a-girl!

 

Chase your ball off the stratosphere,

and crash the cosmos from here.

 

Sean Meggeson lives in Toronto, Canada. He works as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. He has written and lectured on such topics as Lacan & James Joyce, neurodiversity, and alternative rock music. Sean recently has had poems published in In Parentheses, Psychoanalytic Perspectives, Stink Eye Magazine, and Verse-Virtual. He will have a poem in the March, 2024 edition of SCAB magazine.