Another of me is
not. But this is as it should be.
Stillborn. In the wings the ghost
waits for a body,
another body.

Another of me is
running beside, behind, wherever,
binding strings to ever-failing
hooks. Loss of feeling
but a step, a step,
another step.

Another of me is
scraping the sky’s square feet,
hand in setting concrete,
hand over the reins,
a taller, taller, taller, ever taller almost
another meter.

Another of me
holds the gun.
Centre target,
not to be outdone.
She tries, tries, tries,
the metal’s hot:
a new clip,
another shot.

Another of me
can’t hold it together. Ball of wax, blazing sun, line breaks
and it’s done. Words don’t make sense, senses don’t make words.
Poor translation. From the tongue to the tongue or the keyboard.
Either way, there is no way. There must be a way. Not this way.
Another way.

Another of me
wrote is all down and forgot it.
Better to say what passes for nothing.
How are you – how about this weather! – how’re the dogs -
could have done without that snow – Leafs are out of the playoffs -
did you get that thing you were looking for – are you slowly dying -
but afraid to tell anyone that you’re slowly dying -
are you a prison unto yourself full of words that must one day tumble out -
will they tumble out of you into a stranger -
will they break free one day -
my goodness that traffic -
should have taken the 403 -
doing well – another dollar
another day.

Another is me
looks back at you. He asks,
“What have you read? What does it mean?”
And you say,
“It means what it means to me.”
He is frightfully angry because you
are wrong. Wrong!
But there’s nothing he
can do about it but write
another one.

Another Of Me Is Better At Titles originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-04-07.

Yours
are effects that precede causes,
spooky action at a distance,
a furious bubbling into and
out of existence.

To you
I dedicate Newton’s still-moving heart,
the antique, inadequate design.
With love, to all the yous
I’ve discovered.

Quanta originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-03-24.

The Stained Glass originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-03-08.

but

fruit weighs down branches
and falls to the ground

a tree grows that is a great tree
but is also a great forest
an outcropping rises that is
a great mountain
but is also a great range
of mountains

and

this is not what we
thought would
happen.

The Two Become One originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-03-07.

Supressing the Critic originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-02-25.

Before the I that is I was the I that was,
in prototypical amneosis, on transfer paper,
words chiselled to bend straight the I
or bend crooked the I
or it’s more complicated than that;
phrases that begged only to scream
and it will appear, lemon in their infancy,
a first suckling sentence;
in the I that was not was that I that is,
also, ahead of all and behind it,
frost settling itself paragraphs,
fog clearing but traces itself chapters,
whose well-worn pages are the I that was
and the I that is and the I that will be
doomed to repeat it.

Movement 1

These are fingers and these are toes
and these are the planes on which they go,
a mobile object lesson: get as far as you can;
these are numbers and these are letters
and together they can you can if you want to;
eventually pick one or the other
or the other if you pick the other
or the powers of two if you pick the one;
every other finger
every other toe
goes home.

Movement 2

For seven uneven years I saw the chip where it had bounced
and skidded into the corner; every time my toe slid into the groove
I’d recall the few inches I dared not cover,
sometimes cursing sometimes blessing sometimes
absent-mindedly doing the bare-metal calculations;
there still my concrete Jesus is the absence
of something, though those who walk on him now
do not stuff their prayers into the gap;
someone else owns it now: perhaps they
feel that fulcrum, now, where I was made whole.

Movement 3

Round the pole, round and round the pole
I swung under trellis and grape vines
until wine sprayed from between my toes;
a broken bottle in the grass:
oh who has done this wonderful thing!
the white coated soldier coolly took
a spear to my flesh;
I was dead to the world for three hours
till I woke again, and in the black art of it
I still don’t recognize myself.

Interlude

The tangent is determined by measurement;
the instrument, however, is imprecise.
If the system is large enough, we can predict outcomes.
We are too small to notice, then,
and call it freedom.

Movement 4

First of many wounds or wound of many firsts
I am still not sure; shoeless in the orchard
you turned into a pillar: looking back
I call you Carthage or high blood pressure.
The law broke as I touched you,
inscrutable tablets crumbling on my lips:
Thou shalt not, but I did and the glory departed,
a crane tumbling headless to the ground.

Movement 5

Bless the Lord O my body & soul
and forget not all his benefits:
there will be no fillings in the new Jerusalem,
and no Powerpoint presentations;
there will be no budget requirements,
and no boards of review;
there will be no timeclocks
and no shiftwork;
there we be no acronyms
and no acrimony;
but O dear heaven
let there be dogs!

