THE ENTICING ICE TEARY BOTTLE OF ROYAL CROWN COLA
Your voice is my room, my house, the contour of city blocks, the curvature of the earth
Crisp syllables, taste doesn’t doze on the tongue alone, this brisk kick crouches elsewhere.
A sparking turn, a hiss of life, a cry of escape as CO2 mixes with air and promises of knowledge
Oh, home, oh vintage sign vibrant in an unused barn, oh chemicals, oh osmosis.
Then it is gone, the empty glass container so bracing in the hand, and energy and lightness.
The earth is curved, defined by blocks and houses, and murmuring delights of what we are.
______________
Marc Janssen
Review by Dave Mehler
Have any of you ever seen the movie Paterson, written and directed by Jim Jarmusch? The poetry featured in the movie is based on the poetry of Ron Padgett–probably are real poems of his? This poem reminds me of one of those composed by the bus driver character (Adam Driver) in his little journal that starts with a bowl of cereal before leaving for work, is added to on the walk to work by the famous falls, and is completed right before leaving the station and his boss appears at his open door to interrupt with one of his wry sad little monologues. This poem similarly revels in the delight of common objects and the ecstasy of living and noticing little things and framing them in quirky, off-kilter, unexpected little ways. One such poem in the film was about a match box and it’s company name for example, in the same way that Royal Crown Cola figures in this one. I have no idea if you intended this Marc, or if it’s simply a coincidence or accident of temperament. But willed or not, I enjoyed the deja-vu immensely. I would urge anyone who may have missed the movie to watch it–you’re in for a treat! Here is Padgett’s complete poem quoted in the movie:
“We have plenty of matches in our house
We keep them on hand always
Currently our favorite brand
Is Ohio Blue Tip
Though we used to prefer Diamond Brand
That was before we discovered
Ohio Blue Tip matches
They are excellently packaged
Sturdy little boxes
With dark and light blue and white labels
With words lettered
In the shape of a megaphone
As if to say even louder to the world
Here is the most beautiful match in the world
It’s one-and-a-half-inch soft pine stem
Capped by a grainy dark purple head
So sober and furious and stubbornly ready
To burst into flame
Lighting, perhaps the cigarette of the woman you love
For the first time
And it was never really the same after that
All this will we give you
That is what you gave me
I become the cigarette and you the match
Or I the match and you the cigarette
Blazing with kisses that smoulder towards heaven.”
I don’t mean to overshadow Marc’s poem with Padgett’s, but on the other hand I do think looking at them side by side opens Marc’s up a bit. What I think I’m getting here is a similar feeling, but whereas Padgett transforms his piece about a matchbox into a love poem addressed to a person, Marc is transforming his poem about a cola into praise or nostalgia or longing for home. Not only do we get delight from a simple object, down even to the familiar design of the logo described as vintage, and how it tastes and how it sounds, and the glass bottle it comes in which also turns out to be vintage–we get a nostalgia for times and associations gone by and perhaps people from that era. A whole world opens up through memory and association: The earth is curved, defined by blocks and houses, and murmuring delights of what we are. Home is a heady topic, and the reader might enjoy seeing the anthology edited by Christian Wiman, Home: 100 Poems for the introduction alone. I totally resonate with where Janssen is going with this because RC Cola was the drink of choice for my parents who were children during the depression. The logo, the glass bottle, the cola itself acts as a doorway to childhood.