An Ode To Delusion
TLDR: poetry only ancient art form still alive
“It occurs to me that Anton’s poems have not improved in 10 years. But why should they? For him, writing is that same as repairing a motorcycle. Passing the time - except that he gets paid for his mechanical labors. But it’s all the same to him, as a matter of fact, he is one of that numbing legion who tells you about the butcher, the baker, etc. being the same as Leonardo. Some cabinet maker is like David Smith, etc. The chef as great artist. I don’t mind. This is commonly accepted swill in our time, much like astrology: harmless pastime for the frivolous.”
Gibert Sorrentino - “The Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things.”
No one with a pure heart wants to be Anton Hurley.
The challenge with an Ode to Delusion is to avoid wallowing in the delusional aspect, to be truly deluded is to be under a spell, to believe that Minnie Mouse is real, that your fantasies are better than the real thing.
Delivering something that is uncommon is itself a common enough event, but being able to convincingly convey that uncommon belief is very rare.
I read poems as a willing subject, but I can’t help reading them my way. All the poems are deserving of comment and praise, every one, but there were some moments which broke the spell.
There were 8 that had no breaks at all, or if they did by the time the weaker line appeared there was enough momentum to easily cross the gap.
appreciation, non censura
Universal Conch
by harley claes
Towering, glittering. Takes the towering trope of the young hero preparing for battle and matter of factly begins replacing words you expect with a glittering offering prayer that made me blush and applaud.
Vandalized Moons
by Alejandra Rubio
A 100% success of a poem that delights moving between scientific descriptions of phenomena and the form itself, then you realize it is because the form is giving a summary of the form as it is, describing itself as it also is itself: only a true genius could accomplish such a feat, previously thought to be impossible. Or maybe all women are geniuses? I’ll never know.
dreamer / web weaver
ny acacia h.
I loved this one right away.
Captures and expresses things you know but didn’t know you knew, its such a good poem like that. Had a total ‘wow’ moment with the line that ends:
the city stole a part of me for safe keeping
and what else is so beautiful is how the poem tells what NYC is by describing what she doesn’t have. Those hollows get filled in by the city, and if you’ve lived there you will recognize this feeling. When reading this poem I realized for the first time that NYC has a real personality - it’s the indefinable part of living there, almost like an invisible friend. This poem summons and captures the all-time city’s spirit and puts it on display like a real poet-wizard might.
Cheerleaders crying at the big blue
by Juliette Jeffers
So good at capturing something so blazing hot inside us that there literally is no way to describe it, yet she does by somehow putting it inside of something so cool.
First line is an absolute wow:
I think you made me that summer,
the rest of the other lines are really good too.
1821
by Yves Kirigaya
Made me actually sad for people in California, amazing way to demonstrate the weird side effects of our society, the dark side of perfection is that it is already fading.
wishing that the intimacy i guessed in your stare could be true
Ahh but maybe it’s the only true way to live - holding out for one more wave - rolling in the cosmic foam of relinquished inhibitions - throwing away chance after chance to come out of the water until it’s almost 4 o’clock.
Wild Things
by Rebecca Jale
When I opened my first issue of Delude magazine (this one), that’s when I realized what I had gotten myself into, and I felt that almost illicit excitement that comes when you discover something new, like I had somehow stumbled into the secret garden of girls and that I might as well make the most of it because soon I was going to be asked to leave.
When I was reading it I just consumed it and then realized after how classic it felt, and of course how utterly (to me) original. Bravo!
Jay Walker
by Iris Machado
I didn’t read it so much as fall down it.
You don’t feel the descent into madness right away, and as I was reading with an uncomfortable smile on my face thinking it was one thing, it revealed it’s insane designs and pulled me through the dark mirror with it to the other side where a silver jewel that contains this memory of me waits inside a wooden box for someone to pick it up and hold it up to the light and look inside.
Dolus Please Hear Me
Alexandra J.
I am the exit to infinity.
This line was so good it immediately made me stop and read the poem again.