tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79613214801819741272024-03-13T12:21:50.997-07:00Flat Singles PressAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-53669244888695225042017-01-30T08:43:00.003-08:002017-01-30T11:48:40.030-08:00PROSE 3<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Sentenced to Poetry: Fullness as Accumulation and Rebellion
in the Prose Poem</b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>by Amanda Earl</b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"I began to long for complex sentences, for the
possibility of digression, for space. The space of a different, less linear
movement: a dance of syntax. The prose paragraph seemed like the right kind of
space where form could prove ‘a centre around which, not a box within which’
(Ezra Pound)." (Rosemarie Waldrop, “Why Prose Poetry”)<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/joseph.labine/Desktop/prose%20essay-2.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The first prose poems I read were Baudelaire’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Le Spleen de Paris<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>(1869)<span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;">.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span>I was
an eighteen-year old, studying French at the University of Toronto’s Victoria
College, in downtown Toronto, going gaga over attractive young men and being
influenced by a Turkish friend who spent all her days in the café knitting when
she wasn’t buying jewelry. Suddenly I was surrounded by strangeness, people who
floated convention, who spoke languages other than English, who had travelled. <span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I was already mesmerized by the poems of Baudelaire and
Rimbaud in many ways, the wildness of them, but I especially liked the way
Baudelaire’s prose poems move away from rhyme but still contain a musicality in
the sentence, still portray a speaker who wants to be drunk, who wants to
explore creativity as something untameable, compatible with the poet’s restless
spirit. There is something about the prose poem that feels out of control, not
constrained by line breaks that is liberating and makes for endless
possibilities of whimsy, exploration and connection.<span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As a young woman surrounded by fascinating students from
exotic places, given the opportunity to wander the streets of downtown Toronto
on my own, the rebelliousness and cosmopolitan nature of these poems and the
author had a certain appeal. <span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><u>Sentence</u><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Prose poetry can be a way of conveying the fullness
of language and human experience, of playing with the sentence. Lisa Robertson
creates memorable and eccentric poetry out of the sentence. Her book,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>the Weather<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>(New Star Books, 2001), is an
assembly of weather reports but also a playful and lyrical collection of
sentences and fragments. Each clause builds upon the next by means of rhythm,
repetition and accumulation of detail to create a crescendo with sound and
imagery:<span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"A beautiful morning: we go down to the arena. A cold wintry
day; we open some purse. A day is lapsing; some of us light a cigarette. A deep
mist on the surface; the land pulls out. A dull mist comes rolling from the
west; this is our imaginary adulthood. A glaze has lifted; it is delusional
space. A great dew; we spread ourselves sheer-like. A keen wind; we’re paper
blown against the fence. A little checkered at 4 PM ; we dribble estrangement’s
sex. A long soaking rain; we lift the description."<span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I just started reading Lisa Robertson’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Cinema of the Present</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(2014), which feels like an homage to
the sentence. As does <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Nilling:
Prose Essays on Noise, Pornography, the Codex, Melancholy, Lucretius, Folds,
Cities and Related Aporias</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(2012)
a book of essays, a book of essay-poems.<span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am enthralled with the way the sentence in prose poems or
essay-poems can be accumulative. On occasion, whenever I damn well feel like
it, I have been known to subscribe to horror vacui, filling up a blank space
with detail, rather than trying to be as spare as possible in my writing.
Perhaps as a type of rebellion from the standard viewpoint that poetry should
be minimal or the realization that human behaviour isn’t minimal; it is sloppy,
overflowing and wordy. I spend a great deal of time eavesdropping on
conversations and trying to find ways to translate awkward behaviour of
strangers onto the page. I’m not always sure that minimalism is the best way to
do so. Even as a reader, sometimes I want to be drunk on language and imagery.<span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In Juliana Spahr’s “thisconnectionofeveryonewithlungs”
(University of California Press, 2005), the sentence, by means of repetition
and accumulation, becomes incantatory. The section entitled
“poemwrittenafterseptember11/2001” begins as seven minimal lines made up of one
sentence with lots of space in between. Spahr crowds more and more text onto
successive pages until near the end of the poem when she has a paragraph
of twelve lines made up of one sentence and then back to two-line
sentence at the end, “How lovely and how doomed this connection of everyone
with lungs.”<span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The sentence can be long or short. It can be minimal or
full of detail. It can reflect the breath, the body. In “Je Nathanaël”
(BookThug, 2006), Nathalie Stephens (now Nathanaël) moves between short,
staccato sentences and run on sentences without punctuation to create a tone of
restless sensuality. The book deals with the inability of language to
articulate human experience but also the inability of the body to represent the
self:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><u>Scatalogue</u><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Books don’t show the way but insist on remaining. So how to
leave the book and enter directly into the body ? We are jealous of one
another’s bodies yet we each have one. I would undress my tongue and dip it
willingly into ice cold water would invite you to meet me where the body
becomes transparent where nothing is for sale and everything is given away. I
would invent rude words for your mouth to show you the true colour of blood.
Love in the raw is life renewed. But of this write nothing down not a thing. Be
wary of the heat that emanates from the unwritten page. Everything remains to
be said so long was we have said nothing. Most importantly do not fear dirtying
yourself. love washes the body clean of perfection.”<a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/joseph.labine/Desktop/prose%20essay-2.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[2]</a><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Stanza-based poetry often leaps from one image or theme to
another without any kind of obvious transition. When it’s done in prose poetry,
it feels like a form of rebellion against conventional prose. As soon as we are
taught to write, we begin to learn the importance of logic, of clear
transitions between ideas. Prose poetry fucks with that. Take for example, the
brilliant and versatile Anne Carson.<span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Her writing dances from subject to subject. The transitions
aren’t always straight-forward. This is not a careless mistake, but rather a
deliberate technique, a way to accumulate and balance, to create a collage of
wonder. This method has given me permission to leap in ways that conventional
writing environments do not.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Her ability to transcend the boundaries of genre is
liberating.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Float<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>(Knopf, 2016) is a kick-ass
example of such: 22 chapbooks that float from poetry to essay to fragment,
often within the same chapbook. The work is versatile, playful, thoughtful and
full of language that is straight-forward, not high-fallutin, nor
academic-sounding.<span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Cassandra
Float Can,</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>one of the
chapbooks in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Float</i>, Carson
is interested in “cracks, cuts, gashes, splittings, slicings, rips, tears,
conical intersects, disruptions, etymologies.” She talks of the veils that
cover so-called reality, how translation and even the writing of the sentence
itself can be an act of covering or cutting through surfaces.<span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am currently reading Mary Ruefle’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>My Private Property<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></i>(Wave, 2016), another blend of
essays and prose poems, reminiscent of Anne Carson’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Short Talks</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(Brick Books, 1992) in that each poem
takes one subject and goes off in unexpected directions.<span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The sentence in prose poetry is the conveyor of leaps. Its
rhythms evoke Miles Davis playing horn on Bitches Brew: long, echoing brass or
short trills. It is versatile, rebellious and adventurous.<span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Reading this over, I’m starting to worry that I’m saying I
don’t like stanza-based poetry. That isn’t true. Whatever serves the work, even
song lyrics. Hey, didn’t Bob Dylan just win the Nobel Prize for Literature for
his lyrics? This means I can talk about music as poetry. Hell, I would have
anyway. But thank you, Sweden.<span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Some of my favourite poetry blends lines and sentences,
poem and prose poem. Works such as Oana Avasilichioae’s<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>We, Beasts</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>(Wolsak & Wynn, 2012) move from
single lines on a page to lines that transcend linear space, moving up the page
diagonally to blocks of prose punctuated with periods. When this sort of thing
happens, publishers have a hard time categorizing a book as poetry or prose.
This, I think, is my favourite kind of literary rebellion, a work that is
unclassifiable, that doesn’t fit into a pigeon hole.<span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Wouldn’t it be great if genre didn’t matter? It doesn’t.
