This Is Not an Exit

PoetryNicholas Klacsanzky

A Note on the Book

In the United States, and in many other countries, being a poet is not considered a

profession. A writer who composes novels, short stories, or non-fiction is acceptable. How did

this notion become a widespread belief?

Poets are supposed to be eccentric, overly-emotional, airy, and maybe even mystic.

They have become a myth in a reality that supports them as a distant amusement. When we

encounter someone who says, “I am a poet,” we believe we have met a fable-come-to-life.

We have attached ourselves to thousands of years of propaganda about who poets

are. Bards, shamans, troubadours, and those seen as wise have created a mass following for

their poetry. The Bible, Quran, Torah, and most holy books were written in poetic prose.

Religious and spiritual people have clung to the words in the scriptures as if they were greater

than their own lives. Poetry has brought purpose to civilization after civilization, guiding

towards transcendence.

Besides being a conduit of the immaculate, poetry has been made to be a mysterious

entity. The muses pour their divine language on poets spontaneously, compelling them to

create masterpieces that will be remembered longer than the language it was written in exists.

By proposing its indeterminate nature, poetry has garnered the reputation of being beyond

practicality.

Poetry is not to be understood - not to be evaluated with certainty. Yet wars that are

thousands of years old still continue on the basis of the scriptures. Poetry is a real substance

that we have been consuming since the beginning of humankind. Poets had, at times, greater

power than whole kingdoms and countries. Even with this considered, writing poetry is

perceived to be a peculiar pursuit.

A poet is no different than any other writer and should not be separated from the term

“writer.” Writing poetry uses a heavy amount of mechanics and editing. Being emotional in

poetry is seen by most major poets to be the worst of all. What may look like a revelation can

be years of work on a few lines to create the desired presentation of words.

Read this chapbook as an interpretation of this introduction into the language of poetry.

It is only with the phrasing of poetry that one can truly describe what poetry is.

Dedicated

to the friend

who I never understand

and almost a rhyme

in the second line

and people who don't

like rhymes

and people that scoff

at too many ands

and those that didn't read

this dedication

and rushed to the poems

and finally those

who don't like endings

I'm sorry

I had to do it

Some poems in This is Not an Exit have appeared in the magazine Forty Ounce

Bachelors and the journal Clamor.

Construction

Thank You for Reading 8

Last Line 9

Question 10

Family Business 11

Skin of What Follows 12

The Greats 13

At the Bottom 14

Not Answers 15

Zero Distance 16

Essentials 17

Audience 18

Inner Sense 19

They Say Poet 20

The Moment 21

For the New Reader 22

Writing Poetry 23

Best Poem 24

When I Know 25

[ ] 26

Other Side 27

Modern Poetry 28

Rain 29

Conversation 30

Breathe Once 31

The Window 32

After Your Funeral 33

Thank You for Reading (to the End) 34

This is Not an Exit

Thank You for Reading

I.

Never named a poemthat could write its identity

II.

A new poem is scaffoldingover the wrote and coming

not writing this one

III.

Poems are not and are – unfixed

transparency

IV.

If you're still readingthis poem proud of youfor reading more

than wordstold you to

8

Last Line Poetry is not a poemunshaped hole to becomehands on an imaginary throne

can't all speak like kingsspit out jewels in office conversationinvoke gold statues with persuasion of melodies

split metaphors with gravel teethbuild an archetype-prison to break freeinto one line that could show infinity as brief

logic proves against itself

9

Question No idea is poeticenough to write

are youstill reading

10

Family Business A poem about a mothercan either speak to your originlike word spies were there to watch your birthor smell worse than diapers you soiled

a poem about a fathercan either explain your preoccupation with kite flyingor make you believe that the tasteless gruel you ateas a child through play-airplane tricks was a good memory

but a poem about yourselfis worse than the policenever does its justice

you don't deserve a namelet alone a poem about you

11

Skin of What Follows

I wake to be youfolding your faceinto a paper airplane

lands in a mailboxthat sends letters beneathpavement to detect what real soil

looks like after years of writing about itsofter than an idea for a poem titleignition that nullifies what it was made

your face was never seento be seen

12

The Greats Never determined the indeterminate factorsof simplicity

like military constituents the memoryof a society that brands poetryas efficiency and beauty

believes in itself too muchwhat rules can you makefor the freedom of a line

whitman poe bukowskirelied on the mistake

of having ideaspoetry is what it is not

13

At the BottomWriting is horse feedwhat you need without a handwords are not writtenspoken with a more patient voice

allow thought-anticsto disturb words with pleadingand you will materialize beggars’ eyesgroping for incarcerating imaginationardent that railroad tar be a beetle

or rarely seen flowerto blossom balloonsmany ideas at the bottomare never sung

14

Not Answers Don't want you to say yes or noto the worship of maybe

your hands when words are donewriting into their solitude

15

Zero Distance

For Jimmy

Living statuean indecisive namelike a pair of scissor bladescutting themselves –or a pencil tip writing on its stemcomposing a novel over layers of marksarriving at the end with shuffled footnotes

finished stories distill in trenches shallow enoughto reserve an insectile cottage –brainstorming on a microscopic typewriterto produce a code as empty as a seedbeneath mud growing from air to air

leave and arrive at the same doorstep –been nowhere sweepingwhere there is standing untila cloud of skin and a shadow is uprightfacing the sun with lines on its hand speakingof who it was without

16

Essentials Who required writersto have drugs alcohol affairshave been crazy enoughthinking that I can write

