Poet of the MonthJoanna ValenteJeff Mock, poetry, poet of the month

Jeff Mock: February 2022 Poet of the Month

Poet of the MonthJoanna ValenteJeff Mock, poetry, poet of the month
Jeff Mock: February 2022 Poet of the Month

Photo: Joanna C. Valente

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.