Fuck it. </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; line-height: 150%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>Amanda
Earl</b> is a poet, publisher and fiction writer, living in Ottawa. Amanda is
managing editor of Bywords.ca and fallen angel of AngelHousePress. Her books
include “A World of Yes” (DevilHouse, 2015), “Kiki” (Chaudiere Books, 2014),
“Coming Together Presents Amanda Earl” (Coming Together, 2014). Further
information is available at AmandaEarl.com or contact Amanda on Twitter
@KikiFolle.</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/joseph.labine/Desktop/prose%20essay-2.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-CA"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 107%;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span lang="EN-CA"> Rosemarie Waldrop, “Why Prose Poetry” <i>in Lyric Postmodernisms: An Anthology of Contemporary Innovative
Poetics</i>, edited by Reginald Shepherd (Counterpath Press, 2008).</span></span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang="EN-CA"><a href="file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/joseph.labine/Desktop/prose%20essay-2.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="line-height: 24px;">[2]</a> </span></span>Nathalie Stephens, “Scatalogue” in <i>Je Nathanaël</i> (BookThug, 2006).</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-12744314467026537882017-01-02T07:12:00.000-08:002017-01-02T14:22:20.428-08:00PROSE 2<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><b>The Erotic Essay Not Written<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p><b><span style="font-size: small;">Geneviève Robichaud</span></b></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">“...my pleasure never felt done – even when I came, there
were parts stuck inside. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">Pleasure clung to my stomach, it swelled up my throat.” (Tamara
Faith Berger, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lie with me)</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">I think it is not you I desire but how your mouth feels as I
say yes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">I find myself thinking, again, of the kind of erotic essay I’d
write. What kind of essay that would be. Perhaps because of this, I am
rehearsing the part where one body theoretically kisses the other body. There
are several versions of this, each one marked by subtle variations: a spot on
the neck where moans slip out of open mouths, lips pressing into lips, bones
pressing into flesh.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-ansi-language: FR;"> </span><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-ansi-language: FR;">The form isn’t logical or argumentative but associative:
one part links or leads to another. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">I have this image of you. You are leaning in. Your outline
is soft. </span><span lang="FR" style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-ansi-language: FR;">I am thinking that because method also means path, kissing is a kind of pathology:
I imagine kissing you and where it might lead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="FR" style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-ansi-language: FR;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">In different texts, I find
myself writing then erasing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a kiss should
resemble nothing</i>. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">In older notebooks, there are places where the paper
is thin and worn and pilling from the tiny eraser at the top of my pencil. In
those places, </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">a kiss should resemble nothing </span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">is very soft, almost
transparent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">There
is very little that is actually transparent, especially not words, those parts stuck
inside. Even the invisible ones. It makes me wonder if longing alone makes them
exist, or if needing them, the way one needs them written down, is a way of
making them slip onto the skin, glistening. Se mettre à fleur de peau. In this
I seem to have transmuted the task of the essayist into pure obsessional
desire, which is arguably the work of poetry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">Lately,
each time I sit down to write, I stumble into words I had not meant to put on
paper. They appear there like old lovers who, walking in a city none of them
properly belong to, happen on each other at some street corner. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Do you know</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I’ve been looking for you?</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">If
I hadn’t called out you wouldn’t have recognized me. You haven’t changed. </i></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">I
find the words bifurcating into two performances, not necessarily simultaneous:
here the essay carries something outward – its fantasy is that of the caesura,
of a deep and audible breath / a withdrawal / each time thinking the arrival
will claim a new departure; meanwhile, there is always the hope that the end
will make everything that preceded it meaningful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The writing was more monastic than
erotic. I woke up early each morning to write under the measure of a few
devotional hours. That part was easy until the darkness of the winter months
arrived. I sacrificed many words in favour of sleep. I have not measured this
against any feelings of regret even though, as a perfectionist, I tended to
think of sleep as a word-eater. At night I struggled to keep my eyes open long
enough to catch the end of a film, only to then lie wide awake. It was as
though in not starting my day with words I was somehow unable to end my nights.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Every day was different of course.
Some mornings the words came easy. Other days, I had to face my impotence and </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">my whole body wringing itself
out to put one word in front of the other. Sometimes, if I were home, I would
take books from the shelves in the dining room; if already seated in the
library, I would wander into the stacks. This seemed a form of recompense for
not racing to the end of a line but allowing my thoughts to float as though the
contrast between the air in the room and the texture of the books, as I skimmed
through them or ran my fingers over their spine, would reveal which questions
to ask next. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">Does it make it cinematic to imagine it happening to somebody
else?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">There’s
one book in particular. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The End of the Story.</i>
I keep coming back to it. The constancy of my return resembles something of a
love affair. The novel welcomes this. It is itself about the measure of desire,
the measure of writing. I cannot tell if it’s because I am deeply infatuated
with the writing, but I often find myself thinking it is a perfect novel. I
admire the way Davis’s sentences seem to work toward a vanishing point. Like
they’re assembled around an empty middle, a husk or sheath or shell, which is
not really empty – more like what language cannot carry.</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">When
I go to a reading, I find myself distracted and imagining a lively dialogue
between us. You are saying something like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">what
are you doing</i>,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>only<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>you are saying it in French. Je </span><span lang="FR-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-ansi-language: FR-CA;">pense
au roman érotique que je vais écrire. Mais pourquoi en anglais? Autrement ça
risque d’être trop sentimental. Tu ne trouves pas que l’érotisme se marie bien
à la sentimentalité? Non, je ne trouve pas. De toute façon en écrivant en
anglais je me tromperai moi-même. Ça sera un moi à côté d’un autre. Il me
viendra plus facilement de m’imaginer une double vie, même d’écrire contre mes
propres expériences. Quand je dirai je ce ne sera pas tout à fait vrai, et je
le ferai si bien que personne ne pourra dire que je n’ai jamais fait l’amour en
anglais. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN-CA;">Does it show that I want you? That I am writing around
the parataxis I’ve made of your body: a form of writing like kissing where the
mouth is its own kind <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">husk </i>or<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> sheath </i>with words inside. At least that
is my fantasy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">We
kissed each other for a long time. The simile dissolving.</span></div>
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<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I wanted to mark,
to write down a great deal more than what I’ve offered up here. This is not the
essay I imagined. I had wanted to make this, this text (except perhaps not the
one you are presently engaged in reading), a gift to all the others that have
moved me in some way. An essay that writes through and bows to what is not mine.
A writing alongside of. A lover’s essay. It was not a grand gesture. I wanted
the essay to be about love.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">
I’ve been thinking of Renée Gladman’s sentences a lot. Especially <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Calamities</i>.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";">I have begun reading
each essay out loud, mouthing the words so that it takes time. </span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Geneviève Robichaud is a PhD candidate in the Département de littératures et de langues du monde at the Université de Montréal. Her chapbook, <i>Exit Text,</i> was recently published by Anstruther Press.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-4419739540807475642016-12-24T14:52:00.000-08:002017-01-02T14:36:35.394-08:00 PROSE 1<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">Every
Year A Christmas Tree<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Christopher
McCarthy</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">At the Christmas tree farm, two
middle-aged men burn a brush fire. Families newly arrived and hangers-on stand
beside the warmth. Everyone waits for the tractor to come back and take us up the
hill to the harvesting field—row upon row of balsam fir.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve all paid fifty dollars to be driven
up the hill, to select our own best tree, to cut it down and have the tractor
bring it back. It’s an additional two dollars to have it wrapped in netting
afterwards. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The men burning deadfall build up their
tower of sticks. It crackles, sap sizzles and pops. Jolly music plays in the
background. The fire and, at its edge, see a child’s snow suit. Yellow, green,
and purple, mock primary colours. Orange dances around it. The snowsuit’s
collision of colour, its block pattern alone, tells its age. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The arms of the jacket are just back far
enough from the box of flames that they are changing colour, darkening a shade,
and stiffening. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Daylight
fire bright which star will we see tonight?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The
tractor returns with the bimmelbahn, flatbed cars in tow. The driver
circles-semi around the fire, then reverses, bunching up backwards
caterpillar-style. Hop everyone of us on except the men burning the fire, and
older people from one of the other families who sip luke-warm coffee
contentedly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The driver knocks down a milk crate for
anyone needing a boost onto the platform. ‘All on?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We turn away, whiplining straight to go.
Brace seated. Ride. UP, UP, UP, snow but more mud, evergreen Christmas around
our hectic train. Bumps bump. Look up. See a grey-porcelain winter sky. Feel
cold. Hear the choke of the tractor smooth-out as its wheels touch dry terrain.
Out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Step down (some use the milk crate again).
Fairytale style forest appeals to us all. The farmers’ rows of fir—dense and
brush-cluttered— make magic this man-made wood. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Still. There’s no breeze. Jovial talk
bursts, through gloom clouds light shines ready for the tree hunt. Families
break off. Go. Go. Sun shines. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our silence breaks bletchley with the
crunch, crunch, crunch of footsteps treading on the backs breaking hundreds of
snails. There are thousands of snails (not alive) littered on the forest floor.
This is odd. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Why?</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Move to the clearing. Blue blue up, dark
brown down, a Honda stained with earth from the tire up, parked by the tree
line. A yellow sign nailed to a pine reads ‘10’, below it and stump-lined on
either side, ‘reforestation area’, and on the ground here is a skull. It looks
like a rabbit’s head. Pick it up. Hare skull for an art deco piece—a gift for
sister—cleaned and sterilized and some jewels in the eyes. It will stand out on
the day with all the other glitter and garland green. In the bag with the saw
goes it. It goes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hoist up trees and attach them to roofs of
cars. Stand around. The bell jingles. ‘Available. Available.’ The tractor
driver searches for new passengers. No one in the parking lot pays him any
attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A horse drawn sleigh carrying
several tourists passes down a snowy laneway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gloom gloms blue sky with globular grey.
Noon settles. Dirty air smolders with the fire on the far side of the lot.
Adults aver the ‘lovely, fresh trees’ they now secure to their roof racks. Our <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">one</i>, nearly six feet from stump to star,
lost inches to sawdust. Cut fresh and tie tightly. Bow saw bag and bunny trunk
stowed, bundled, we bunch into the back seat. Door swung open to tie.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More and more families get into cars to
go. Dirt mixed with snow makes <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">snirted
mox</i>. Down each exit each family, each set of tires scrawk banal, gone.
