Edison Jennings: One of Many Melodious Songs

An ivy educated American male,
bespoke suited but modest and sincere,
once seated and lighted to good effect
and confident of his look and manner
will, when gently prodded, confess
to Charlie Rose, that yes, the piece
in Vogue, though mostly correct
regarding his reckless appetites,
failed to mention his sex addiction
and how he struggled unsuccessfully
to overcome his disease, his shameful
need for sex with gorgeous partners,
until he gave his life to his higher power
whom he chooses to call Oversoul,
and how his struggle, (and here he turns
his handsome face away) has led him
to embrace homeless addicts,
sharing in their journey to recovery,
long before he’ll tell Charlie
he once smacked his six-year-old
blue-bruise-hard because the boy had spilled
a Very-Berry Smoothy on his antique
Persian Carpet, serving as a case in point
of the counterpoint that weaves the joy
of our desiring into a masque, Baroque
in its entanglements, composed with bits,
bytes and waves, macro to the micro,
linking Nappa Valley manse to West Virginia
meth lab, allemanding right then left,
hand to hand, soul to soul with the junkie
on a door stoop and the D.A.
in his office after hours, sipping scotch,
sniffing coke, and reading Baudelaire
while the midnight busker drums
his plastic bucket marking time,
rapping the word, shoe box at his feet
to keep a scatter of loose change
and with the handsome man of letters
and frequent talk-show guest,
naked on his Louis Quinze récamier,
blissed on aural sex provided by his intern
who’s going through the motions
of yet another onerous task, indifferent
to his complex mind and legendary dick
and with the data hacker, texting, sexting,
porning, wired for a tingle from any angel
lurking in the æther, stuck 4 lanes deep
with no off-ramp forever on the circuit
of America, that most shocking poem.

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Copyright 2025 Edison Jennings. An earlier version of this poem, titled “The Body Electric in Several Takes,” first appeared in The Metaworker in 2021

Edison Jennings lives in Southern Appalachia and works as a Head Start classroom aide and as an Adult Education instructor. His poems have appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies. His book, Intentional Fallacies, and chapbook “Reckoning” are available through Broadstone Books and Jacar Press, respectively.