Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

 Bob Hicok’s "Free-Floating Anxiety Sounds Like a Pretty Balloon" is a restless meditation on modern stress, the desire for escape, and the absurdity of coping mechanisms in a world that moves too fast. The poem is both humorous and despairing, balancing the ridiculous with the deeply felt, as it cycles through a series of images that capture the speaker’s exhaustion with the pressures and absurdities of contemporary life.

The poem opens with an appeal for softness, for respite from the "stare of a man with homicide in his teeth." The phrase sets an immediate tension—violence is lurking, an omnipresent threat that makes even the simplest wish for peace feel like an act of defiance. The need for something to "suck tension out" and "put slimmer thighs in your quiver" introduces a biting irony—self-care in a world of relentless anxiety often manifests in self-destructive habits. The humor in wanting a "cigarette you can smoke to get in shape" underscores how absurd our coping mechanisms can be, the way we seek contradictory solutions to stress.

This theme of absurdity intensifies as the poem escalates into the imagery of a suicidal leap: "Need to jump from 30 stories up & scream through tumbling of Olympic merit, to have my heart stop one two three times faster than the speed of thought and land on a serial killer to applause for my good deed & aim." The juxtaposition of desperation with comedy is quintessentially Hicokian—dark humor as a way of processing existential dread. The idea of turning one’s own demise into a public spectacle, a performative act that somehow becomes a righteous act of justice, reflects the absurd ways we imagine controlling chaos. The line between the personal and the political, between self-destruction and heroism, blurs in this exaggerated fantasy.

The poem then shifts to a longing for escape: "I can’t have a life any longer that doesn’t include recreational hours under palm fronds with a woman who speaks fluent ocean." This image, of a woman whose language is the sea, carries a dreamy, surreal quality, evoking an impossible ideal of peace and sensuality. The speaker craves something elemental, natural, far from the speed and aggression of everyday life. The phrase "syllables that begin a thousand miles away and arrive at my ear carrying a tall drink and breeze" suggests both distance and comfort, the way certain experiences—the sound of waves, the drift of warm air—can soothe without demanding comprehension.

This reverie is short-lived, however, as the speaker is pulled back into his dissatisfaction with the world: "I’ve been here two score and change and can’t remember when a smile was high fashion." The sense of time passing without joy, the realization that contentment is no longer in vogue, returns the poem to its core frustration. The phrase "too much speed, mortal combat & voodoo floating around" critiques a world that is both technologically overwhelming and mystically irrational, caught between aggressive forward momentum and a kind of chaotic superstition. The lament that "cars haven’t been replaced by pillows so spontaneous napping can break out" is one of Hicok’s many absurd but oddly logical suggestions—why shouldn’t the world be softer, slower, more accommodating to rest?

The poem’s climax arrives in a moment of self-awareness: "My reflex with obituaries is to think, more chotchkes for me." Here, the speaker acknowledges a darker, more cynical impulse—the way death, instead of inspiring grief, has become just another redistribution of things. The consumerist afterlife, where personal loss translates into material gain, reveals a deep estrangement from sentimentality. It is not a lack of empathy but rather a sign of exhaustion, of being too surrounded by loss to process it in traditional ways.

Finally, the poem returns to childhood: "Maybe they had it right in kindergarten, all I need’s a time out, to go off and rant with my little fists against the dirt, which listens but refuses to say what it’s learned these bitter years swallowing us." The idea that kindergarteners, with their structured breaks and emotional outbursts, had the right approach to life is both humorous and poignant. There is wisdom in the simplicity of a "time out," a moment of pure emotional release. The final image, of the "dirt, which listens but refuses to say what it’s learned," is a quiet and haunting ending. The earth absorbs all suffering, all history, but offers no wisdom in return. The years are "swallowing us," yet the world remains mute, indifferent to human anxiety.

Hicok’s "Free-Floating Anxiety Sounds Like a Pretty Balloon" captures the modern struggle to navigate stress, the absurdity of self-prescribed remedies, and the inescapable exhaustion of being alive in a world that never slows down. The poem’s blend of humor and despair, its surreal wishful thinking and biting realism, creates a portrait of a mind both overwhelmed and self-aware, longing for relief but keenly aware that relief is not easily won. The speaker’s frustrations are not unique but universal, making this poem a sharp and deeply felt reflection of contemporary anxiety.

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