Poetry: Selections from Sean Meggeson

so, where are we?

what are we listening to?

is there a word

for the sound 

of frogs

coming alive

in the spring?

is there a way 

to explain

they sound 

more like

chickens?

these questions

make me 

feel connected 

to a oneness. 

ok, 

the cosmos.

like we’ll never die,

or when we do,

there’ll be no fear,

just a croaking

death song

more like

the bark of

hungry muntjacs. 

What If Boredom

What if boredom were—

get this—the voice 

of self-love?

 

I retched, too.

I, like you, 

have something 

to retch.

 

Wild foxes 

jump, blue

herons alight 

silently alright.

But the soap in the

soap dish remains.

Who’s gonna complain?

 

John

Berryman (r.i.p.)

wrote:

 

“Life, friends, 

is boring. 

We must not 

say so.”

 

Fuck,

say so! 

You, me, him. 

All the Johns.

 

Let me give you

a bottomless cup

as if to help. 

Shane Ferguson

 

Sorry, do I know you?

Your name rings a bell—

assuming it’s your name.

Seriously—

sometimes 

your name—

it’s not real.

You’re born without it—

catch it later in the eye. 

 

Sorry, do I know you?

your name sounds—

something in the syllables—

says you were once adored—

like a tractor loves a field—

like a father chiefs his smokes—

waiting for a kid to do something.

 

Sorry, yes—

your name’s in the air.

Says it all—

Oh—

a gentle limp? 

Cadent, s.o.b.

Where you going?

dog

bounces along 

with a missing paw 

asking a dreamer

 

to remember 

a present 

absence

 

lost paw is

fawther

 

the dog’s bark

is a love

sound

 

doggie!

wake up!

 

yes, love

 

(for which dreams

and poems 

try to account

for its loss)

Sean Meggeson lives in Toronto, Canada, where he works as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. He has written and lectured on such topics as Lacan & James Joyce, neurodiversity, and alternative rock. Sean recently has had poems in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Scud, Scab, Stink Eye, and others. He had two poems in the Spring, 2024 issue of Blaze Vox.