Zen By Default: The Poetry of Marques Vickers

California artist Marques Vickers’ second poetic edition “Zen By Default” establishes a sustained interior dialogue between the poet and his ongoing life evolution living along the American Pacific Coast. His 300+ concise works address the ongoing themes of displacement and relocation and the challenge of cultivating and sustaining relationships in the midst of upheaval.

Vickers examines his spectator role with regard to his own life:

i am a third party
to my own life
spectator of my existence
my river of words
a stream
overflowing the banks
of reason
as if eros alone
were reason enough
and i inhabit you
you me
for the short span
of eternity
those small hours
destiny has provided

Reminiscences of youth:

the nutmeg radiance
of youth
adorns the summer sands
forcing the amnesia
of aging
into remission

Love and its complications:

the fire of my soul
faces my terrors
contrast and paradox
i look at myself
i look for you
one to kiss, embrace, stroke
a splash of dazzling wash’
my heart packs itself and contains itself
my heart astonishes itself
without bar or barrier
more vast than a memory
we trade vows we may not keep
a time where the shadows die
only instants prevail
the broken silences
shedding our perceived chains
yes my love we do not inhabit the air
we must separate as simply
as continents divide, waters disperse

Language and sounds:

i know the song of the night
through the tenor of your words
the sacred chant of rossignols
serenading a panorama of stars
beside me on the hillside garrigue
we trade candies of conversation
muses and supposition
over the lyrics of each song

Shredding Personal Limitations:

a window shatters
glass ceiling mirrors southward
no longer
mosaic tiles of imagination
adjoined and mortared
stray impressions fastened
plumbed from the depths
mined from experience
a simple twisted phrase
keying a bolted memory
an unspoken phrase
i bury my soul
on the parchment
of posterity

A View of One’s Mortality:

a man stares at the crossroad of his immortality
a man realizes his years are passing
he looks back at the mirror of his youth
distant and removed from the present
an intersection with no return
poverty no longer stalks his doorway
he is simply too far to take the return road

The View of His Lover:

settling slow and soft into an intimacy
sweet and sacred
tangled words like our wrapped bodies
awaken my anticipation
of dialogues in accord
harmonies in synch
you cannot imagine
my silent soliloquies
shrouded in dreams
the tenor of your voice
soft and slow
as a graceful and welcomed caress

As the Days Pass Between Them:

dark days night descent

enter the dense night bravely beauty
as a darkness descends on another day
lacking the lightness of youth
innocence separated
engulfed into the depths
of rest eternal

Goodbyes:

you are next to me
as parallel wings on a soaring bird
i carry a tear in my clenched hand
because goodbyes wear poorly on me
there are few farewells in my existence
only separations
where the fissures and pauses
remain gray
repairable

More views of time:

by the flame of a thousand lit candles
i scan the horizon of time
an eternal reminiscence
of the long grass of springtime
lying in our shared sunshine
you crawl inside my beautiful memories
my cyclone of emotions
the roots of desire planted upon my lips

The eternal crossroads:

rows of light
illuminate
the stranger within
my vision blinded
by the currency
of strangely traded words
crossroads of time
blind a caged bird
who must extend wings
to fly

Acknowledging conclusions:

you may return to a place
but never a moment in time
a young man old
an old man feeling young
it matters little
time will not cease
but in your mind
and you are laid to rest
in the grave with your memories
both young and old

Vickers works are typically untitled and entirely in lower case. His themes are interwoven into soliloquy compositions and internalized realizations. The process of discovery is as relentless and ongoing as the travels he has opted to pursue.