Done. Hold breath for exhaust fumes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only two empty cars in the lot now. The farmer’s
Dodge pickup with seven or eight trees strapped in its bed, rusts silently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tucked in beside the parking lot attendant’s
shelter, a yellow VW Bug—almost fifty years old—wheels removed, up on cement
blocks, rusting too. It does not go. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Blue spruce available on this side and
Fraser fir at the other end.’ The bell jingles still.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
fields edge away to become highway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Arrive home. Untie ties. Stand tree in
tree stand. Remove net. Get camera. Snap. Snap. The tree must open up. Leave it
alone. Branches drop down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Out for lunch. Eat eggs and tomato.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>Chat. ‘Great tree.’ ‘It is.’ Plan a
nightwalk in the Christmas market. Those that want it can drink Glühwein at the
entrance as we wait to pay six dollars for tickets to go in. Go. Go. Go. Go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is so dark that the personal only looks
personal amidst the false light, the large, fake tree predominant, and all her
false glimmering stars rising with floating (hanging) jellyfish up the black
sky. Hot pots hiss. Boiling maple syrup is poured to glace over icy snow.
Chatter rings. Carollers on stage sing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eat smoked meat and Käse-Sandwich. Eat Bratchäs
with pickled pepper, sautéed onions, and Schweineschnitzel on a pretzel bun.
Eat Liège style waffles and Kartoffelspiralen swaying on swivels. Eat roasted
pecans, cinnamon-glazed, and Gebrannte Mandeln. Eat chocolate dipped,
dough-fried dessert. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Twirl around each and every vendor. Shop
in shops. Turn to cross through grounds. Skirt round people standing. Avoid
people carrying stacks of gifts not looking. Bear left. Bear right. Skate
across snowy, salted brick. Snowflakes dance down and disappear over cooking
fires, hot oil, over lit grills. Footstep a snowy ballet set to banter and
bouncing Bublé. Crack nuts in teeth. Get back in the car. Nom nom’d in
exultation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He lies in mystery. See black ice on the
dark, dark road. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Skid snowy. Go toward the median. Jaunt
into an otherways turn. Turn again. Turn on your side. Roll. Roll. Roll your
oats over. Overmix the porridge, seatbelt jolt. Pick those glass shards out.
Crash berry blue. One of us has sicked all over the floor of the smash.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sit on a bench for a long time gazing at
real stars. Shock shocks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">How do you know you don’t have a concussion
if you have one but think you don’t?<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">‘Thank
God everyone is fine.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thank Him. Give thanks the car is a
write-off. Give thanks in secret. Give thanks especially that the saw didn’t
loose from the saw bag. Retrieve the bunny head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Arrive home. Undress. Untie bandages. Tie
new ones on. Stand by tree. Decorate. No one wants to sleep. We
laugh-laugh-laugh. This is the fattest fir we’ve ever had. It doesn’t fit in
the room. Its shapeless wide is filled with decades of ornaments. Get camera.
Snap. The tree has opened us up. Drop down. Most go to bed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fire glows embers to cinders to ashen
nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Downstairs, in the laundry room, in the
deep sink, clean the bunny head. Solvents smell. Scrub the eye sockets. Soak
gore. Leave it alone for awhile. Watch TV in the side room. Come back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Drain the drecky dark liquid. Dry dry.
Work the towel into every hole. Sand smooth. Smooth bumps. Take off grit. Apply
linseed oil with a rag. Let dry. Wait. Watch more TV. Hours pass. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Buff every surface. Go back over it with a
higher grade paper. Roughen the sites for the bijoux. Play Bowie’s ‘blackstar’
(at a hushed volume). Stick the fake jewels on. Blacken the eye cavities. Dust
the skull with glitter. Dull the shine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Finish.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sleep late, late into the morning of
Christmas Eve day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>*<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a shrunken head. Wrapped, balled-up
in newspaper, under the tree, tied off at the neck, the gift of a skull. Add a
green bow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">O.
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blonde wig for most of the evening as a joke. Everyone is marked, saddened by
thoughts crashing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Watch more after dinner. Crouch in a
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movie seen a hundred times, watch them again with eyes shut. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seat-jolt awake. Still morning still. No
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up from here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Up the stairs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Grown in the night, she has overwhelmed
the gifts nestled at her base. The tree and the living room are one and the
same being. She overwhelms every ornament hung in adulation. Her bows and
brambles, gold beaded, stretch into the hall, scrape walls, climb stairs,
darken windows with the force of ancient forests. Thousands of years of growth,
grown at a snail’s pace, are, in an instant, covering our house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She encloses every corridor in evergreen
labyrinth. She covers each sleeping family member, wood on wooding the doors to
rooms, greening them, greening them in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Step. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">But
step where? </i>False steps fir fall greening green underneath green. Her
chokehold is an embrace.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Every
year is a different tree, a different feeling, and this year Christmas is sad.
Yes! Our bedrooms, beds, and the living room, the same as it has always been.
All the best to make amends in.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Christopher McCarthy | Toronto | 2016</span></div>
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</style>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-13058443328220458462016-12-24T12:20:00.000-08:002017-01-23T07:11:56.338-08:0050 Days of Prose<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Gently the woodsorrrel and the dove explained the confirmation and guided my return. When I came out of the woods onto the hill, I had pine needles in my hair for a bridalwreath, and the sea and the sky and the gold hills smiled benignly. Jupiter had been with Leda, I thought, and now nothing can avert the Trojan Wars." </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">(Elizabeth Smart, </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Using the quotation above as a dropping off point, for the next
fifty days, Flat Singles Press will publish poems & essays on the
'fullness' language in prose. Gently like the woodsorrrel, but explaining like
the dove, we hope to include many voices, new & old, in our discussion of The
Poetics of Prose (to borrow Todorov's title,) and to probe contradictions,
intersections, similarities, transformations (what Brigid Brophy sees as
"metamorphosis" in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">By Grand
Central</i>). Why does poetic prose remain apart from verse forms? Why does prose seem apart from poetry generally? Is there indifference? Is there maligning? What is
a bad line? Where do we draw the line? How does prose become poetic?</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There are many questions to consider. The answers may take
various creative & critical forms. Our aim is to respond in prose. We
welcome any submissions, particularly those taking up these questions, new
ideas, and the relevant theories & histories through which we may explore
the 'fullness' of prose. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">***</span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">EMAIL all submissions to flatsinglespress@gmail.com with the subject line, '50 Days of Prose'.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-48145994861365950252016-10-25T12:38:00.001-07:002016-10-25T12:54:36.812-07:00"Festival of Readers" derek beaulieu <div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Last week Flat Singles printed a visual poem by derek
beaulieu in an edition of 10, all made on old envelopes commemorating this
year’s “Festival of Readers,” a three-day literary festival in St. Catharines which
ran from 13-15 October 2016. The festival partnered with “The Concept of
Vancouver” Two Days of Canada academic conference series, Niagara Artists
Centre and the St. Catharines Public Library. According to beaulieu, the poem
was “written @ the table, scanned in Calgary, printed in Toronto from introductions
made @ the fest.”</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Link to Flat Singles on <u>derek beaulieu blog</u><i> here</i>:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> https://derekbeaulieu.wordpress.com/2016/10/24/flat-singles-press/</span><br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PhNseJk13Po/WA-zZMPdK4I/AAAAAAAAANM/CrFFMuhvvZMDhDVhjrL2r_-xQhkFtIctwCK4B/s1600/Derek%2BBeaulieu%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PhNseJk13Po/WA-zZMPdK4I/AAAAAAAAANM/CrFFMuhvvZMDhDVhjrL2r_-xQhkFtIctwCK4B/s1600/Derek%2BBeaulieu%2B2.jpg" /></a><br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aEk9yhos21M/WA-zXH2XnSI/AAAAAAAAANE/hh4LTgr_qcs7O7Ldgc6xCFTYxWGSG79nwCK4B/s1600/Derek%2BBeaulieu%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aEk9yhos21M/WA-zXH2XnSI/AAAAAAAAANE/hh4LTgr_qcs7O7Ldgc6xCFTYxWGSG79nwCK4B/s640/Derek%2BBeaulieu%2B1.jpg" width="485" /></a><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 20.286px;">photo credit: derek beaulieu | Calgary AB | 2016</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-9023746002573656292016-10-25T12:29:00.001-07:002016-10-25T12:29:27.500-07:00Another McCarthy Review (Flat Singles)<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;"><b>Review of <i>VANCAL</i> by Christopher McCarthy, Flat Singles Press, 2016.</b></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"><b>By Brittni Brinn</b></span></div>
<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Fikc2PfQJSg/WA-vemFm2II/AAAAAAAAAM0/DMRuMq473QgKazRRLuBI-EelX8h9x0k3QCK4B/s1600/chapbook%2Bcover.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Fikc2PfQJSg/WA-vemFm2II/AAAAAAAAAM0/DMRuMq473QgKazRRLuBI-EelX8h9x0k3QCK4B/s320/chapbook%2Bcover.jpg" width="240" /></a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">We
may think the cover of a book is a promise. In the case of Flat Singles’ <i>Leddy Library series</i>, however, you never
know what you’re going to find inside. The recent chapbook in this series, <i>VANCAL</i> by Christopher McCarthy, is no
different. “Everything you ever wanted to know about UWindsor’s main library,”
the cover reads, accompanied by a full colour image of students enjoying a
study break outside the Leddy Library. It’s a brochure you would expect to find
at an information desk or in a campus Welcome Week package. It blends into the
mundane comings and goings, it promises practical information. It shows us that
poetry is an expert at camouflage, hiding in the everyday, just waiting to be
discovered. It breaks our expectations and laughs with us as we realize our
assumptions were incorrect. We may not get what the cover promised, but after
the initial confusion we do experience a sense of satisfaction from sharing in
this artistic joke.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">VANCAL</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">
is concerned with language, specifically language having to do with city
transit. McCarthy juxtaposes this everyday set of terms with traumatic wartime images.