Throw out berets goatees black clothes

pen and paper even that's overrated speak its body dead as teethexaggerate you get praisedeadpan the audience believes you grew upin a basement writing poems until your albino skinyou dissolved into longed for the sunseparate from the metaphor you keepwriting even with a level voice

people only thinkof the words

17

Audience

Outside the cafe drug addictsand chalkboard faces faking that they are

lather my mouth with spice chai –brains are being hospitalizedswigging scents from Assam –ruddy-face downing cartridgesof subconscious belittlement

same mixturebut inner furniture arranges differentlyI want to write a poem –they want to become a poem

hope they won't bewhat no one will read

18

Inner Sense

Cafes have novels in their wallsmore than a place encyclopedia stavedin bed cushions speaking from the plushthe one-line miracles you exhaledfalling down your backyard hillor almost crashing your deadened car

it's split where you dive for inner sensethat doesn't pale in the absence of make upon a story you wanted to tell by loud sign languagemore red than traffic lights a sustained latchwhen the night illumination heard you wrongreciting your name as somebody else

19

They Say Poet

Editbut the poemdesires

I writewith its ambition

people readwhat is meantas musicand ask questions

they say poetthough I am mindlessand watching unstable wordsclose eyes deeper than blindness

20

The Moment

Those who say they describe poetryare like those who say they know the answer

no answerscertainty is an intellectual digitconstructed for illegitimate congruency

words are wordlesspoetry is the momentyou recognize its illusion

21

For the New Reader

Short linesdon't want to trouble youdon't have to call this poetryif you don't want tocould be talk or stuffingyour earwax with ethosabout what you think I'm doing

just knowwriting writing writingfor my tired eyes

22

Writing Poetry

No one hears a voicethrough a broken lantern

silos of blank poemsare empty to pursue division –how a word tastes when injected through reading sight – elongated tunnelsof light their tips securing a paintingout of canvas on childhood wallpaper

art is never art coincidence has as much clarity

23

Best Poem

Unwritten

why we hear itwhen not listening

speak itoutside hierarchyof retrieval

and writefinally

24

When I Know

I rise with the city because I am one of its lights

a miniature brick buildingindistinct without dawn's snoozed headscales its obscuring with steady-to-break fingerslike a passerby with balanced attentionin the flurry of watch strokesclicking inside the minds of those who thinkthey were responsible for their waking

my eyes are misplaced anchorsopen when I know the poem is writtenout of its moment

25

[ ]

Words ringwith self-worship

wordsthat stayed awayfrom themselves

writerwho wroteto surpass precision

allowing what is between skinto breathe wider than air

26

Other Side

Frost is plastic when you lookclose or far just rightcloud without wallpaper sky

end is your first eyes andyou read faster until words cannotfill their spaces

27

Modern Poetry

Last time you creakedinto an attic-perfumed libraryto read modern poetry like a picture book

I took a year to stop readingin a good way

poet means beinga nameless relativecoerced into an alluring exile believing we're rightwhen a reader doesn't understand

you don't want a readerto be as confusedas you

28

Rain

Stain on paperinstead of a poemblotch on your tonguelike barbed fish strung in plastic

worn spear isn't succulentin your sandwichumbrellas don’t spider-spreadpleasantly in rainless air

written lines age into fidgety eulogiesand you dive for the couchany fluff that can wipe that signof oddity from your memoryhanging by the chap of your lips

too often a poem givesyou surgery and not all doctorsare lollipops sometimes pillsstuffed like chain-smoke mouthsother precipitation relies on syringesto administer a gratifying contrary

artifacts of jail-time sublimityor mansion reverse masonrythis is isn't the last linethat was written

29

Conversation

Subject is contraband insignia

don't know if I wrote a poemyou have to believe mehave to believe myself

maybe if I stop readingmy poems they willspeak to me

about

30

Breathe Once

Words are too imperceptible to be writtentattooing demarcated white space with more fishesthat stagger on marsh grass to breathe once

clocks forget their trafficwhen a family stones their namemy time has been written

31

The Window

I will write a poem when I am deadread like no hand had written it –natural calligraphyof a pine branch scratchinga stationary cargo train window

notify my plastic bodyleft where it unlit its skinthat words have graves

somehow I listen

32

After Your Funeral

Thousand electronic legs for confines

you'll have more focusin death when you don't have to thinkof being written

33

Thank You for Reading (to the End)

May have written linesthat mapped without an ocean

don't have an idea what poetry isthat is why I can't stop writing it

whoever reads the last linehas my gratitude

please give it back

forgettinghow to hold wordsin their shape

34

About the Author

Glibber that almost comprises Nicholas Klacsanzky:

1) Listened to Indian classical music as he wrote this page

2) Keats was his first inspiration to write verse poetry

3) Addicted to water and not wearing jeans too often

4) Tried to sell his abstract art as a teenager, but couldn't make a sale

5) Drives a 1995 Ford Taurus station wagon and has named it “David”

6) Was a chess master, but now gets headaches when he plays

7) Believes that Radix by A.A. Attanasio is a legendary science-fiction book

8) Took fencing lessons from his father when he was a kid

9) The first rock band he was in was The Flaming Hefty Bags

10) Did a 735-mile cycling trip across Vancouver Island when he was 13 years old

11) Loves walking, but thinks running without a sport involved is eventual torture

12) Grew up on rap and hip hop music – favorites are Common, Deltron 3030, and Nas

13) Crazy about theoretical mathematics like set theory and number theory

14) Has a Kindle and three different library system cards

15) Gets tired while writing lists

16) Sure that the reader is tired of reading this list

Believes that the electronic artist Mokhov should get much more recognition