Ivan Jenson - Three Poems

My Unfair Lady

First you strand me
in Park Avenue
paradise
then you send
out a search party
to find me
quench my thirst
with cocktails
and usher me back
to your civilized
gathering
where I am treated
like a savant savage
to be watched
carefully so that
I don’t escape
or commit a
faux pas
over
Foie Gras
which would
be simply
unacceptable
as gorging on
mixed nuts
in mixed company
and so
I stay silent like
the Tramp
as my mood drops
so low
around the
plucked and tweezed
high brows
of society



Me Time

I am getting to the
bottom
of how to
get to the top
and I am on the cusp
of a major breakthrough
on how to shatter
the record held
by yours truly
the number one
fan of the man
known as
me
and you too
could be a
gold member
of that exclusive club
of you
a place where
you can feel
accepted
and lounge
around
in a house
of mirrors
filled with
Post-it
affirmations
which say
hurry up
already
and love yourself
so that you can
love someone else



Direction Home

One day
an apple a day
will not keep the
doctor away
and you will
be hit with
one final
bill of health
and your heart
will murmur
“I am broken”
and your bones
will creak, “I am brittle”
and your eyes
will focus on
a blurry prescription
designed to
prolong
the inevitable
and you will just
skip that dose
but before
life becomes
a pain in the butt
try to find meaning
in the map-quest
you are on



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, Alternative Reel Poets Corner, Underground Voices Magazine, Blazevox, and many other magazines, online and in print. Dead Artist, a novel by Ivan Jenson is available at Amazon.com in paperback and as an eBook for the Amazon Kindle, the Barnes & Noble Nook, and on Google's eBookStore.