In the first poem, McCarthy compares a tattered bus transfer to a soldier who survived
the war, clearly setting up this parallel that continues throughout the rest of
the poems. Transit terms like <i>at the
front, report</i>, and <i>service</i>
migrate with startling ease to wartime. We learn in “Vice” that the poem is set
in WWI, where Tom matter-of-factly dies over and over again. Through this fresh approach, McCarthy startles
us into thought about the implications of war by using everyday language
usually associated with transit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">“90 minutes” especially evokes the
experience of riding transit. Flashes of houses outside the window, things
people are wearing, the printing on the thin paper bus transfer are impressions
we can expect from an hour and a half bus ride. The speaker transitions into
wordplay, breaking up “Calgary Transit” into character names “Cal” and “Gary.”
The repetition of “Red” not only refers to Calgary Transit’s “Red Line” route,
but also evokes bloody wartime scenes. Underneath the mundane yet intimate
details of a Calgary bus ride is a societal memory of violence, tying the present
to a past war. McCarthy combines two separate columns on the transfer to create
“700 conditions… 600 Route schedules/ 500 Route maps/ 400 Service announcements.”
These read as an overview of a soldier’s wartime experience: a numerical
collection of drills, journeys, and rules that once added up are overwhelming.
All of these numbers represent potential traumas experienced by a soldier,
whether physical, emotional, or psychological.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">In the last poem, the term <i>alive & well</i> appears. Not clearly
associated with transit, we can assume that this term breaks through language
to the other side of an experience, whether it’s riding a bus or going through
a war. After their transfer runs out and they fail to find an alternate form of
transportation, the speaker, not a usual transit taker, finds themselves a
survivor of the Red Line, faced with another scene connected to war:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"> <a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-THRP1jbubGA/WA-xkwP7ENI/AAAAAAAAAM8/Myre_GboKCEV_upSSSDgQuOqQXabr0u2QCK4B/s1600/final%2Bpage.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-THRP1jbubGA/WA-xkwP7ENI/AAAAAAAAAM8/Myre_GboKCEV_upSSSDgQuOqQXabr0u2QCK4B/s400/final%2Bpage.jpg" width="300" /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">The
workers lying in the shade evoke soldiers side by side in a trench; it also
reminds us of corpses laid out after a battle, or rows of gra<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>ves.
The intimacy of these bodies contrasts the loneliness of the speaker, who has
been on a long journey and has not yet reached their goal. The depth reached by
this simple scene demonstrates McCarthy’s ability to use the everyday to
encapsulate complex personal responses to trauma.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;">McCarthy represents wartime experience through
his breakdown of everyday language associated with transit. He effectively
parallels elements of transit with the details of a soldier’s experience and by
doing so presents a unique perspective on what it means to survive. Just like
the misleading cover of the chapbook houses a work of poetry, McCarthy uses
language associated with transit to consider the deeper implications of wartime
experience and survival.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 200%;"><br /></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-11852759032673153292016-10-24T11:58:00.000-07:002016-10-24T12:08:17.954-07:00Review of McCarthy (Flat Singles)<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif"; font-size: large;"><b><i>VANCAL</i>, Christopher McCarthy, flat singles press, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Toronto</st1:city></st1:place>, <st1:state w:st="on">ON.</st1:state>, 2016. no price, paper. </b></span></div>
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"> <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TDP0jzwiY7o/WA5Xr4Ld1VI/AAAAAAAAAMk/221cHIAxpE8szl9v9l8q_cE61s6tJX-IgCK4B/s1600/VANCAL%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TDP0jzwiY7o/WA5Xr4Ld1VI/AAAAAAAAAMk/221cHIAxpE8szl9v9l8q_cE61s6tJX-IgCK4B/s400/VANCAL%2B1.jpg" width="293" /></a></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";">What
I have here is a twelve page quick chapbook by a postcard writer, who also
rides public transit in person and in spirit. No mention of postcards in this
double stapled offering, though I know personally of his postal
predilection. This chapbook sounds more
akin to automatic writing or stream of consciousness, in which one thought or
event leads to another and another, and so forth. Even so, surprisingly it
snags reality, or what <b>should</b> be
reality, with its motion. The book’s pivot is on a found bus transfer “<i>haggard & torn</i>/ like it had gone
through the war.” “Vice – Tom Cusses” begins as a blurry war poem – from the
front lines a death – scratches its (the poem’s) head in incredulity (“numbers
aren’t substitutes for words”), shifts to hey, “Here’s my bus” and finally
transfers as a call and response.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";">This
transfer You
have survived<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";">is
valid your
first experience<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";">for
the day only survived<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"> the
deception<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"> of
bus transfers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";">Or,
to put it another way: “<i>for one day only</i>/
you must live & die.” Once McCarthy gets rolling he becomes rhythmic. In “<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Calgary</st1:city></st1:place> transit” he verily
sings “Miss the bus/ Miss the cab/ Miss the show/ Miss the internet/ MR
Lonely.” After that “062 rant transfer” sounds more like a chant than a rant,
and “90 minutes” brings us back onboard: “Red sock/Red house//Red rock/ Red
route.” This is fun writing devoid of preciousness and seriousness. It’s
exactly what you’d want to read riding any city’s public transit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="font-family: garamond, serif;">Reviewed </b><span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: garamond, serif;"><span style="font-family: "garamond" , serif;"><b> b</b></span></span><b style="font-family: garamond, serif;">y </b><b style="font-family: garamond, serif;">Andrew Vaisius</b><span style="font-family: garamond, serif;">,</span><b style="font-family: garamond, serif;"> </b><span style="font-family: garamond, serif;">approximately
260 words. (Pictures below.)</span></div>
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"><br /></span>
<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g8tG54ERhY4/WA5XhItmqqI/AAAAAAAAAMU/HxOaucEUi0MuQAhAMSaqy8LYd5uYOsMTQCK4B/s1600/VANCAL%2B3.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-g8tG54ERhY4/WA5XhItmqqI/AAAAAAAAAMU/HxOaucEUi0MuQAhAMSaqy8LYd5uYOsMTQCK4B/s400/VANCAL%2B3.jpg" width="305" /></a><br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zglH8YVCF94/WA5XaXlTdYI/AAAAAAAAAMM/_77JFxR7avEYdXyw8Nc9HLIbrcY7qZt_gCK4B/s1600/VANCAL%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zglH8YVCF94/WA5XaXlTdYI/AAAAAAAAAMM/_77JFxR7avEYdXyw8Nc9HLIbrcY7qZt_gCK4B/s400/VANCAL%2B2.jpg" width="336" /></a></div>
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<br />
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-91712513152741694552016-10-07T10:28:00.002-07:002016-10-07T10:28:28.529-07:00A Look 'Round - a/g REVIEW<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="line-height: 18.4px;"><b>Rev. of </b></span><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">George Bowering’s <i>That Toddlin’ Town / Baby, don’t ya wanna
go?<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i><br /></i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><i> </i>by Joseph LaBine</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> <span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">There is a baseball on the cover of George
Bowering’s latest chapbook from above / ground press. The baseball is a new
Chicago poem in six numbered parts. This little chap is delightful. It complements
Bowering’s classic <i>Baseball </i>(1967),
nearly fifty years after the fact, “The white sphere / turns, rolls / in dark
space” still. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> The new poem, “That Toddlin’ Town / Baby,
don’t ya wanna go,” is ‘set’ during May 4–9, 2016, at “Miller’s Pub”; the “Art
Institute”; a bathroom in the “Palmer House” Hilton; then, down on “Wabash,”
and to a game at “Wrigley,” before finally departing from “O’Hare.” All of
these places are key sites in Chicago but they also form a ball’s trajectory, a
parabolic sequence, or a long weekend stay. The poem is a trip down to Chicago
but Bowering’s poetry emphasizes looking rather than anecdote. (Batters have to
have a ‘good eye’.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> Approached
in this way, the language of “That Toddlin’ Town” seems less effervescent than
its predecessor <i>Baseball</i>. It’s more perceptive,
focused on closer observations, and bleak ones. Number “5.” begins with Bryce
Harper in the ballpark before dropping down for closer introspection, line by
line:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> in a home
run<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> park
saturated<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> with fried
onion smell.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> His shoes<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> were pink
for<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> mother’s
day<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> against
cancer,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> not the
Cubs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> “That Toddlin’ Town” is also funny and playful,
sharing in the humour of Bowering’s original ode to the game, but this time
with a wondrous dose of crankiness:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> What did
they<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">intend in<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">naming the
toilet<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">paper “Envision”?
