herb’s
gift a stolen o
henry (buddy
we
say twas i behaved
as bear
streetlight
in wind
transformative
kindness of
this
billowing
seagull
man the only word
in
english
i know
is an o in
admirer’s mouth
who is unseen mushroom
who is ox-kicked clod of light
things that make you
do things unknown
rode through
as a pixel on the fish finder
roque dalton
roque dalton
turning
the tortilla with his mind
dreamed
/ I ask you
a
cigarette then
then:
daylong pain
grows
in my throat
nestor
considers himself
in
another king’s dream
my neighbour shakes her
head
coming
onto the back deck
scattering
the chicken hours
(yellow table)
LAUGHING AFTERNOONS
(yellowed page)
the shadows grew
long on his thinking
long as trees on
the path
way a
thicket
grown from language
(night drawing
on
tricks of language
grr whoo
dribbling moon
mind
must look
around
this scribbling
forest
trickling
what dream
what drain
tin
of
crab remember
resembles
reels and reels
video of a jeering parrot
FRUIT—BY A FRUIT
a man
grown round
a man
ground down
FRUIT
BY FRUIT
envisioned
w the
funereal girl
a
daughter and mother mutually
a
nickname like lala
the
fiction of moon
look
at me—in constancy
away
on the hip of a wave drying
wingtip
locked in a tree
even
if I don’t
say
parrot
parrot
the
things that I say
parrot things
green
atropical
downside
fruit
before
green
consciousness
got so
close
to
bein real
tonight—left out
written by
weather
retire
the rhinestones
Hamish Ballantyne is a poet from Vancouver Island. He works seasonally as a mushroom picker and works on the Downtown Eastside the rest of the year. Hamish recently published Imitation Crab (KFB) and is translating Luis de Góngora's Solitudes.