Movement 6

There and back again and there and back again
and there and back again again;
feet of clay mixed with iron and you have
worn them clean to the knuckle;
how many ridiculous hoops on fire before
I’d burn the whole thing down just to show you
who’s boss is whose boss?
Shifts in perspective and I felt each acutely
in the peppermint vomit over the side
of my porcelain Picasso,
in the frenzied stuttered hammering to keep
the charred timbers and holy sheet afloat;
the idol falls, the axe is laid at the root,
and I am stumping for a new vessel.

Epilogue

Before the we we are we were the we we were,
in starlit amneosis, encased in carbon;
now, when you are to me like oxygen to fire
to a city made of matchsticks
to a world of crumpled newspaper,
I can only admit to the movement that
brought me to this place;
soon enough, my love, soon enough,
but not soon enough.

An Autobiography In Six Movements originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-02-24.

Whiskey quiet. Cigar quiet.
The house murmurs as it settles in
for the night. Planets and stars
listen and nod. Lungs that whisper,
mind that hums, heart that
mocks, take heart.

All the good people have died.
Your memories of them soon to die as well:
Tablets of untranslatable laws
fall from their pedestals,
paving the way
forward.

You know whose silence this is, then,
and how it will break slowly,
like a breath you can only hold
for so long.

Good Night originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-02-22.

Leave behind any words you want to learn.
Become a child. Unlearn the syllables.
Let them fall around you like leaves.
Bare branches. Beautiful.

Throw them away. Refuse
to use them. Become blind
and deaf and dumb and
whatever it takes

to say it.

To Say It originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-02-19.

mississauga originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-02-13.

You grin, I’ll bear it,
10-carat

or more. Sold every last jewel.
Went back to school

and studied you. Passed.
Cast, re-caste,

but I got the part.
Moving picture, art

with mass appeal.
If this is real,

it’s better than the dream.
And… scene.

Career Change originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-02-04.

I wish I had not
so zealously erased
all the hard drives.

2.

I wish there was a way
to capture the monotone
characters and
write them down.

3.

I wish that I had more
but not too much more
than I have now.

Three Wishes originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-02-03.

one unadulterated
moment of joy

unscripted
unfiltered
full speed

unpunctuated
by humdrumming
mechanics

mechanics originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-02-02.

I’m not sure how to make
you

mundane.

I’m not sure if
I want
to.

Magic originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-02-02.

Not long ago you could
have broken the mould,
disrupted and remade
anything.

The camera swivels and
you instead peer through.
The names you chose
swirl around your feet.
Eye of the storm,
eclipsed.

Your greatest work:
A river runs through it
to shape the landscape.
Methodical remodelling
in relentless silt.

The camera again swivels
and you are stuffed into a noun,
empty, crumpled, leached.
Broken, like a mould.
Disrupted and remade.

Your small temples emptied
of worshippers and then of gods.

Your greatest work:
a recording of voices,
a photograph of faces,
a video of movements,
a hammer and its nails.

You are in none of them. Or,
you are in them all.

Life Story originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-02-01.

a man weighing a
couple options.
Comical indecision,
caution.

Still, now there
are four paths to choose.
No matter what,
you lose.

Free Will originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-01-28.

An observer draws something.
A list of qualities.
Thought & perspective.
Satisfaction that converges
on your ignorance of it.

The Finer Arts originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-01-28.

I breakfasted on scrambled eggs
and maple bacon. I shaved.
I mundaned. I humdrummed.
I fell asleep and dreamed

that a corn field rippled
like a sheet of wind and
woke to eddies of tall grass.
I mowed the lawn.

As if you’re inverted she says.
Six months she says.
Everything different she says.
She says and says and says.

After the war I felt nothing.
I came home to the empty
as it had ever been.
Nothing missing.

( ) originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-01-28.

Litany & Such originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-01-27.

The gifted horse,
the curse,
the sudden,
the inevitable
invasion.

Story originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-01-21.

I deny a tiny man rounding
a capital h shouting obscene
truths. What is truth?
I deny it, convincingly.

I deny a kettle crowing on the hill,
a tiny man making t, snarling,
I deny giants. I calculate density.
I perform experiments. I am methodical,
I am undeniable precision, I am perfect
shapes and weights and ratios.
Therefore. Therefore. Therefore I deny.

Deny originally appeared on We Should See Other Blogs on 2011-01-21.