The Ends of the Earth Read online

  your hand reaches in and levels a day upward

  TRANSFORMATIVE

  triple power stacks black fractious

  an edge against the sky strips and connects

  your vaunted moment to the next

  what zings one to another what buzz

  up in a head tremors slightly or calls

  out loudly with 167 times pleasure

  you push and the response is unpredictable

  a risk of shock or the certainty of light

  leaves you right here looking away, looking up

  PLAINTIVE

  lines volt another ephemeral gesture

  sounds rise always from leaves and stones

  pushed down, pushed around, stepped on

  what green blasts through your mind

  today a restless wandering carries you

  blurs the edges of a scene black dream

  you keep a sidewalk crack to slip under or step over

  you do not wanna break some momma’s back

  an urban beat, a wail bursting inside you

  MISSIVE

  light simplifies a complex grid

  worn but illuminated holds a space

  where your hand warms lines above some cloud

  what slices a moon open now

  or trees ragged in window edges

  to mark your tableau render your scene

  you pull black forward wash a blue

  slightly to set a delicate nature

  in the frame of this warmish day

  PERSPECTIVE

  port city sparks lift or heft

  yet plunges at least three times

  grey sky or mountain blue or not

  what sculptures a port city

  more than you sparking red again

  up and up tri-symmetric spectacle

  you photo document urban moments like

  colour striates red upward, your perspective

  pulls forward against a day like mine

  COLLECTIVE

  lines pull forward to frame a flight same time every

  evening lunges a swung swoop a territory arrested

  your development attests a swooning I felt flung such sky

  what unseen hand parts the ways of delicate bones so

  hollow and scorned so scavenging an ultimate relief

  yet stiff and ready to return again to me here, right here

  your contrast brightens a dull night cuts a grey drizzle

  that seizes an artifact from wreckage and beauty

  in the urban realm lining it up collecting it for me now

  Section III: MONUMENTS TO AUDACITY

  for Brennan @ 17

  1. Monument: Propeller in the park at Horseshoe Bay

  Feathery in a mindscape way

  light but still trying to be brighter

  sweet says what falls between us

  you smell good sometimes

  creases where teen sweat resides

  but also folds of baby skin talc

  it’s ridiculous to say you’re all ages

  even if you are walking/driving away

  if you say you’ll be back by noon/by midnight

  you eat a lot and at all hours drink

  milk again by the gallons or litres make

  yourself food poured from cans

  so much to tell you now that you’re

  not listening so many books read out

  loud, loud! and louder: get to the point

  sooner in a cracked open way

  no strength to tickle so much taller

  and for all that towering, lording over

  2. Monument: Tree encased in pavement, Granville Street

  Sun, in a Vancouver way

  that is, prepositional, get it?

  between the rain

  descending you were always my reason

  for being here/even as a speck, a dot,

  a fingernail’s width like they say in books

  love poured over you, yes, like rain

  anger too a glass smashed against a brick

  fireplace you felt the tightening

  why pretend otherwise just say it all

  before they say it for you: anticipate

  rage gauge your own response now

  unfurling people will connect you

  to trees, to paths, talk about journeys

  clichés balm the unknown but really

  a hand on a steering wheel/a ripped bus ticket

  is more like it: I held you with the palm

  of my hand your head heavy on my chest

  3. Monument: Log house, Magna Bay, British Columbia

  It is hard to be happy in fall before

  your favourite season depth of snow:

  I’ll call you from the beach where I am

  I still say wear a helmet, take a jacket

  you still tell me when you’re leaving

  still hate to be the subject in language

  and don’t like performances: transform

  napkins into flowers, cranes at the back

  of the room/draw what no one will see

  light again, but this time an ache where you used to be

  a cloud between us but white and somewhat fluffy:

  lying on our backs in Magna Bay the sky moving

  always a truck or a bird/truck or bird

  rubbing your back until you fell asleep

  woke up so early my head rattling with caffeine

  sky wet with falling leaves now raucous yellows

  shiny red and orange slicks and still green

  where you navigate your own awakening

  4. Monument: Digital billboard — Burrard Street Bridge

  I want to say you’re fabulous

  say thanks for passing through

  I knew “[my] children were not [my] children

  but life’s longing for itself”

  what the hell is that supposed to mean:

