Grid Books | 2021 | 104 pages
Above the Bejeweled City, the seventh poetry collection by Jon Davis, is a deeply personal, existential observation of the present human condition. Davis’s poems describe a strenuous existence clouded by the materialistic desires of the upper class, perhaps socially conditioned by the inescapable capitalist system which promotes endless, lavish consumption. In his poetry, Davis recounts history’s irredeemable sins, revealing the hypocrisy within those who know and preach the truth, yet act in opposition—which even Davis himself cannot escape.
Brutally honest and dark—yet rich in the awe of the beauty and joy of the natural world—the poems present tragedies masked by comfort. Here, as in the real world, society turns a blind eye to the pain and damage caused by those who shake the ice in their glasses while the world suffers. Thus, the natural world below the “bejeweled city” continues to die at the hands of the treasured.
Above the Bejeweled City is a tale of tragedy. For example, in “Orality,” the book’s first poem, “this silence… lizard pinned to barbed wire” and “the knife, the red rose blossoming / now as we always knew it would / on the white silk blouse” depict life as a trap with an unavoidable, violent ending every viewer except the victim sees coming.
Tragedy is also depicted as an inherent part of the country’s economic system; in “State of the Union,” Davis juxtaposes economic prosperity with individual deaths. Referring to the country’s success and wealth, he writes, “The celebration was nested inside the fatalities, the cordoned holocaust.” He calls “each slaughter a selling point” and the media “a tweetstorm, / a chance to vanquish,” artfully displaying how violence and oppression are an inherent part of the consumptive system that drives America’s economy.
Despite the narrator’s detachment from the poems’ themes, there are deeply personal moments which highlight Davis’s own experiences. He begins to describe a memory, but then worries about the artistic consequences:
that would make this
a confessional poem and drag me
straight into the waters I am always
already standing hip deep in—the legacy
of secrecy and deceit and yes, friends,
avoidance.
When Davis describes a poetics of avoidance, I believe he means an inability to sympathize with himself and view his personal art as something relevant to others, or worthy of art at all. But poetry, at its heart, cannot be without bias and intense emotion. Davis circles around this concept, attempting to be an omniscient observer while recognizing that his past prevents a clear understanding of truth. Although subtle, he details this struggle: talking to himself, Davis admits in the poem “Catechism,” “Having seen, these eyes can no longer see.” Davis recognizes a certain blindness all people encounter—no one can see everything, understand everything. The line also exposes how individuals who laude themselves for their awareness of diverse perspectives may be the ones most in danger of losing sight of the truth.
Another prevalent theme in Above the Bejeweled City is the hypocrisy present in every human. In “Bio Note,” the narrator admits that he is “[b]acked against the wall” and calls his own poetry “a list / of everything you oppose and are quietly becoming.” This powerful line suggests that it is impossible to live a purely virtuous existence, and that every person struggles to cope with both regret and moral contradiction.
In “After Three Nights Sleeping in the Parking Lot,” even art as political protest is called out as a front:
Music can save us
until it doesn’t. Art can save us until it doesn’t.
Justice is a pale frog nosing through duckweed
Here, Davis calls observance inaction, failure to prevent “the murderous world” in “State of the Union” from committing atrocious acts of violence. He calls intention “the cruelest excuse” for the endless injustice which occurs, and illustrates how good intentions so easily go wrong:
The man who says I wanted to be a priest
but ended up a shooter; the woman who says
I became that violence and longed to replicate it.
However, there is a fine line between “[t]he prisoners ambling in their orange jumpsuits” and “smiling parents / credit cards in manicured hands.” Although the latter appears innocent, “a fabric stained by chance” can be the difference between living a cozy life in the upper middle class and living as a reject of society, either in prison or in poverty.
The only innocent character in Davis’s tale is nature itself, which has no proclivity towards selfishness or desire. In “In the Tumultuous Dawn,” the poet laments, “Only the warbler flickering in the greenery is of no consequence— feathery nihilist in the nada of palmetto and plume.” But nature is not only innocent, it is healing. In “Of Frog or Fish,” the poet ruefully describes what keeps him going in difficult times:
a snapping turtle
I’d seen as a boy, who rose
from a muddy bog to glimpse,
I’d imagined, the sky,
the moon and stars
Amidst “a new emergency every month” and “long nights / splayed on plastic chairs, / staring at oxygen, heart rate, / alarmed by beep and silence / and beep again,” the memory of the turtle and the sunrise provides solace.
While often cynical and brokenhearted, there are hints of optimism interspersed throughout the book, perhaps imitating the condition of existence. In the poem “Liminal,” for example, in “a prolonged darkness” there is “a momentary brightness.” There is hope, and reason for carrying on.
Above the Bejeweled City is impossible to distance oneself from, with unsentimental poems such as “Ode to the Coronavirus” and “Photograph: Prison Camp, Iraq, 2003,” which authentically depict the current state of privileged existence.
Above the Bejeweled City is a call to action in a time when it is easier is to do nothing, to “imagine individual deaths, / eyes looking out from behind glass visors, / hands reaching up to be held.” Indeed, it is almost impossible to fight against the stubborn American sentiment:
That is how it has always been done
in our country, my host told me.
With one such as her.
And I believed them, dear reader.
Wouldn’t you have? On such a night,
in such a world—
And in so honestly addressing our time, our peril, Above the Bejeweled City shines.
Read poetry by Jon Davis appearing in Terrain.org: Letter to America (2020), Letter to America (2017), and three poems.
Sheena Eustice graduated from University of California, Davis with a bachelor’s degree in managerial economics and minors in English and accounting. She has written blog articles published on the UC Davis website. Sheena is currently finishing up her master’s degree in professional accountancy, and working towards becoming a CPA. In the future, she hopes to become a published author.
Header photo by Pexels, courtesy Pixabay.
