Nick Courtright
There are three human questions, correlated perfectly
with past, present, and future:
where did we come from, what is
the meaning of life, and what happens after we die. As if grappling
for a light switch, we attempt to answer these questions.
A light year is a distance, and so is a year, and there is love
even when we’re not great at it.
The jungle owns its trees and its water. And the idea of a jungle
we cannot separate
from drama and heat, when all the themes we could ever want, we have:
innocence, hate, eternity, and sound, let’s hear it. Without gratitude
there is no house, the economy is a lion,
and gravity shrugs its shoulders. Let’s hear it.
Like a true finality
earnestly discarded, forever’s voice is disarming
but incomprehensible. Who knows
what it’s up to, but it doesn’t seem ideal, and is adored by desire.
***
Dear Successful Accidents
The meaning of life is in the passing years
only believable during sleep, and in the silent standstill of fathers,
heaps of standing silent fathers in the corners
of every room, fathers who have their doubts and act accordingly—
in our foul moods it’s not uncommon to want
the music to stop, and have that represent salvation.
And salvation is another word for dune, for joy,
another word for insomnia, endless eternity, for making a fist…
Sometimes, in the night, the unexpected arrives.
Like lost rabbits beneath the stars, or a small lizard in the forest.
Before becoming their fate, fathers feel their skin
is made of scales, and that they have tails
that break off in times of distress. Every threat
they will end and watch end, and their will will be music, willfully.
***
About the Poet:
Nick Courtright’s poetry is forthcoming or has appeared in The Southern Review, Boston Review, The Iowa Review, and The Kenyon Review Online, among numerous others, and a chapbook, Elegy for the Builder’s Wife, is out with Blue Hour Press. Most recently, he was the subject of a feature article on the Best American Poetry website. He is a music critic and interviewer for the Austinist, and teaches at Southwestern and St. Edward’s Universities.
On the identity of The Nepotist:
As for what I think of the editor...I hope he or she stays anonymous, FOREVER, or maybe just until next year, because that's the fun, yes? Mysteries like this are good for the poetry world, and I think they offer proof of the vitality of the community, amidst all the debbie-downerism that too-often creeps in. That, and who doesn't love a secret admirer?
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