They knew him
like
So stunned by
your
And how dare
it
Because we never have
very
But if s/he
only
Troll, you
trawl
Shhh
I object to your secondness
your leaving
autumn slippage
yellowed paper
small
pressed
Sick of signage
turn left at Ayer’s Cliff
stick to the side road
trail any direction
All roads, side roads
all text, signage
All seasons, autumn
all memories, winter
Steven dreamed of you the very second
you died
(So the poem goes)
and you may have visited him
But I’m pretty sure you don’t believe
in poems
Home is where the arc is
home is where the arch is
Begin with digression
rerun of the archons
Alone in ink and whiskey
wasted well on paper
Obliterate this order
eliminate signatures, signifiers
Make it sense –
home is where the chart is
Domiciliation dance
constrained in little rooms
Tied up in theory
so cold on consignment
Dust gathers
librarians dust
He’s dead
Too much displacement
not enough condensation
You have texts
to be completed
Left them on a
jump drive for us
Archive key
Terrible symmetry
sorrowful telemetry
Start again with
signatory stature
Make nice with
old signposts
Make strange with
odd likenesses
Make new icons
drop old habits
Proceed without familial
consent
Rob,
Jay, Dave and I
stashed all the expensive
whiskey at your wake.
Not sorry,
Jonny
It’s over
The invalid townships
insist
The sickening tenured
posit
Let it rest
no more mythologies
Stash pain
in a volume of poetry
Where no one could possibly
find it
I miss everybody
Me too
Where are the other senses:
the sick twist of what you strain through metre
The feelings, notions, street corners, alcoves
jargonistics, sidewinders, string theories, me too
Flesh and no lungs appalling m’appelling
never no gerund me fixate when and recalling tome
Question for every sense and infinite use
despotism of the finite and drink it, slam it toward me
Yeah, Robert, I feel you, want you holding on
me too
Composed in 1946
compost in 4/4 time
Then
comprosed –
a new verb
wicked and defiant
Missing you
Send in the nouns
Transprairie
(A Post-Prairie Suite)
The open prairie conceals a chasm.
– Robert Kroetsch
in that person is a site
dreaming of floods and rivers woke gagging
– Jessica Grim