Poetic Psychoanalysis: Graceland, by Marjorie Maddox

Poetic Psychoanalysis: Graceland

All week, the entire town in sequins--
pompadoured teens,
side-burned street vendors, 
pant-suited septuagenarians— 
their foreheads and chests slick with sweat, 
their hips gyrating in sequence, yet--
more surprisingly—in this poem, it’s my first-time-to-Memphis trek,
and somehow I’ve slipped through the thick-as-grits crowd
and am giddily maneuvering my suddenly svelte self
up flower-strewn stairs of the King’s mansion
past the secret-service types guarding the master suite
and into the padlocked bathroom of pure mystery 
of what happened when and how and why 
it should matter to you, the reader, 
who are dreaming your own poetic investigation
beyond the barricaded second-floor doors of Graceland
or wide-open windows of grace that, 
yes, leave us grateful and greedy,
wanting one more wailing hymn 
or crooning ballad. We’ve all paid 
the entrance fee. 

Marjorie Maddox
​
Sage Graduate Fellow of Cornell University (MFA) and Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published eleven collections of poetry-including True, False, None of the Above;  Wives' Tales; Local News from Someplace Else; Perpendicular As I; Weeknights at the Cathedral; and Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation; the short story collection What She Was Saying; the anthology (co-editor) Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania and four children's books. For more information, please see www.marjoriemaddox.com