Mirror Magic

John Sakkis' Mirror Magic offers us the riotous in the fullest sense of the word: rife with quick-wit and biting humor, these pages also riot against an ever-crumbling present as it dissolves a future teetering on the cusp of fantastical and apocalyptic; " I tic toc my minutes / NIMBY pansies get butterflies / ' shadow pollution' kills birds / so rents go up and over / you laugh at the needles / that stick to your meddling." Bounding through space in Nike shoes, the tragi-comedy of the neoliberal state escalates as " ambition gets complicated" and muddies our horizons. Through Sakkis' verses we live in a dynamic zone " floating and falling / and floating" in the overlapping absurdity and truth where still he leisurely and militantly demands more. From Vegas, to Californian ecosystems, to UFOs, the moon and beyond, the blossoming of childhood magic collides with adulthood's brutal realism, daring to hone our critical apparatus and dream harder.