Running from Jack

A Poem and a Challenge

The first time I saw the sculpture, I didn’t know what to think. There was something crooked about it, with all these little sticks pointing every which way; it seemed organized and well-crafted and at the same time frenetic and disjointed. The artist told me the title of this piece was “Running from Jack.”

“You know, as an artist, it’s what you’re always running from,” he explained. “How you can never rest, never let go, because of that thing at your back.”

Running from Jack

Ekphrastic for an art piece by Walter Gordonier

A thousand arrows, brittle and broken, have thwacked my sides, back,

chest, throat. I’m bleary with greyed vision, beseeching;

all my limbs at odd angles as I fumble toward the horizon.

I need these wooden clubhouse crosses, this criss-crossing—

something to swear by. I’m speckled and sandy with the fresh

whitewash of hope, as stark as the whites of my stretched-wide eyes.

Can’t slow down. Ever. Hearing the nock of another arrow; it

hisses past my ear.

Slap some paint on, keep going; nevermind the teeter

of this lean-to, this monkey organ, medicine box,

puppet stage. It’s the only chariot I have, and I can’t stop now.

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1. Psst, who is Jack? Who is *your* Jack whom you find yourself running from?

2. Here’s a creative challenge. Visualize this sculpture not pictured here. Can you sketch it, write it out, paint or play with the image in your mind’s eye?

3. I drafted this poem in 2024 in a Poetry Marathon where friends sponsored me to write a poem every day in February.

4. I’m doing the poem-a-day challenge again! Supporting the literary nonprofit Tupelo Press has deepened my writing practice in unfathomable ways. Enjoy these newly-minted poems.

5. What begins in joy for me can so often become running from Jack. Oh, that fear, that striving, that desperation to be good, to get out of this as fast as I can. Let’s sit here a moment, you and I. Care for some tea?