  damn prophets and what they always take away

  you are the word independence made

  tangible arms of it legs of it/a strong spine too

  I want to say I’m not worried about you

  spray paint my faith in you across every brick

  wall billboards of wonder at our collaboration

  I want to say I’m on your side, I’ve got your back

  pushing you on a two-wheeled bike for the first time

  wind in your wavy brown hair light in your golden eyes

  I want to maintain these pictures in my mind

  monuments to audacity to think I could have it all

  to think for a second I have it all breathe breathe

  in the palm of my hand/I have it all

  5. Monument: Abstract dot works Eli Bornowsky paintings

  Anticipate the day you leave, for practice

  it is a break in contemporary terms

  light says what falls between us

  you balk at the few rituals available to us

  won’t wear cap and gown your curls pushed

  flat tie a shoelace for a headband instead

  spend the photo day sleeping in refuse

  again to be tied down won’t wriggle

  like Eliot’s butterfly sprawling on a pin

  what you know already is so much what I

  know so little in comparison: it’s okay I

  can hold the blame for now my hands obtuse

  if I could paint, I’d talk to you in pictures

  dripping and thick saturate the canvas in

  light layers:
absolve what’s below the surface

  I show you photographs instead days when you

  were young/demanding/precious/shifting your

  sense of self: a balaclava/knight/astronaut suit

  6. Monument: Log carved “you are here,” Riley Park, Calgary, Alberta

  Denude the cause: it’s completely natural

  that you’re leaving, but so crunchy in the chest

  we know too well that the heart is just a muscle

  how it can still fuck things over by blocking up

  burning down and stopping the progress: a doctor

  once told me your heart had a murmur

  I’ve imagined it whispering to me ever since

  muttering slights, articulating plans: it’s physiological,

  just the way your blood flows, but obviously

  I cried because of your dad’s wrecked up heart

  and his dad’s and his brother’s and his mom’s even

  but yours has proven strong surviving every single

  adrenaline rush you give it flying through the air

  the end of a bungy cord suspended in blue

  among my desktop photo display, I planned

  for this break, logged the day: Friday the thirteenth,

  ironically on calendars, in flowery notebooks, here

  on this blank page where we have always lived/breathed

  7. Monument: Times Square, New York

  I know I didn’t raise you perfectly, didn’t even

  try sometimes: let you cry a second too long

  didn’t listen at the right time to stories

  about boys arranging fights, I didn’t argue

  with teachers enough didn’t sign you up

  for the right activities on time maybe missing

  what you could have been playing a violin

  a black turtleneck sweater living in New York

  your girlfriend a flautist in the row ahead

  I want to say what’s between us is wood

  like Rich said with a gift for burning

  want to bring the contradiction into language

  to say I am near and you are far and I’m also

  far and so on: I want to crimp that

  transparent thread, but I can’t break it

  I want mountains for you, deep deep snow

  while my back sinks into sand on the beach

  transposing climates to play out this slow turn

  Section IV: THE ENDS OF THE EARTH

  FROM “A CASTAWAY” BY AUGUSTA (DAVIES) WEBSTER (1837–1894)

  poor simple blog

  no one cares

  as the saying goes

  what you had for lunch

  it is not gen X to ask

  for so little but rather rack

  a larger scope or at least

  care about the bees dying

  as if I could be the veiled

  future in France or iron w/

  starch oh fresh laundry

  whither your blowing sheets

  a looking-glass answers? in

  what soaked out universe

  ripe with unctuous glow

  lips seethe there is no brand

  with grace? I’ll eat my beauty thus

  orgasm pouring a pitcher of milk

  smear red where red should be

  triumph a canvas’s folded corner

  here’s a jest: I’m not drunk

  in the streets of infamous

  intersections although I ache

  with the loss of those who did

  why do I play the hypocrite alone?

  do nothing but teach half a dozen

  names or more: let no one be above

  her trade trace the velvet edge to here

  and whom do I hurt? “’tis not such

  a mighty task to pin an idiot to

  your apron string” or look coolly

  on what/why not owning one anyway

  true, one cannot laugh alone or

  there let it burn into night

  crisp against cool sheets

  back into a headboard

  vex the old is a blazing tract

  stupid clutch gathering useless

  memory in ticket after ticket stub

  no hackneyed dirge of better days

  a wild whim instead here on the edge

  pressing hands to hips pushing down

  stride and stride again whisper tingle

  shout tangle yeah render yeah again

  snatch a chance and oust some

  good girl or bring any half of us into

  the fold of a dream “summer roses in

  soft greenhouse air” to never guess ’tis winter

  FROM “THE CASTAWAY” BY WILLIAM COWPER

  (1731–1800)