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">We are all
looking. This is the unifying theme. Bowering simply connects the act of
looking with the imagination. The result is the crack of clean contact between
the ball and—<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> Unless it
or<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> the sky is
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">moving it
can’t be<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">a
skyscraper.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.5in; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> Strong stanzas encouraging us to wonder, like
this one, are tempered by commentary about “cheerless texters” trapped on Smartphones:
“Most people / though are looking / downward at info / they might want.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> Six small, three-stanza sections, six
iconic locations, six days, all looking, making snark-comments, all implicitly dedicated
to the start of baseball season, and it is a pleasure to read “That Toddlin’
Town” as a single poem at the end of baseball season. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div align="right" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-91327555234773025702016-08-02T13:11:00.002-07:002016-08-02T13:15:43.105-07:00Review of Kilby Smith-McGregor <div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">“swelling that anticipates”: Review of Kilby
Smith-McGregor’s</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i>Kids in Triage </i></span></b><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">(Hamilton: Buckrider, 2016)—80 Pages—$20</span></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"> </span></b></span><b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">by Joseph LaBine</span></b><b style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<b><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 16px; text-indent: 48px;"> <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Kilby Smith-McGregor won the 2010 RBC Bronwen Wallace
Award and her debut poetry collection, </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Kids
in Triage</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">, explores elegiac and sorrowful lyric forms.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> The book is a dizzying overcoming. Its media-stained
elegies point to kitschy common fetishes: fear, emergencies, deviant sex,
public and private grief. Smith-McGregor insightfully acknowledges how we value
surface truths. The opening epigraph from Wallace Stevens is a curious
touchstone in regard to this theme:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is a violence from within<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">that protects us from a<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">violence without.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; text-indent: 48px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Stevens’s lines inform Smith-McGregor’s most emotive
poems and, particularly, “The Wife of the Man I’m seeing”:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Gets
hold of me in the shower, slides<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> her
fingers down my ribs and cups<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> my
belly from behind. I’m afraid she’ll<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> jam
her pinky in my navel and deflate me,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> or
pry out the umbilical root and pull.
(58)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Here the title drops down and, as with every breaking line, “slides”
arrestingly to surprise the reader each time: fingers slide, hands cup a
“belly”; breaking the line between “she’ll / jam” quite literally jams the
syntax, the comma “deflate[s]” the sentence; but none of these are more
tantalizing and threatening than the concluding image in the last line of the
stanza, “pry out the umbilical root and pull.”</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; text-indent: 48px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The word economy of “The Wife of the Man” and the
effect of its line breaks make it a great poem. It is one of Smith-McGregor’s
best - mysterious and yet direct, powerful but vulnerable, deeply maternal. In
a small space one sees the driving motifs of the collection some of these
include pregnancy, motherhood, divorce, the entitlement children feel they
have, grief, and both physical and emotional trauma.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; text-indent: 48px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The aim of the more ambitious, technical side of </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Kids in Triage</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> is to catalog impossibilities
/ miscatalog. The headier poems in the book frequently elide clarity, confound,
and confuse the reader. Brecken Hancock notes this is part of Smith-McGregor’s
technique, “to provide a diagnostic manual for the mess of the human condition.”
But many of these poems are bereft of meaning and will leave the average reader
wondering whether or not they are failures. The notes on pages [69-71] help
with some of these longer sequences especially the poems that fail to establish
an emotional connection through the use of the lyric mode, like “</span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Untitled </i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">(NO RADIO)” and “From The
Artist’s Private Collection.” Such academic pieces would be better served in a
thesis or a project where requisite theories and the motives for using them are
outlined more clearly.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; text-indent: 48px;"> </span><i style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt;">Kids in
Triage </span></i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">is a varied debut but the
poems that dare to be conventional (rather than experiment for the sake of it)
show tremendous promise. Smith-McGregor has a seeming predilection for the
spoken word, what Gil Adamson calls her “gusts of cadence [and] fired language.”
Hearing the book’s more muddled poems spoken aloud may draw them out more.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 16px; text-indent: 48px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Charming design by Wolsak and Wynn (and zephyr paper
from Coach House) make </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Kids in Triage</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
an impressive book. The author is also a “freelance graphic designer” by trade
and while the cover is gorgeous in red, and while it anticipates the author’s
ode to the colour with “Red pools. / Red glances. / Red glares.” (26-27); one
expects a little more from the appearance and visual layout of the poems
themselves.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-29355570902799651372016-06-13T13:25:00.003-07:002016-06-13T13:26:10.635-07:00REVIEWS of Lea Graham & Marilyn Irwin (Apt. 9)<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"><b>Chapbooks from
Apt. 9 Press, Ottawa.,</b></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"><b>by Andrew Vaissius</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";">Lea Graham, <i>This
End of the World:Notes to Robert Kroetsch,</i> 2016, 26pp.</span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";">Marilyn Irwin, <i>the
blue, blue there,</i> 2015, 36 pp.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";">The great summer
sport in my neighbourhood is mowing ones lawn – over and over again. Several
times a week. There arises an obnoxious thrum of internal combustion engines
that drown out even the cawing of a crow in the back oak tree, which if heard,
sounds far more intelligent than the engine's whine. Crow pro-vides the
connection with Lea Graham's chapbook. These notes can be interpreted as not
only <i>to</i>, but also <i>about</i> Kroetsch. Remember his novel, <b>What the
Crow Said</b>, in which Vera Lang is brought to climax by a swarm of bees, and
a card games erupts that goes on forever? Lights and siren go off, and to hell
with manicured lawns. This is the world of tall tales and multifaceted
word-stones. The taller the tail the higher the horse. This slim chapbook of
notes presents the reader with the same kind of entertainment: hard to pass up
being dealt in, and harder not to feel a bit diddled with. As any book by or
about Kroetsch is likely to be, this chapbook riots with language and glories
in <i>how</i> a word denotes as much as <i>what</i> that word denotes. “Crows
valentined dumpsters” slows the reader right down with image, and doesn't
forget that now we must take that black wing in hand on a stroll. Later we discover
another line in “A Deviating Elegy for RK”: “The unintentional details of love
deliver us.” It comes together.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";">The book is
dense and requires a close and attentive read because Graham is onto something
here – on about place and place names, and on about from where a writer writes.
Kroetsch taught at Binghamton University in New York for 17 years, but he never
really left the prairie. His best
writing originates from his western experience, but he was far from being
provincial. Graham, like Kroetsch, nudges the reader on with sham, myth, and
guffaw. Enough said simply means think about it – like the weather there's
always more on the way. It is a good thing that such a worthy homage of
Kroetsch comes from a non-Canadian. In an edition of 80, and very lovely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"> * * * * * *<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";">I must say that
an atheist epigraph harkening what might come within the covers is a welcome
change from the usual fare. We are given a profound Neil deGrasse Tyson quote
about how we are make of stardust from the Big Bang. It would be even more
comforting if Irwin made the necessary distinction between science and
technology, but that's a quibble. The chapbook before me entitled <b>the blue,
blue there </b>– the sea and sky? - is a handsome work from Apt. 9 Press. On
the title page under the author's name is a stick and dot drawing of the
constellation Pisces, the fish. In only the second poem, “one fish, two fish”
the author runs to the constellation in a kind of tension, or Mobius strip, or
bounces off padded cubicle walls. Irwin has an engaging sense with her imagery.
In “creature, comforts” - beware of the commas in her poems - she concludes the short poem with the words:
“empties, overflowing”. Empties cannot be overflowing, except as a metaphor, or
more likely here as bottles, not their contents, spilling out of the case.
Irwin succeeds in making a relatively simple poem into a bit of a mystery.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";">In “bingo” Irwin
missteps in the last line. The poem, set up cleverly, includes the bingo call
of I-28 in both French and English, but for some reason to the penultimate
lines “this is community/ no, this is just where we are” she appends “everybody
wins.” But everybody doesn't win, especially in the poem, especially at bingo.
The game is a gamble, and gambles are fraught with mostly losers and pay-offs
for very few winners. Be assured that more poems succeed than trip up. Irwin
writes short poems especially well. These following two are funny-true:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"> <b>poem
for poets</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"> like when
you spell<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"> onomatopoeia<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"> correctly<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"> first try<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";">and<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"> <b>throat clearing</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";"> sometimes
it's just nice to be heard<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard">
<span style="font-family: "garamond" , "serif";">Cameron Anstee
at Apt. 9 Press in Ottawa has done a superlative job in the presentation of
these poets. Both volumes are stitched, and showcase an attention to detail and
abiding concern for nurturing word and writer. Irwin's chapbook comes with a
navy blue cover overlaid with a title strip of textured cream-coloured paper
with feathered edges. On this strip the second “blue” in the title stands out
in a blue tint, though a couple of shades lighter than the cover paper. The
book is long and slim and a pleasure to hold. Anstee chose to design Graham's
book a bit oddly, yet thoroughly attractively. It is executed with a four
square patterned stitching comprising a larger fifth square. Only two thirds of
the book can be spread open, but this doesn't make reading a problem since the
printed material on the pages restricts itself to an easily accessed ½ page.
