Matt McGuirk teaches and lives with his wife and two daughters in New Hampshire. He was a BOTN 2021 nominee and has poems and stories published in various literary magazines. His debut hybrid collection of poems and stories, Daydreams, Obsessions, Realities, came out with Alien Buddha Press in late November of 2021 and is available on Amazon, linked at the end of the bio and also linked on his website. Follow him on Twitter: @McguirkMatthew and Instagram: @mcguirk_matthew.
The Salvage Yard
Walking through aisles lined with twisted metal
looking for something
salvageable, something to part out
or
something that can be buffed out
and might shine again in
all that is mangled and dull.
A bumper that once reflected light,
now wears a grass necklace.
A door that was opened for a date,
an act of chivalry
is now hanging lazy, unable to offer any gesture.
Leather seats cracked with spiderwebs
from too much time in the sun
and an undercarriage rotted by rust
from salt spattered winter roads
would need to be released
or replaced.
The sun crested between the waiting hilltops,
pulling in hues of orange and yellow
and washed across a pristine, dust covered windshield
aching for the wind of a highway at 70.
I feathered the bills in my pocket out
and thought about the window down
and the radio cranked.
The Salvage Yard collaboration with Brotherwell.
Original poem published with Words and Whispers Journal
Teaching Satire Simpsons’ Style
Satire is something not everyone gets,
but isn’t that the way with most things?
I give a pretest and a few students can define it,
but the majority leave it blank, put a question mark or guess,
but I expect that anyways.
We’ll get to Stalin, Lenin, the Russian Revolution
and the rise of the Soviet Union
eventually,
but sometimes they just need something in their world.
I tell them, “The Simpsons is a satire!”
They just look at me,
not believing until they see, or hear in this case.
The Simpsons are my go to and they know that,
so they know there’s a point, there’s always a point.
“It makes fun of family issues.
Homer is stupid and accident prone
and works as a nuclear safety inspector,
in charge of keeping a whole town from blowing up.”
They nod and I know they’re getting it.
“After work, he goes to the bar and gets drunk
and what does he do when he gets home?”
They lean in and I know they’re hooked.
“Strangles his son! But we all laugh. So really the Simpsons are dealing with
heavy issues: education system, addiction, abuse.”
Sometimes it just takes something a little closer to home
to get the point across.
Sometimes the nightly news can’t always start a conversation
and we need to use our daily laughs to do it instead.
