Fathoms
BY JEFFREY JAMES IRCINK
“We—the lucky ones,
who steal time away for ourselves.”
With deep regret, a true love lost,
though no love lost on me.
Will she forever remain unrequited,
and, if so, what fish remain in the sea?
Adrift in thoughts, to the briny I go,
my soul, flaunting in grandeur.
Struggling to shore I am resigned,
I make a far better voyeur.
Oceans run dry over love-barren lands,
red herring truths belie my fears.
When at the brink, obliged to defeat,
the answer suddenly appears.
Euphoria abed in my bosom,
feathers unruffled, free of strife.
Volition is a state of mind,
for whose but mine is my life?
Jeffrey James Ircink
A sensible Midwest upbringing served Jeff well while traveling from Wisconsin to Bel Air, CA and points between throughout his career. He has worked on stage and film in Milwaukee, Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and Los Angeles, and his original plays have taken him to Belfast, Sydney, Manhattan, Seattle, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Dayton, Bel Air, Cedar Rapids and Milwaukee. Jeff has written, directed and produced several theater projects in Milwaukee, including Hashtag Mayhem and Strange Bedfellows, two of his plays have been published – Stan’s Addiction and Pass the Salt, Please (adapted into an award-winning short film), and he has written several one-man shows based on the lives and works of Dickens, Poe and Washington Irving while in his current position as a Life Enrichment Associate for the retirement community industry. Jeff’s original poetry has appeared in The Grindstone, Retrograde Review and his debut poetry chapbook, “Grace Notes from a Bohemian in Wanderlust”, was published in August 2023.
Jeff resides in the historic Village of Greendale in Wisconsin.
