Nicholas Power

riddled with selves
no longer there
the I
is not
in the poem
and disappears
out of the light
of the moon
and eyes
to see
the I

what is permanent
is past
every ‘ever’
is an ever after
as the evening rain
disappears

there is no language
for absence
no word for
certainty

without the rough edge of another voice
I am a self made only of distant others

Music’s dark window,
left open by another, long ago
slowly fills with light,
with magical thinking animals,
(beyond my wish to draw them close)
and a monk muttering nonsensical spells.

Some say settle for the winter,
let years go incomplete while you read Rilke
thousands of miles from problems.
Becoming gently cosmic,
my neighbours hear Africa for a few moments,
touch millions of years ago on screens.

What can you learn
by pushing a single button,
at the end of the process.

The factory workers fill with silicate,
the boss a single-cell suit,
catwalk diatoms making a white earth.

Totally pure, white-clad stores
buy workers at Ace Hardware
to combat a too-kind boss.

Smooth black humans
watch ceremonial robots put together
precise atomic components.

Troubled into tiny packets,
thoughts in me keep dry on the journey,
the tiny harmless ants that plague me.

I wish I were not the plague.
It’s the ultimate, white-person’s time
to go live in a cave and
ask the ancient philosopher.

Beautiful people make do in a darkened basement.

In the uncountable moments,
with sleepwalking followers’ words,
indifferent to indifference,
they scroll the screen
looking into their broken future.
Now all nows are about death

for Patrick Lane

poems are/ what we die with…

your weathered body
smelling of earth
unwashed still
lips sealed
new lines
yet unwritten
salt on the tongue

not the knot known
but the not knowing
an I after the I
a wound that speaks
an ongoing guess
of what best to do
that next step
inside your own boots

you stood with the other
wrote no paeans of praise
only thanks for not yet dying
speech like bread on the table
bade us breath the same air
bones for punctuation
a cot in a cold house
your troubled oats
flesh no more free
than each syllable
or counted line

crows interrupt
wounds go unhealed
rays of light die

you dress the idea of your importance in perennial regalia
you situate yourself as the highest star in the cluster
neither leader nor equal but impotent in the usual paraphernalia
you’re under the control of the direst forgers of bluster

pontificating tacit equanimity you attempt to hold us with honey
were you wounded by your own unruly and unfaithful family?
you found your mentor by listening for the sound of money
restored to fragile wealth by the potent balm of popularity

as principled as a bird; no accommodation is your strategy
seduction in dress-up; your speech winds down in empty phrases
when not clapping your people fear it’s their own elegy
while sisters of suffrage shine more brightly than false praises

the arrow of time points at our planet’s own apogee
we can’t guide ourselves by the scandal of your superlatives
indifferent tides of unknowns are as inscrutable as a syzygy
infinity takes away the laurels; tragedy ensues in the derivatives

syzygy: an alignment of three celestial objects
after Ode iii. XXX by Horace and The Seven Sisters by Marshall Hryciuk

I want to burn your Ontario to the ground

the one built on fear
whether it’s coloured red or blue

I want exorcisms

I want them to stop aping the Republic

there are no proofs for what I say
except that your children are prisoners
walking home from school in despair

am I a child?
do I listen to the wind?

Is your heart like a small chestnut
stored by a squirrel in Queen’s Park?

je suis désolé

I see your leaders infected by the American disease

their lack of poetry assails me
my ears shattered
by blaming and avoidance and
their telltale speech errors

we live to sanctify the moment
accept that we’re part of
nature itself

simplify simplify

yet they want more
more security more procrastination

we need to resist to persevere

looking for wild apples in this grand orchard
under no one’s ownership

Just one time, in a friendly way with this sweet woman,
her arm in your arm, no brassy politics,
apply yourself with tenderness to the memory of your own fears
solemnly, like a river at night,
it’s late but try anyway, there’s no medal, or even a job
we know you’re full of tears
we’re not asleep, we’re restless for the truth.

We didn’t sit on our porches waiting for you to grow up,
you moved like a furtive cat, your ear to the door,
while we were watching the clouds, not you.
There’ll be no coup, no ultimate liberty, no crystal clarity.
From your chair, no rich and sonorous voice only a painful squeak
captive, plaintive, then combative
no guilt, no remorse, only sounding brass, tinkling cymbals
like a chastised child, somber and immobile
having to face his family.

Your certainties are a long shot
you’re caught in the eye of the world
secrets no longer hidden in the past.
‘Poor Angel’ some sing, your pardoners’ charade
‘There’s nothing here, nothing certain, we’ll take care of you.’

Betrayed by your own ego, not a beautiful woman,
one you tried to turn banal,
now you dance to a fool’s tune:
his forced handshake
and maniacal smile.
He breaks our hearts and soils everything
with rhetoric of scorning then forgetting
no enchantment, no longing
no thoughtful love
only con games, whispers, and then silence.
There will be no confession.

Fans spread out their arms
and wave continuously,
trying to disperse
the shadows that dance,
twirling and tapping
in the orchard of broken trees,
their hands pulling at each other,
at the wind.
Their fists pump the air
the clouds storming,
screaming above them.
A tornado of black wings
and feather kings
(tap tap-tap tap-tap).
Fall asleep in the breeze.
Flaming eyes,
sea-worthy bees.
All listen to the shadows cries.

Lina Curry

on the eve of high winds
sometimes several shredding the now
all of us seeking shelter
the leader’s lack of tone
dimming the lights
debt narrowing us all
millions of souls without roofs
disaster voyeurs chasing storms
hurricanes signifying the end of ease
even the elite without safe windows
there are no quiet rivers

who are the era’s saviours?

I vow to signify
to put a roof on in the void

from Lina Curry’s backwards writing of: ‘My mind not only wanders it sometimes leaves completely.’ and ‘You fight for the things you think are worthwhile, and you eventually lose the things you take for granted.’

finny atoms, shivering as I write, and trumpets in the bones
endorsing the season, taking aim and then missing
damp desire, antsy anticipation at the core
my town car vandalized by crows

bleak drama of summer chill
playing a slow gyre in black tights
my better self keeping time with the tides
as the water rises I open my crow-like wings

rain no longer sweet, you’d choose this weather for a funeral
and invite those distant cousins whom you never liked
how can we rein in the climate, this bastard season

permanently pale at the wrong time of year
if nothing else the night still has phases of the moon
two by two we sleep through other people’s emergencies