The cover leaves are black with cream-coloured pages. These two books are
similar yet distinctive publications. They are objects of beauty, and Anstee
deserves recognition for their appearance as well as contents.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="Standard">
<br /></div>
<div class="Standard">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-60130902536168447722016-06-10T13:33:00.002-07:002016-06-10T13:33:23.335-07:00JUNE POETRY<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span lang="EN-CA"><b>These things go to get her</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(For Noam
Chomsky) by Miriam Roberts</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I don’t know who she is</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">but she is under the moon</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">and how can she be under</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">udder the moon<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">when the moon</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">when the moo</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">moon the moovable feast</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">moon centre of my</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">backwards has no</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">top or bottom like I was</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">saying</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">scripting</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">de-scripting</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">scribal</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">the moo-moon and the</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">she go together when I</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">go to get her when</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I’m mooning break</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">d</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">o</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">w</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">n of logic</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">thought terminal ex</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">terminate </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">the language brutes</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Roberts</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 20.286px;">Miriam Roberts | Moncton NB | 2016</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-42159884454275577272016-06-06T13:54:00.001-07:002016-06-06T13:54:48.070-07:00JUNE POETRY<div class="MsoNormal">
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<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The rain pool</span></b><span style="font-family: Charlemagne Std;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<o:p style="font-size: small;"> </o:p><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Stevie Howell</i></span></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Let’s ride on mountain </span><b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">bikes to the haunted house. Empty-bellied <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">ppl drawn<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">to shadows.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Cicadas climb toward concert pitch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Asphalt fumes<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">skinned knees <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">fresh cut grass. Love for anything gutted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A melted toilet<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">hangs in strings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Bubblegum. Porno mags strewn in rubble <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">a post-hoc shrine<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gum whets<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">appetites. So do boys. So does the sun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Where’d they go<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">the family <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">who fled here as united in cause as cicadas. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A superfamily.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Pop quiz: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What’s worse—sunstroke or hunger?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A curfew <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">or latch-key?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">If freedom is chaos, chaos is love. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s love, then.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It’s cool. We swim<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">in the haunted, rain-filled kidney pool<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Coitus is<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">so funny<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">such a sex-ed word for it. Gobs of leaves<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">ghosts grabbing <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">our ankles <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">are reeds in a northern lake. No, were in<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">a reef,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">somewhere equatorial, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">schools of surgeonfish brushing by <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">our limbs, coral.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Harmless as<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">they are beautiful. You never asked<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">to be born.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Neither did <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">the oblong orbit of my mother. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Water trembling<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">the moon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">What we’ve found is as beautiful as <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%;">
<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">it is harmless.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS Mincho"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" /></span></b><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 20.286px;">Stevie Howell | Toronto ON | 2016</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-32136096700002937622016-06-06T11:40:00.001-07:002016-06-10T13:28:29.677-07:00JUNE POETRY<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Lovers</span></b><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">L J Szafarek</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Pain<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">killers are like
pet fish <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">he’s abnormally
attached to <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">she wipes his <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">mouth <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">slightly opened <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">a Victorian
cadaver who <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">watches <i>The National</i> a Man<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">sbridge baritone
speaks<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">in his absence <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">in bed <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">the bottle of
oxy rattles with the urgency of a junkie</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; text-indent: 0in;">she wonders who
will rattle her tonight</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 20.286px;">LJ Szafarek | Windsor ON | 2016</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-91088020293322442782016-05-16T08:22:00.002-07:002016-05-16T08:22:46.754-07:00THREE POEMS by Aaron Daigle<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><b><span lang="EN-CA">Translation </span></b><i><span lang="EN-CA"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Come with your leaves, my brother, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">taste bitter sea. Your words heavy </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> as
Bibles in my stomach.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Sunset bisects forest</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">like a child arranging a plate:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">root-dark vegetables, meat marinated in
day.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A print in your
room</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">flirts with the
forms: calligraphy,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">a blush of ink,
stoking </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">core enough to
feel something </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">missing: hang
short of climax.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">We'll lie like Elijah part to part,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">bodies moulding sand.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">There is so much earth
beneath us.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">7 ways to look at the night sky when
hungry</span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">1. Sunset roasting rare </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">to charred, topped with onions.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">2. Earth's salad dressing,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">flecks of stars in oily space.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Goes down smoother that way.<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">3. Dark chocolate </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">studded with macadamias.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">4. Eat the moon. It's a wafer</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">that'll grow back.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">5. Cream-cloud Venus,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">hung out as a bug zapper,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">reminds us not to leave</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">the oven on.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">6. Clouds, marble swirl of bundt cake:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">bringing to mind the Higgs potential,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">when we first gained weight.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Lovely to have, isn't it?</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">7. Orbits stirred batter.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Fired up the kiln:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">hard-crust planets</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">with moist hearts.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Mould grew soon.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><b>Small Towns</b></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Names glimpsed in passing, jade signs </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">half-eaten by leaves. Worn pavement </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">where roads turn sharp:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">two ruts.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Here, gardens grow </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">huddled behind fences. Sunlight dusts </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">shoulders. His upturned hand. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">They make the best preserves, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">shuttered in dark mahogany. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Date-stamped. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">No phonebooks. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Scraps of paper tacked to corkboard:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">inked over years. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">None crossed out.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Earth, peat-moist: smears </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">on the palm</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">of the hand. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Names, too, are
enclosed.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 20.286px;">Aaron Daigle | Japan | 2016</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 20.286px;"><br /></span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-46557996570328126362016-05-16T07:39:00.001-07:002016-05-16T07:39:07.158-07:00REVIEW of Michael e. Casteels (Apt. 9)<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">On Michael e.
Casteels’s <i>solar-powered light bulb and
the lake’s achy tooth<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><i> </i> Ellie Hastings</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In an Apt. 9 Press chapbook of concrete
poems - beautifully printed, created with a typewriter and ample white space, Michael e. Casteels has
unfolded a landscape. S<i>olar-powered light
bulb and the lake’s achy tooth</i> has weight and density with an economy of
words. With the use of brackets and slashes, Casteels packs in possibility with
minimalism. See for example the title “a (d)r(i/a)ft,” where in a single line he
gives the reader four possible words. Casteels’s economized style is doable
because of his titles, which are often longer than the poems themselves, and
act as their own lines and signifier. This is seen in “moon poem 2” where the
poem’s body is simply “(n/l)ight.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Casteels can also be blatantly literal,
but there is something beautiful and profound in this. In “low moon with owl”
he physically intersects the “owl” with “moon,” also forming the word “low.”
This technique perhaps defamiliarizes the word; Casteels turns word into
object, and the page becomes his canvas, typography his brushstrokes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> The typography is then
visually informing. See “night scene” and “night scene 2” where he creates a
landscape of an owl and moon simply with the placement of three letters; and
the image of (perhaps) a howling wolf, with the placement of four letters.
Casteels is introspective and musing with his type. He manages to turn a question
mark into a fishhook, a period into a freckle, and sketches the sound of water
with the letter ‘o.’ In “where the loon was” Casteels creates an image of a
loon taking flight in water, leaving only ripples with the use of brackets;
his punctuation becomes an objects with a new, unconventional visual
purpose. The author defamiliarizes the word, he also defamiliarizes
typography itself. Though this technique may seem inane and lacking substance,
these poems work for the chapbook as a whole, building on Casteels’s landscape, reflective
and delicate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"> In his economy, Casteels is subtly
dynamic in his creation. His poems build on themselves, forcing his audience to
make connections. See “brushing the dog” which becomes “birds/build/nests.” The
reader is forced to follow this image through, and assemble their own scene.
And this is perhaps one of Casteels best skills – creating a landscape out of
nothing, forcing readers to enter a landscape that only exists in their mind.
Casteels is also generous in his white space. Though some might find the use of
his negative space overwhelming, Casteels moulds his page with attention to
detail; the space allows for awareness of the word as Casteels picks away at
sound, shape, and function. What is really beautiful about this chapbook is its
elegance in form and the type’s seduction of white space.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Solar-powered
light bulb and the lake’s achy tooth </span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">is a gentle piece of art. Casteels is
unique in his ability to form a minimalist landscape with intense effect.
