This Is Fifty-three

By Kevin J. O'Conner

THIS IS FIFTY-THREE is Kevin J. O’Conner’s seventh collection of poems—and his most ambitious to date. This is not your typical poetry collection; it is an exploration of living with uncertainty at a time when we’d expect most of life’s big questions to have been already answered.

It is also an exploration of form and craft.

"In my poems, I have continued to try out different forms and styles in order to stretch myself as a writer. As for the visuals, my previous books used images to mark the boundaries between sections; here, they are an integral part of the whole, whether complementing the text or providing a counterpoint—or stirring things up. The result, for better or worse, is an honest portrayal of me at age fifty-three."
—Kevin J. O'Conner, August 2016

THIS IS FIFTY-THREE is divided into sections, plus a prelude and postlude:

Formalities
Poems written using established forms—in this case tritina, pantoum, terzanelle, viator, rhyming couplets, lune, landay, haiku, and rimas dissolutas.

Oddities
Experimental poems, poems based on dreams, poems based on prompts, poems given unusual graphic or typographic treatment, and unusual or unexpected graphics.

Secrets (and Other Secrets)
Private moments, secrets, unspoken thoughts.

Delicates
Small moments and fragility.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kevin J. O'Conner
• Release date: Sep 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370923991

Kevin J. O'Conner

Kevin J. O’Conner (56) is not your typical poet. After 30 years of writing only sporadically, Kevin J. O’Conner returned to poetry in 2013—first as a creative exercise, then for the therapeutic benefits. Since 2015, he writes every day, exploring the craft of poetry through monthly writing challenges—‘my ongoing effort to write something that doesn’t sound like something I would write’, he says. Kevin’s poems explore isolation, memory, life’s small moments, and the experience of starting over at ‘a certain age’—always with an emphasis on straightforward expression. As of Spring 2019, Kevin has published eleven collections of poems, the latest of which is WISHES SOMETIMES HAVE CONSEQUENCES, plus four volumes of ‘love notes’ to the days of the week. His poems have also appeared in Raven Chronicles, Spindrift, The CDC Poetry Project, Lament for the Dead, and the anthology VOICES THAT MATTER, and as part of the Clay? VI (2016) exhibit at Kirkland Arts Center. When not writing poetry, Kevin can be found copy-editing documents from far-flung places, attending open-mic readings, designing books, and contemplating what to cook now that he is tired of soup. He lives in Bellingham with his mom's neurotic cat, Cleo III. (updated 28 October 2019)

Book preview

CONTENTS

Prelude

Formalities

Oddities

Secrets

Delicates

Postlude

About the Author

Where to Find Kevin Online

Acknowledgements and Special Credits

Other Published Works by Kevin J. O’Conner

THIS IS FIFTY-THREE

This is fifty-three

It’s been that long since the moment

when I first became me

Some of the hair is grey

the eyesight has started to go—

(actually, so has the hair…)

Everything’s a bit thicker

above the belt

and the knees aren’t what they used to be

(well, I assume they’re not

seeing as how I don’t run or play basketball—

or do anything of the sort, really)

I avoid salt, corn syrup, and stevia

and just gave up alcohol

in favor of coffee—

not lattes, mochas, or macchiatos

but regular coffee

(it’s from a K-cup® machine

but I use one of those reusable cups

because the standard K-cup®

is not recyclable and will end up in landfills

plus the coffee is otherwise

too damn expensive

and I’m a cheap bastard)

I have decent car insurance

and crappy health insurance

with vision

(even then, it will pay for

an eye exam every two years—

but doesn’t cover the cost of glasses)

but no dental

I have fillings and a crown

but my teeth are otherwise in good shape

if still a bit crooked

despite having had braces when I was a kid

(which is why I will never have

more than twenty-four adult teeth)

I do freelance work

and make almost no money

but I still owed $728 on my tax return this year

I live in a one-bedroom apartment

with two cats

and several area rugs (see cats)

I have a lounge sofa

(it’s orange!)

that I use as a bed

(I have one of those, too)

I have a 40-inch TV that’s ten years old

it’s bulkier than most of the new models

but it works just fine

I don’t watch regular TV anymore

except maybe for election-related news

It’s Hulu® and Netflix® all the way

(and the occasional movie or Twin Peaks on blu-ray)

I listen mostly to thirty-year-old music

hear nothing above 12 kHz

and play cassettes in my thirteen-year-old car

because the CD player is broken—

and the replacement player broke

a few months after I got it

I married my high-school girlfriend

when I was forty

after not having seen her for twenty years

We got divorced after nine

(That’s as much as I want

to say about it right now)

When the divorce was final

I bought an iPhone to celebrate

(which I still have*)

but I got rid of the friend

who was making me crazy

(and most of my CDs—no connection between the two)

I began writing poems again

when I needed a project

now it’s sort of what I do

There’s no money in it

It’s just something

I have to do

I’m largely invisible

when it comes to women

who aren’t already married

but I can understand

that broke, balding, middle-aged poets

aren’t exactly sex symbols

I think too much

and don’t go out enough

(though that means

I save a lot of money on gas

because I don’t drive very much

and I live near an ARCO® station

in an area where gasoline

is relatively inexpensive—

except for the Chevron® station on the corner)

I go to bed around midnight

and haven’t had an uninterrupted

night’s sleep in several years

because I have cats

(see area rugs)

and tend to fall asleep

with the TV on—

which does weird things

to my dreams sometimes

I get up around five a.m.

feed the cats and make coffee—

which makes me sleepy—

then I go about the day

doing what I do

until it’s time to go to sleep

so I can get up

and do it all again

the next day

This is my life

This is me

This is fifty-three

I’m that far from the moment

when I first became me

This is fifty-three

* – Well, I still had it when I wrote the poem. I don’t now.

(top)

THE COUNT

[tritina]

When I’m trying to understand my thoughts

I write a poem

to uncover new layers of truth

Funny thing, truth:

hidden in thoughts

revealed in poems

How many poems

does it take to find the truth

distilled from thoughts?

This is but one poem, a couple of thoughts, a single truth

TRUE LOVE’S KISS

[tritina]

Your kiss could make me believe

It’s just a feeling I have

a feeling I’d like to give in to

so much so that I have to

kiss you until I believe

that love is something I can have

In the meantime, the doubt I