Jeff Mock: February 2022 Poet of the Month
Magritte’s Pipe
Magritte’s pipe is not a pipe, nor
Is that tobacco in its bowl.
A neighbor reported an odd
Aroma, and now the police are
Pounding on the door. All is lost,
You may think, but nothing is what
It is pictured to be, as if just
To befuddle the students who sit
In the art class’s farthest row.
Appearances must be deceiving.
Still, Magritte’s pipe is not a pipe,
The smoke is not, the literal
Is not. The pipe and painting and
Artist disappear in a puff
Of a puff that isn’t a puff:
Only our deceptions must be plain.
Jeff Mock’s collection Ruthless was published in 2010 (Three Candles Press), and his poems have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Iowa Review, New England Review, North American Review, The Sewanee Review, The Southern Review, and elsewhere.