Two poems
Jan Wiezorek
Accelerando
His mouth owning
the organ like a harmonica
to his lips—sucking, blowing
the machine into being—
the thrill of mouthpiece taking
me down, up, around the corner
of stairs I know well, as a boy
on the top step, settling on creaking
boards to the bedroom, father
in this tight space, intimate
as peace on a riser, with nightlights
haloing hands, hiding stains, calluses,
sound scaling into poems—the requests
sound makes, as if it needs more than
steps and jumps to be heard over words
—it gets me inside, as I listen first to slow
rise, pace-like, keeping up, then:
high-stepping, halfway skipping—
accelerando, running up, not to stop,
to the top, before we calm, and fade on
down—to rest in poem-like sound.
Janus
I have waited thirty-one days
for all my good to snap in place
like five-hundred puzzle pieces
of the Great Lakes, but I’m wet
as a storm-cast—fog spreads one
of its legs over me, even the fox
is fouling his den—and in this spirit
of reflection, my neighbor, who
shares his birthday with me, says,
If you think my way, drop by, his
one eye weeping, closing in on
Janus, who splits Michigan into
two peninsulas. On the other side
of the street, two-faced men walk
dogs, but the Saint Bernard licks
all the shine from clouds over
our valley, shaking me like tracks
vibrating in lake effect; two deer
spy me, though one is only curious,
as a stranger crossing a bridge
of ducks wearing actual words,
speaking English with a Finnish
dialect that barricades all my love
for you—I expect Janus’s other
half, inside me, will come forth
to snap cold, snap peas, snap
twigs like snap judgment—
to face me with all my good.
Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, The Broadkill Review, Loch Raven Review, Sontag Mag, The Remington Review, Red Ogre Review, Minetta Review, Backchannels Journal, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). Wiezorek received a Master of Arts Degree in English: Composition/Writing from Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago. He is recipient of the Poetry Society of Michigan’s Spring 2024 Traveling Trophy Award. He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.