Ron Riekki

Ron Riekki

I’M LYING IN BED NOW

after having taken an aspirin

and googling about my heart,

how it could be acid reflux or

a heart attack (big difference)

or a panic attack and it’s ice

in there, left side of my chest,

how ‘sinister’ etymologically

comes from “on the left side,”

the liberal side, my body un-

able to take all the politics of

this world, or not this world,

this country, how everything

here is split in half, and every

conversation binary, and it’s

as if everything is black and

white, or, no, it’s as if every-

thing’s vantablack vs barium

sulfate, the blackest black vs

the whitest white, no shades,

no greys, just these shadows

of manipulation, one of my

neuroscience profs who said

they did an experiment back

when they could still do all

the craziest shit on humans,

and the person was able to

give a jolt to certain parts

of their brain that triggers

different responses. And

they thought the subjects

would over and over keep

stimulating the area that

would give pleasure, but,

no, they discovered that

they loved it when they

would stimulate an area

that causes aggression,

the type of anger which

comes from a feeling of

self-righteousness, this

need, like a drug, to be

morally superior, this

craving that maybe we

all have. I say this to my

French girlfriend and she

says, no, it’s American

to feel and act that way,

that it’s part of our two-

party culture, that they

have more than forty

political parties, and

so they have complex

discussions, not us-vs-

them discussions, but

real debate, actual real

differences of opinion,

and she keeps on using

that word: ‘real,’ how

she is sick of ‘reality

TV,’ sick of the way

that the news here,

she says, repeats one

story a thousand times

so that they drill one

perspective into your

mind. And I’m quiet.

And she leaves. And

I’m alone. And my

heart is like kindling,

and in two days she’ll

leave me forever. And

I don’t know this. And

I don’t know anything.

—from Poets Respond
January 31, 2023

__________

Ron Riekki: “I hate the news. I refuse to watch it, at least American news. I’ll watch the BBC, France 24 en direct, DW, CNA. CBC, yes, all of those and more, but American news, to me, honestly, feels like a person choosing which of the two types of brainwashing they want to voluntarily be exposed to. My father had one of the American news stations on and they had repeated their headline all day and then repeated the news story all day, with an incredible repetition. It wasn’t Fox News, but I do remember someone telling me that someone high up at Fox realized that all you have to do is repeat a story enough times and people will believe anything. It feels like all of the American news channels are utilizing those same elements of Fox News now, so none of it feels like actual news. When the main story is another solution-less focus on a high-profile mass shooting followed by a light ‘news’ story on a singer signed to the same company that owns that news show, it feels like, well, I’m over-explaining the poem. It was written after my father had an American news channel on and it felt like every second was spectacular manipulation. A friend of mine told me he used to work in ‘news,’ that they sent him to the house of a person where something horrific had just happened to them. I won’t say what, but they wanted an interview, even if they could just get the person slamming the door in my friend’s face. They could air that. My friend said he got sick to his stomach and couldn’t do it, went back and quit journalism forever, on the spot, even though he’d spent four years getting a degree in it. I wonder if we can’t expect more of the news than what we’re getting and if the whole American conversation could actually become complex, with different points of view allowed to be expressed, without pretending at all times like there are only two views.” (web)

Read by Betsy Baker

Ron Riekki

I HAD A LIBRARIAN TELL ME THAT POETRY CHAPBOOKS ARE ONLY GOOD FOR FIREWOOD

When I taught in prison, I told the prisoners

that if they murder someone on the page,

they can win an award, but if you murder

someone in real life, you’ll end up back

here in prison. One of the guys raised

his hand and said, What if you kill the person

who gives you the award? The class liked that.

—from Rattle #56, Summer 2017

__________

Ron Riekki: “Working in the military and in prisons has been, not always, but at times, to be honest, one of the most brutally negative experiences imaginable. In the horrors of those memories, I try to realize that comedy is one of the main things that can get you through hell, whether it’s a twelve-hour shift or a four-year presidency. Think of the onomatopoeia of ‘trump!’ being similar to ‘splat!’—the country tripping and landing on its nose. Even the Donald has a face and hair that is so clownish that when he posts his potentially war-inducing tweets, it’s pure post-millennial Dr. Strangelove. If I remember correctly, Robert McKee calls the mix of horror and comedy ‘delicious.’ It was wonderful to receive an email from the Rattle editors saying the poem ‘Just plain cracked us up.’ I’ll close with this eloquent tweet posted by Donald J. Trump on May 3, 2013, at 9:35 a.m.: ‘Amazing how the haters & losers keep tweeting the name F**kface Von Clownstick like they are so original & like no one else is doing it …’ I was cracking up myself just now retyping that. Ahhh, comedy. Hail to the thief.” (twitter)

Note: Audio read by M.C. Serch

Rattle: Poetry

… without pretension since 1995.

January 31, 2023

October 16, 2017