from After Jack:
When you talked across the Outaouais the bulbous streetlamps bulged and glowed with afterthoughts. When you talked across the Outaouais smiling beasts revived from extinction and sunlight flooded a giant blotter in front of the window
Old desires do not fade or leave. They are accidentally dropped into new land one might yet till. The roots stir and munificent plants and animals emerge But they cannot feed you. Ask your nearest neighbour
When you knelt beside me and drank from the river of vowels my eyes brimmed over
Love is not enough. One has to ratify it for fear of acting a Romantic. Our tentative contract must endure the most stubborn and chilling of winds
SEEK LONELINESS IN NUMBERS
BECOME ANOTHER
HOLD ABSURD VIGIL
EXPECT NOTHING
SEEK HELP IN THE SURPRISING
When I finally thought of something funny or slightly off and turned you were no longer there. This life is an open book, an open letter that is the craftiest of all, lived heartily in the camouflage of plain sight
The clearing felt empty without you
I have reached the precise bifurcation where ?????? people and places and poems are interchangeable and ready to be exchanged. I reserve wishes and maledictions for the ever flowing river of vowels. I recall how much you dislike poems being mentioned in poems and shrug helplessly
I have dragged the heart-shaped kite this far, hoping for a sudden gust of enthusiasm. A sudden paroxysm of pleasure. This is each moment for me behind the painted canvas of my person, a ripe possibility dancing upon the end of a line of twine
Maybe we have no faith, and that is to say refusing to put our breath into it where the tremulous organ beats most wildly. This breathing exercise is the only faith required and has enough magic to lift a thousand flagging poems
This is elusive as any bell
This is real as a V of birds
Love, Garry