  Waves’ dark night not the moon

  Breaks it apart cry or laugh

  A seawall walk turns wretched again

  Crunch of surf rocks imbalance

  You need more friends obviously home

  Works against you, you fucking loner

  You mark the space luminous and sure

  It sparkles at times when you’re brave

  Hug the coast embrace the routine track

  In warmth radiates every text message sent

  Loving them both again in vain

  Who disappears in what despair

  Today you’ll dive in hot from beach sand

  Swim to the buoy at a leisurely pace

  Resist the pull to/from shore or the crank under

  It’s a cold kind of courage, always cold

  A desperation of pleasure seeking wrecks it

  Support weighs heavily in implication’s salt

  He shouts and shouts and shouts

  Hoarse to oblivion ragged

  Furious with ordinary fear, fury in the sun

  Forceful with perspective spews

  All over the one left behind never fully spent

  Until calm slices the deadly mood sick silence

  Plastic glasses don’t clink loudly enough

  Or at all, the wine of succour usually sparkling

  Ragged ends of rope washed ashore among the logs

  Waiting for the fireworks to start

  Gaggles of girls, one boy, more girls visit

  Social selection via rejection, “thought you’d like him”

  Cruel talk after he left stomps the sandy imprint

  What marks condemnation more than texting

  Shouting “come back here you” playfully but with edge

  Out loud with actual words, “naw” he says pushing further

  Off bitter downturn head Etnies kick back sand

  Deserted gap between this group and that

  He survives a social ocean minute by minute

  Upheld through headaches

  To a future clan, a powerful cling

  Through disdain propels selection

  Sets iPhone timers to mark the ends

  A help line on speed dial — arrest!

  His tremor passes, his past birthday cakes

  Laughing like a pirate, before

  Shouting “hurry” or “hurry up let’s go”

  So that now the silence hurts me

  And he drops in the middle of everything

  No stifle works here now, it pours and pours

  “No poet wept him: but the page”

  A comedian’s video rant broadcast

  His name, his name again, “his worth, his age”

  Cleaves from a digital screen slices my shoulder

  Above the heart again te
ars of journalistic perspective

  Immortalizes a call to be a role model to the drowning

  I therefore act. I act act act. I act. Therefore I act.

  The waving fate, not waving but drowning

  The melancholic lyric, decry the listless turn to nostalgia

  Make this page endure! Beyond the fractal tides

  Abhor the inevitable repetition of events trace/erase

  More apportioned misery, more unkind semblance: a plea

  It hurts: a voice recorded yesterday on repeat, a post on Tumblr

  Some light remembers, some shines glossy Hipstamatic photos

  Ineffectual haunts, the digital trace that enlivens memory

  Fake we all perish, “each alone”

  But you moreso obviously, you you you

  The deep and all the whelm as such, oh boy, as such

  CASTAWAY SERIES, 9 PARTS [FOUND TEXT] + PRELUDE

  TASMANIA

  Prelude:

  a bay named after a wineglass

  and the blood of whales

  is epic enough to provoke a vast

  decantation for theories of sediment

  that is, the chest capable of heaving

  with loneliness recognizes yr

  historical connection because the sand

  pushes up and asks you to remember

  when almost no one was here yet or

  everyone was a frolicking picnic

  spilling bright red juice on frocks

  laden at the edges with salt like

  lady this, or sir that risen on the

  back of hard bone shards, but lovely

  even here resting yr head in some

  sailor’s lap

  1. Castaway

  dear sailor i can smell your approach on the salt air. every day i feel the wild beauty of this scene roar through me. i feel hollow and spent as the sun sets over this bay and your storm blows past through the dark night. you can’t be far behind. every edge of blue reminds me of you and i wonder if beauty can only exist in anticipation and memory.

  2. Castaway

  dear sailor every night the stars speak of you. the north star seems particularly infatuated with your image and whispers adagio as salty spray hits your worn back. a moment here is eternity light folds into waves and this world is rebuilt second by second, an ephemeral mirage. the tissue of our connection floats on the wind, a lost kite that may some day be returned to its flyer. i have cast out many strands, dear sailor, i have told the stars this story.