Placid and reflective, Casteels brings a new awareness to the art of type and
the word, making this Apt. 9 Press chapbook well worth the exploration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-15773078866762937462016-04-06T10:33:00.001-07:002016-04-06T10:35:26.990-07:00PHIL HALL IN INTERVIEW<h2 class="entry-head-title" style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 30px; line-height: 30px; margin: 0px; padding: 5px 0px 10px;">
'Phil Hall...and his fantasy job'</h2>
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> the author-generated interview, wherein Hall says</span>:<br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
"Each book is an attempt at redemption or reprieve: how to make virtues of my constant errors.<br />
<div style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
My embarrassments in the past advise me to shut up for good, but they also spur me to attempt further revelations by form."</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
[...]</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
And answers <b style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/books/2015/06/marina-endicott-magic-8.html" style="color: #124e6a; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Marina Endicott</a> <span style="font-weight: normal;">question, </span> "Can you love a book written by a lousy human being?" </b> </div>
<br />
<a href="http://www.cbc.ca/books/2016/04/magic-8-phil-hall.html" style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: 'Courier New', courier, monaco, monospace, sans-serif; font-size: 24px;" target="_blank">Phil Hall on literary house parties and his fantasy job</a><br />
<br />
<img alt="phil_hall_magic_8_social.png" src="http://www.cbc.ca/books/images/phil_hall_magic_8_social.png" />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-87625055780482168222016-01-29T12:38:00.000-08:002016-01-29T12:38:22.976-08:00JANUARY POETRY<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><b> two poems</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><b> Kate Hargreaves</b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Rhino</b></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> Blood</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> Mucus</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> A piece of skin the size of a quarter and the shape of Texas</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> A clot (swallowed)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> A pineapple</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">35 plastic army men</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">A pantsuit</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">A birthday card</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Culture Club</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">A carrot</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Several ladybugs</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">A jar of sauerkraut</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Stitches</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">A painter’s canvas</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Waffles</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Plastic tubing</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">A block of cheese</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">2 5lb weights (one from each nostril)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Spanx</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">A rolled up newspaper from 2016</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">6 popcorn kernels</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">part of an optical nerve</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">3 baby teeth</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> my frontal lobe</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"> a live panther</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">a Christmas wreath</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">a box of tissues</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">a pot of gold</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;" /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br /><b><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span> Taco Baby</b><br /><br /> Taco Baby chews the pits from avocadoes.<br /> Refries string beans on the hot sidewalk.<br /> Burns her feet.<br /> Squirms when the shopping cart collector<br /> rattles by says I just want to eat<br /> you all up pinches her blotchy pink<br /> wrist before snagging<br /> another quarter from the return slot.<br /> Taco Baby’s too round to run<br /> Cracks a cream soda sniffles<br /> on the curbside and thumbs the flyer<br /> for a better sale on probiotics.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 15px;">Kate Hargreaves | Windsor ON | 2016</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-57578229633633529002016-01-29T11:59:00.000-08:002016-01-29T11:59:01.263-08:00JANUARY POETRY<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><b>TWO POEMS </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Frances Boyle</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Shock</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> I am liquid and slippery shiny</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> mercury in my blood</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> I can’t stay in one form</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> for long.</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Light refracts me</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> bends me, spoon in drinking</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> glass.</span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">I shed that shape, shift</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> on broken bedsprings,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> Charge and recharge from</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> the circuit; clear the way</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> for the next</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> brilliant</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"> shock.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">Curiosity’s Gift <u><o:p></o:p></u></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">I.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Scarcity and
all that service, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">his able
friend. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Your attraction
made an inclination dewy<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">light damns bad
heartcourse <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">each point
intent and fixed, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">strange bursts.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Forever lake on
paper. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Begged or
coveted,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">sorrow
dallies. Possess curiosity’s gift: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">a broad
three-bladed snake. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Form images
distorted <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">claws and paws,
face <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">with feathers
fitted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Trace a join,
hard found. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Hate, the
absent thought, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">mines the
hill Feast rover <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">slake silver
woods to prayers, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">made with her
own hands. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">A mother inward
demons <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">receive with
awe. The visit fresh, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">look -- delight
sighs, refuses no gain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">II.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Dark<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">at table every
object<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">used to map a
moment:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">pointed<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">bent<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">fixed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">Canoe of
Japanese snake claws,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">paws of beast
and bird<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">awful trace
joined and polished.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">She discovers a
demand,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">figure imaged
in ivory<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">her own hands<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">pass forward<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">sorrow for
days,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";">bring fearsome
curiosity</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Garamond, serif;">again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Garamond","serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 20.286px;">Frances Boyle | Ottawa | 2016</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-74552489885578468282016-01-29T10:50:00.001-08:002016-01-29T10:50:27.632-08:00JANUARY POETRY<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Dream father<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">Ellie Hastings<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
my nightmare my father<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">is
holding me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">down.
I am stuck<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">for
air, he is spitting in my face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
don’t know what<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
did – broke a cup,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">forgot
to vacuum,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">fell
asleep<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">in the wrong place.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">You
wake me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">from
my fit<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">and
I am unhinged<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">by
my illusion. I know<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">this
is really a memory, but<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">you
are holding me together<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">in your arms<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">and
I know I have returned<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">to
safety. I know I can sleep again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In
the morning<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">when
you ask me what happened<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">in my dream,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
don’t want to tell you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">I
know you will imagine your kindness<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">as
hurt. You will turn your love<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">into
a monster. You will think<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">your
hold is the same<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">as
the nightmare’s. And I am afraid<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">that
you won’t believe</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">your
love is saving.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: 'helvetica neue', arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 20.286px;">Ellie Hastings | Windsor | 2016</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-85972798766812816172016-01-20T13:59:00.001-08:002016-01-20T14:04:25.157-08:00JANUARY POETRY<div class="MsoNormalCxSpFirst">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: bold;">Land
& Tittle</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Christopher McCarthy</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: bold;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">When I read a
poem – or hear it being read – <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">I imagine
it was written as close to me as <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">she is &
listen to</span><span style="font-family: cambria, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: cambria, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> each</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> word</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> land </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">your words
land <i>pretty</i>, <i>close, </i> & <i>so much so</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">I imagine the
poem is a postcard to me<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">solid<b>, </b>speaking well</span></i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">, from some sunny place: <i>silent<b>
<o:p></o:p></b></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">when so many small words lie so close together <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">tiny
spaces in between <i>are even</i>, <i>more,</i> <i>important</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">the little
square for the stamp: </span><i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">silent</span></i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">’s reserved parking space</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">your
correspondence poems - </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">our sending
columns of words</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">which gain <i>meaning</i> & <i>expression </i></span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">from the
quiet</span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">pauses, </span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">waiting</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">late & human</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">so many </span></i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> of your poems
land <i>pretty</i> <i>close </i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">I can hear how
<i>tittle</i> is <i>title </i>no longer:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">superscript spot</span></i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> – small distinguishing mark, <o:p></o:p></span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">diacritic</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">dot</span></i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> on lowercase <i>i</i>
or <i>j</i> –integral, part glyph</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">you remind me
of Fr. Patrick, the priest,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">who wrote
‘Ponc’, which is the <i>point</i>, <i>dot, <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">&<i> tittle, </i>it begins: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> ponc mé – <i>I point, I dot, I tittle<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> but I leave in a gap
after me<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">we correspond
like <i>that</i> small distinguishing, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">marking the
dot over top of the <i>i</i>,<i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">the space after it, <i>not one</i> <i>t–too much</i>:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">cut</span></i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> <i>i</i>’s <i>head off,</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">go to l<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">kick away j</span></i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">’s<i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">soccer ball</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">tittle </span></i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> sounds too
much like <i>diddle</i>,<i> </i>&<i> </i>‘Ponc’</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">sounds more
like <i>punk
</i> or worse, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">spunk</span></i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">but there are
too many poets, writing poems<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">to spoiled,
aging priests, <i>defrocked</i> & <i>hopeless<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">no, <i>not that</i>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle">
<span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"> </i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">cut</i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">
</span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">i</i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">’s </span><i style="font-family: Cambria, serif;">head off,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">three i</span></i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">’s <i>grow up in its place</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">kick away j</span></i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">’s<i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">soccer ball<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormalCxSpMiddle" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<i><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">pass it back </span></i></div>
<i style="text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span></i><i style="text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span></i><i style="text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span></i><i style="text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span></i><i style="text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;"> </span></i><i style="text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-family: "cambria" , serif;">start a game</span></i><i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></i><br />
<br />
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 20.286px;">Christopher</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 20.286px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 20.286px;">M</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 20.286px;">cCarthy | Toronto | 2015-2016</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-77594449461373894652016-01-05T12:19:00.000-08:002016-01-05T12:19:38.960-08:00JANUARY POETRY <div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; margin: 0px;">
<b> </b></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; margin: 0px;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; margin: 0px;">
<b> never a how or why</b></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; margin: 0px;">
<b> by Pearl Pirie</b></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> Rumi said, <i>The china doll in us, at some point, will no longer break.</i> </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> presumably, we will be powder for the horn to make magical healing,</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> placebo dust for every which wind-up. because us being crushed</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> will make everything all better, yeh? were Rumi’s shoulders the first </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> to load that hooey brick, or some well-intentioned translator? </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> monologues ignore their audiences. do you feel ignored? sit, have a tea.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> I’m thinking of you and trying to be risqué . I suspect you of making</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> sow-ear purses by night from all those pigs your parents killed</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> and blamed you for. because children’s tears look like a satire</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> of parent’s own grief and by cutting themselves thru you, release.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> within all the pain that they called virtue, you learned well </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> the language of the crib. and because you walked with it, think </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> it’s good company. nobody really cares so go ahead, entertain </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> yourself. but ask nothing of me. Noguchi or Pound. which are you? </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> a what-knot of knowledge: this book is copiously researched. up for it?</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px; margin: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> Pearl Pirie | Ottawa ON | 2016</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-53800317833566566922016-01-04T08:20:00.000-08:002016-01-04T09:45:43.050-08:00JANUARY POETRY<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><b>You There</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><b> by Tom Dilworth</b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I am putting you
into this poem</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and keeping you
here.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">You dislike
constraint, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">but how different
is this from being</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">in your body? in
the world?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Obviously it’s
not enough for you</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">to be here as a
pronoun. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So take your pick
of an image in a metaphor:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A stick of
chewing gum, a snowflake, a sliver of light,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A piece of
gravel? </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">pond-scum? </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">a bridge? </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">One of these
please.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A bridge
then—Boethius, too, liked that one. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But which?
