Four Sonnets by Nick Demske

Introduction by Daniel Bosch

On the occasion of his mother’s eightieth birthday, Dante Gabriel Rossetti gave her a hand-made artwork featuring his poem “The Sonnet.” In the first line of this present he also gave to English poetry a “deathless” (because almost irrefutable) definition of the sonnet form — though the rest of the poem is an already dated pastiche of tired diction, worn-out registers, and exhausted metaphors:

THE SONNET

A Sonnet is a moment’s monument,—
Memorial from the Soul’s eternity
To one dead deathless hour. Look that it be,
Whether for lustral rite or dire portent,
Of its own intricate fulness reverent:
Carve it in ivory or in ebony,
As Day or Night prevail; and let Time see
Its flowering crest impearled and orient.

A Sonnet is a coin: its face reveals
The soul,—its converse, to what Power ’tis due:—
Whether for tribute to the august appeals
Of Life, or dower in Love’s high retinue
It serve; or, ‘mid the dark wharf’s cavernous breath,
In Charon’s palm it pay the toll to Death.

Over a hundred and thirty years later, the poems in Nick Demske’s Self-Titled demonstrate that a sonnet is still a “moment’s monument.” Yet these deliberately unruly contemporary sonnets surprise me by the extent to which they confirm Rosetti’s rehashing of the Romantic credo that a poem must draw its “Power” earnest engagement with either from Life and Love or from Death.

As it’s inscribed in Demske’s monuments, the credo makes the sonnet’s volta or “turn” into something like a coin flip. As you will see, sometimes the fictional bad-ass Nick would rebound from his mother’s death, reborn belatedly into his verbal gifts:

On my mother’s grave.  On all things holy.
On my first born child’s virginity.    On the rebound, Nick Demske—
You smell like Lazarus returning in the form of
A cyclical argument.  You smell like protesters burning Mein Kampf….

while at other times the self of Self-Titled is full of a duende that would paint the white page red:

I have mixed these metaphors
Into a batter that burns like some multicult
Ural group sex thing.  What a bull summoned I to this sheet like a matador.
Expecting to cello its throat.

Even when they don’t bring it up explicitly, at each moment these sonnets struggle with Life and Death—yet every time Demske flips Rosetti’s coin (and in this he’s like Stoppard’s Rosencrantz) it comes up poetry:

The key to brainwashing is repetition.  The key
Did you expect me to repeat that now?  Did you expect me to
Enact the experience you think I describe?
But alas, I describe only an aggressive brand of hula.  Behold my swivel

Ing hips.

What if, one-hundred-thirty-plus years from now, Demske’s sonnets seem as mannered as Rosetti’s? Don’t hold your breath. Expect rather his poems to still feel alive than Rosetti’s, if only because he was more alive to his moment when he wrote them, and because they are more honest about the powers to which they are due.

 

As a Dog Returneth To His Vomit

On my mother’s grave.  On all things holy.
On my first born child’s virginity.    On the rebound, Nick Demske—
You smell like Lazarus returning in the form of
A cyclical argument.  You smell like protesters burning Mein Kampf.

I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.  I stuck a needle
In my eye and all I got was this lousy needle.
In my eye.  Please continue to hold and your prayer will
Be answered in the order ‘twas received.  Well

Look who’s crawling back to the question      for forgiveness,
Take a look at relentless repentance.  Just one won’t hurt.      I promised
Myself I’d stop writing poems.  I broke that promise.
I line broke that promise.  I enjambed that promise

So far up the Muse’s tuchis he still shits shards of meter.  I drink from this vomit,
I’ll barf in this vomit.  I poured every last drop down the sink.  I promise.

They All Lived

The purpose has officially been
Defeated.  Our disbelief has been suspend
Ded       indefinitely.  I have hyper-extended my met
Aphor like gold to airy thinness beat.

I have mixed these metaphors
Into a batter that burns like some multicult
Ural group sex thing.  What a bull summoned I to this sheet like a matador.
Expecting to cello its throat.

The purpose waves a blank page.  Our disbelief’s feet jangle from a gal
Lows, eyes bulging.     I just want my life back.
Die, motherfucker, die.         Nick Demske, you’ve been rattling the bars
Of an unlocked cage.  You’re the president of the anarchy club.       Tell

My wife and kids that I love them very much.  The view fr
Om these horns is breathtaking.                Happily ever after.

 

Psyche 101

“In some untrodden region of my mind”
—Keats

The key to brainwashing is repetition.  The key
Did you expect me to repeat that now?  Did you expect me to
Enact the experience you think I describe?
But alas, I describe only an aggressive brand of hula.  Behold my swivel

Ing hips.  The key to brainwashing is kept beside
The porch in a hollow, plastic object designed to look like a rock.  But brainwas
Hing was unlocked, unloaded.  Unloved.     The pen is,
Indeed, mightier than the sword.  But this is a gun against your head, an extension of my

Condolences.  You will do and say exactly as we tell
You until we simply needn’t tell you anymore.  The key to brainwashing is next to
Godliness, getting further behind
The ears than you’d ever thought possible.  Nick Demkse.  Nick Demske.  Plutoni

Ck Columbus McCarthy. III.     You’re the spawn of expectation.  You are the key t
O brainwashing.  An historic reenactment.  Lather, Rinse.
Lather.  Rinse.

                        (first appeared in KNOCK)

Born Again

“Tweet tweet,” says the trans-species butterfly.
“Moo,” says the dog who identifies as cow.  I’m not a poet, I
Just write poetry.  I’m not a cop killer, I just
Kill cops.  I’m not a cop killer, I just

Write poetry.  I’m allowed to use the word “Nigger,”
Or variants thereof, because I’m in an inter
Racial relationship.  It’s my gift; my curse.       “Crack,” says
The firecracker, perpetuating negative stereotypes.        The print vanishes,

Fine as hairs; a font so small only dogs can read it.      “Moo,”
They recite and advance to the slaughter.
I’m allowed to use the word “Nick Demkse” to
Mean “The Mighty Lake Eerie” or “Holy Hobo’s trash-fire night light.”    (cue laughter?)

I am not in God’s will, meaning he revoked my inheritance.
And/or meaning I override omnipotence.  “Ha,” laughs the embarrassment.

                        (first appeared in CONDUIT)

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About the Author:

Nick Demske lives in Racine, Wisconsin and works at the Racine Public Library.