Synkroniciti is excited to welcome back poet Mark Hendrickson, based in Des Moines, Iowa. “The Witch Doctor’s Party (or the Kiss of Fate)” is a lively, absurdist, sci-fi love poem exploring the night he met his husband and soulmate at a party. “Bushwhacked at the threshold by the Norns who deftly weaved the gauntlet and ushered me (him) into overstuffed aspirations,” he at first feels uncomfortable and out of place, until he meets and rescues the doll. “We perspicaciously perceived/ that we were in fact/ unrelated prospective Wonder Twins/ who managed to master magic/ before their rings even touched.” The bounce and lilt of this off-beat romance is clever, charming, and completely sincere, full of alliteration and saucy, punchy rhythm. The next two poems are about milestone birthdays. In “50,” we find the speaker thinking about mortality and aging, “Youth is the threshold to a house/ that does not want to settle.” He wonders how to approach this time of life, “Shall I stand hesitant upon that doorstep/ a vampire pressing for permission to pass,” and decides that the best, most freeing option is to live in the moment. In the prose poem “60,” Mark uses a variation on erasure poetry to show the speaker’s tendency to sensor and sanitize his experience. “Perhaps it would be better if I wore a hat today what with my youth and hair dye fading bc I don’t want to get my bald spot sunburned on my way to the Senior Community Center where they let me use their gym for free now.” Invoking vulnerability, he hopes to continue to become the person he was meant to be. Mark’s jocularity belies the seriousness and earnestness of his subject matter and the effect is a negation of sentimentality and indulgence.
Experience Mark’s delightful poetry in Synkroniciti’s November 30th issue, “Space,” Vol. 5, No. 4, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Mark Hendrickson is a poet and writer in the Des Moines area. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Prose Online, Five Minutes, Synkroniciti, and Swing among others. His background includes music, healthcare, and psychology. Mark worked for many years as a mental health technician in a locked psychiatric unit. He loves drinking way too much coffee on fall mornings with his husband and very spoiled cat, Toshiko.