Brooklyn Bridge, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">is already famously
taken. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">How about the
Mackinaw Bridge, immense </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and beautiful?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">We feel you sway,
the wind pulling us into itself</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">for delivery to
distant whitecaps. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">We cling to you,
O Mackinaw Bridge, <br />
especially those who panic halfway across. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Others traverse
and vanish. The waters below </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">pass from
Superior and Michigan into Huron, Erie, Ontario, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">the St. Lawrence and
the sea, <br />
but you remain</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">like landscape.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This poem is your
strait. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Or be a peach,
sexy, delectable, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">a juicy Angelus, hot
with sun </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">but virginal,
still on the branch,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">softening, sweetening,
just for me I’d like to think </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">but know better. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This poem is your
tree.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Or a bullet fired
from preverbal casing </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">into the warm
body of these words. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">As they cool, a
plump young forensics expert </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">digs towards you
unsuccessfully </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">because you
transform </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">into a diamond at
the bottom of a mine shaft</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">which collapses—<i>kaboof</i>—</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">burying you
forever, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">deprived of air
and light, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">unaware of ever
having been lead or human,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">impervious to the
forensics expert’s corpse<br />
above and oozing.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">You dislike
blood. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I knew you’d be
hard to please. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A bee, then, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">furry, humming,
heavy with pollen, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">dreaming of honey
and the queen, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">remembering the
way to daisy fields </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">ready to dance
directions. This poem</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">is your hive. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Welcome home, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">bumping and
rubbing the others. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Or try a word of
some distinction:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">indefatigable?
delirious? </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Not biliousness.
And not duress, <br />
since you can’t be here under yourself.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">How about
impervious from nineteen lines ago? </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">No. Then thong?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">What’s wrong with
thong? </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Ok, so no one’s
going to wear <i>you</i> between butt
cheeks.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">If you were a
thong you wouldn’t mind </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">but I guess
you’re not.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Consider
prepositions. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Some have class. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I recommend
thence or whence, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">forgetting here
and now. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">No, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">because you want
to be noticed. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Yes you do. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This is no place
for false modesty.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Rambunctious? No,
too Roman.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Ululation, then?
that lovely barbarian </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">always on the
losing side. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Of course not,
what was I thinking?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">No single word
fits, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">not even your
name.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">How about a
simile? like puddle-glimmer of gasoline,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">brighter than the
pond-scum you declined. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Or like the hot
surprise when you first touch dry ice,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; text-indent: .25in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">like sunrise over snow,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">like
chewing foil that wrapped the gum you wouldn’t become </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> in line ten (how soon they forget),</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; text-indent: .25in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">like a typhoon tightening shrouds between top tree and futtock </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Ok, forget that, you
who won’t be a thong. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Or like the
butterfly kiss of a lover’s eyelash on your lower lip, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; text-indent: .25in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> but then it couldn’t be your
lip, could it?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I guess you are
like nothing else.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A nuance would
suit, but how do I manage that</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">for someone so
enigmatic. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Let this poem be
your composite innuendo, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">the opaque
envelope of your mystery, implying </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">but not revealing
the truth and goodness at the heart of you, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and hinting (I
think I can manage a hint) at your longing </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">for the beauty that
you lack. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; text-indent: .25in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; text-indent: .25in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">‘Like this poem,’ you’re thinking, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; text-indent: .25in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">or its writer. (Have we met?)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Let this, then,
be me forgiving you, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and pardon by all
you ever knew, for everything. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Let this be the
verse where you deposit guilt <br />
when you go (as you will)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Oh, but you’ve
left that verse, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> a
missed opportunity.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in; text-indent: .25in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Ok, then when you go from this stanza,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">put guilt aside, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">shove it into
this gap </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 2.25in; text-indent: .25in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> brimming with molten lava</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">—there, it’s no
longer yours and now no longer itself. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">How does it feel
to be innocent again?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> You never were?</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">For the first
time, then! <br />
Even better.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And to think I
had to drag you into this.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And now<br />
just for you, a house with high ceilings </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">and many windows,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">a view of green
fields full of wildflowers</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">(where your bee
hummed), <br />
fields alive with unmetaphorical butterflies, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">commas, say, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">extending to
hills and virgin forest</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> (all virginity in this poem </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> is metaphorical)</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">where you can
roam or run, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">young again, with
a sweetheart, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">gorgeous, witty,
cheerful, kind, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">just your type. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And above, a blue
sky with Simpson-puffy clouds </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">where you can
fly. Yes, try, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">extend your arms,
lean forward, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> There—
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> you’re
off.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Soaring, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">
in serenity interrupted only </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> by
bubblings of joy. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">See, this isn’t
such a bad poem to be in.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I know, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I know, you want
your liberty, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">but how free were
you ever? </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">sovereign mostly
over attitudes.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So choose one and
don’t complain.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">unless that’s
your choice.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">All right, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I’ll tell you
what, </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">when you wish to
stay, then </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">you’re free to
go.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .75in;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Tom Dilworth | Windsor ON | 2016</span></span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-61784143332315307492015-11-30T07:51:00.001-08:002015-11-30T07:51:11.631-08:00NOVEMBER POETRY<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 15.3333px;"><b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">colour in blue</span></b><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman, serif;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 15.3333px;">Priya Bryant</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">I. ONTARIO</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">how can you write a
love song when you’ve never been in love? <br />
easy, darling, just copy the way they snap their fingers,<br />
like t</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">his –</span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">II. ERIE</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">trampling the kelp
corpses into another world<br />
the glass cuts our pebbled feet.<br />
even those soft pink cathedral arches cannot escape.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">III. HURON</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">quiet ripple now, book
stacks. silence never warmed to you but it will sell you the <i>Collected Essays</i> <i>of George Orwell</i> for four dollars, no more, no less a child because
you ripped out your own seams, because you crumpled like moths I slam through
my open window, babies whose leafy flutter stains expensive carpet<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">IV. MICHIGAN</span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">alone again. a mud-churned
gasping. a shaking turn;<br />
your Arthurian rise through strangle-green muttering algae, your sodden
freckles, your hair-drip as you light a cigarette. embalmed rage,
splinter-quick.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">V. SUPERIOR<br />
</span></b><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">you think that fate is
an old man, eyes waterlogged with age, but you are wrong. fate is a teenage
girl. she blows translucent pink bubbles and giggles when they pop. she kisses
the wrong boys in dark corners, inhales the wrong aftershave, burns tequila
stripes, rum shivers down her throat to forget. </span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">cliché holds her
hair when the bile fights back.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">fate swings her legs open as she curses God and
his botched creative streak, how he left her to pick up the fag-ends and empty
cans. fate is frightened of the future. she is the most frightened of all. </span></div>
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<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: xx-small;">Priya Bryant | North London | Fall 2015</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-76279783943333267732015-11-20T07:44:00.001-08:002015-11-20T07:47:24.164-08:00NOVEMBER POETRY<i><br /></i>
<i>Two Philip Marley Poems </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
<b>not titled</b><br />
<br />
With the rich missed<br />
for the last time, and<br />
our eyes wiped of<br />
grief, the gazing up, over,<br />
done, and our homes now<br />
facing Babylon; — it seems<br />
time to let out the pink rabbits;<br />
sing for what’s unbidden;<br />
sight the silent hoof in dim<br />
moonlight; brush; ask<br />
the time of every home in<br />
Bedlam; fling back the trollies;<br />
wave our handkerchiefs as<br />
hammers; and come back<br />
through the same eye of<br />
the needle.<br />
<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
<b>An Ontology of Chairs</b><br />
<br />
the image of the<br />
child dancing on<br />
a narrow chair,<br />
stamped as the<br />
seal of the universe.<br />
<br />
wide chairs at<br />
the tops of stairs<br />
to protect us<br />
from dreams-<br />
within-dreams.<br />
<br />
when you licked<br />
my face<br />
because our chairs<br />
were<br />
touching.<br />
<br />
that raised chair<br />
for those<br />
who have the Latin:<br />
sedes.<br />
<br />
any fire you<br />
set that<br />
burns a chair<br />
a potential<br />
reader.<br />
<br />
the child<br />
dances until<br />
Tereus eats<br />
alone<br />
at his ancestral chair.<br />
<br />
though I tremble<br />
with the thought<br />
of being eaten, any<br />
lone chair wrings out<br />
my death.<br />
<br />
all the hard<br />
bones carved<br />
into us; half-<br />
blind from chair’s<br />
truing.<br />
<br />
too many<br />
chairs<br />
have been asked<br />
to hold<br />
a mind together.<br />
<br />
a blue heron<br />
on a chair— still,<br />
calm, heedful —<br />
my thin legs,<br />
my wings.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Philip Marley | Toronto | Fall 2015</span></i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05413393175277664989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7961321480181974127.post-66064236158288305302015-11-03T11:39:00.000-08:002015-11-05T13:40:33.715-08:00NOVEMBER POETRY<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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