Perpetual Arrivals

By John Michael Flynn

These poems were written throughout the nineties before global economics, cellphones, The Internet, and fears of terrorism became commonplace. It was a time of exciting change, the former USSR having collapsed and much of Eastern Europe suffering painful yet hopeful upheavals. In the U.S., jobs were plentiful and soldiers weren’t being shipped off to foreign wars in large numbers.

As a young man, I suffered the delusion of thinking it would always be this way. I kept furious journals, wanting to blend my experiences of West meeting East, and to capture the up-tempo, ground-breaking, sometimes hedonistic spirit of those times.

I’ve weaved the U.S. poems like strands of DNA through the poems about the former USSR, and Romania. The book is structured in quadrants based on the four seasons, and the primary directions of any compass. I’ve prefaced each quadrant with a quotation from an author I was absorbed in at that time.

As far as arrivals are concerned, I’m inclined to say I’ve never gotten there, but I’ve experienced small plateaus and perceptions that have helped me define better an ultimate destination other than death – if there is one.

Looking back, the nineties seem an insouciantly naïve and selfish decade that marked the end of a long and familiar romantic attachment, and the start of something frighteningly new.

Like many arrivals, I suppose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Michael Flynn
• Release date: Jun 28, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310357343

John Michael Flynn

John Michael Flynn was the 2017 Writer in Residence at Carl Sandburg’s home, Connemara, in North Carolina. In 2015 he completed a one-year English Language Fellowship through the US State Department in Khabarovsk, Russia. Poetry collections include Restless Vanishings, and Keepers Meet Questing Eyes from Leaf Garden Press. (www.leafgarden.blogspot.com), and Blackbird Once Wild Now Tame translated from the Romanian of Nicolae Dabija. He’s published three collections of short stories, his most recent Vintage Vinyl Playlist from Fomite Books (www.fomitepress.com). Fomite has also published his second collection, Off To The Next Wherever. His collection of essays, How The Quiet Breathes, was published in 2021 by New Meridian Arts.( https://www.newmeridianarts.com). He’s earned awards from the New England Poetry Club, and the U.S. Peace Corps. Visit him at https://jmfbr1.blogspot.com/His books can be found from these publisher websiteshttp://leafgardenpress.blogspot.com/https://publerati.com/https://www.fomitepress.com/https://www.newmeridianarts.com/https://jmfbr1.blogspot.com/https://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Michael-Flynn/e/B0C6V89VVVHere is a sample of some comments from readers:“John Michael Flynn’s language dazzles to a very real end: the exploration and delineation of the free-floating breakdown known as ‘America.’ The range of tones and locales he uses is impressive but more impressive is the feeling invested in what almost inevitably slips through time’s fingers. Anyone wondering where the Whitmanesque impulse has gone need look no further.”—Baron Wormser, former poet laureate, state of MaineFlynn’s prose at every turn is crisp and evocative; he has a gift for description of cities, landscapes and characters – the latter seem so real one could almost touch them. I have for years enjoyed his short stories, poems and translations, and I’m delighted he has brought his considerable powers to a wonderfully vivid collection that crackles with energy and insight.-- Geoffrey Clark, author of Wedding In OctoberThere’s something dazzling about how Flynn evokes beauty and isolation, tragedy and triumph, in language that sings and begs us to sing along, too.-- Alyson Hagy, author of BoletoThe work is concrete, seductive, and dramatic in its intensity – drawing the reader in.-- Jack Smith, author of IconFlynn is an author who pays attention to the details. Vivid and engaging, it’s a pleasure to add Off To The Next Wherever to my shelf.-- Kristen-Paige Madonia, author of Fingerprints of You

Book preview

ONE

Perfection will never be reached; but to recognize a period of transformation when it comes, and to adapt themselves honestly and rationally to its laws, is perhaps the nearest approach to perfection of which men and nations are capable.

Matthew Arnold "Democracy"

Treading Water In The Black Sea At Odessa, 1994

There is no word in Russian for privacy.

No Protestant ethic, no Puritan shame

in one little girl who squats to pee into the waves.

She’s watched by a rotund father in a black Speedo.

Her topless mother lies on a blanket and oils her nipples.

Ukraine remains on coupons.

Moldova has just introduced its new currency, the Lei.

Counterfeit Russian rubles proliferate.

Average teacher’s salary $20 dollars a month

paid at least six months late, if at all.

So many unpleasant introductions in this velvet

rise of Perestroika generation.

A black Labrador paddles past, flagging but determined.

Naked boys on the shore cheer him on.

These boys are fortunate. They don’t need assurances.

Entropy in the Genome Age persists.

So will they and their dog.

As Tolstoy wrote a century ago in Resurrection,

the missionaries continue to arrive.

Fast-buck anglers chirp of pyramid schemes,

vested sanctimonious enterprises

slicker than the shine on the CCCP sickle blade.

Garnished with new emblems, the young seek ways

to show off, since it’s what Westerners do.

On the sand, so many simple working folk so long neglected

resume their metaphysical courtship with vodka.

Into the teeth of the big picture another ism has arrived

to salt long train rides, parades, and family arguments.

Men chain-smoke through a card game called Fool.

They share double-edged jokes about whores and bad