The Circle is Not Named
for Bob Hogg
The circle is not named
to be drawn in a triangle
even to the
uttermost
for even the scientist
is lost in the terrible
midnight.
We were
glad to get the meat
and never fashed
for kitchen. Along
the
furrow
here,
the
harvest fell
on the table
beneath each
busy hand,
the light ceases to be
mere words
that defy the
thought
of anything essential
to any of them,
sinking into
the emptiness
of mere chance.
What's the point
of reading
if it makes you feel
uncomfortable?
The table was a large
one, room
yet
for a distinction
between overweariness
falling into sleep. Who's
interfering with which?
At all times an other I, that
same other. Perhaps we've
come the wrong way. The original
number disturbs
nothing
but ants about this
hill carried on
by the unseen
language is always
a mosaic work, made up
of associated fragments,
not of separate
molecules. The man
recovered of the
bite, entertained only
with the air
of
words from the box
to the basket.
He had placed
a flower in a vase
on his desk and
pretended that he
could not understand
my German. The elbow
of a hedge jutted forth, wraps
and furs lay in heaps
on the chairs,
overcoat
on the table. sit up
and takes notice
knowing that you think
it's because of my
solitary manner of life,
putting
me in mind
to have these
inexpressibles altered,
who dare, like him,
to think out
loud.
Those who know
how the wheels turn
are always bored
at the top
of the furnace.
Who could
answer
with fewer words?
No Bus In Sight
for Clint Burnham
An alarm clock
sounds
in
the apartment
down
the hall.
Outside an
empty
U-Haul,
gracelessly
towed.
If we sit
in this seat,
it
does not betray
friendship, only
frailty.
No bus
in sight. A moment,
slightly
longer
elsewhere, signifies
now only in a
local sense. Since
Christmas,
we have
travelled one hundred
and
fifty-two million
kilometres round
the
sun, despite a
complete lack
of
upward mobility;
a penny dropping,
exhausted
by the
effort to remain
non-judgmental,
for lack of
a
better conception,
for in Wayne Manor,
one
must still
dress for dinner.
The
trains are
running late. Do
you
suppose it’s
customary, no, to accumulate
paregoric
allegories
to assuage detained
travellers?
The vegetal creeper
traverses the trellis while
we
await your arrival.
What does it mean
to
understand love, for instance?
She patiently explained the
procedure
for drying
the seeds. We are at sea,
he
suggested dryly. The engine
cut halfway up the
hill,
a loose estimate
admittedly, and not
easily
conceived like
transferrable skills.
A
20-minute ride
a year ago, but
an
old man is
still left standing
in
the light
rain. Now is the time
to
plant the bulbs, before the
first frost. What is the
difference
between
a concept and
an
idea? A reference
that only persons
of
a certain age
perceive as poetry.
Waiting
in the rain
is not poetic. She shivered
as
she sat on the
partially sheltered
bench,
a table
of schedules lay
between
them. Well,
it was him
who
clothes
the kettle, but now
is
itself cloaked. What
would it mean
to
wait demurely?
It seems that I
have
been of little
assistance in these
matters.
You didn’t
notice, why would you,
certain
gestures, a preference
to make haste
dismissed
out of hand, out
of time. This is what
is
remembered when we
listen to music. Was that
you?
There were noises
they didn’t particularly
want
to hear getting
through the thin
walls,
everyone living
in the building
at
once. At one
time the bus went
directly
downtown, but
there are silences throughout
the
night, a subtext
circumcising our living
situation.
She gradually
sifted through the newspaper
notices,
acclimatizing to
the cold rain. Put
the
wood in th’ hole
from a sub-dialect indifferent
to
the hours of listening
to another’s television, a
din
not yet remote,
or a responsive relief,
not
the repeated thud
of parietal lobe
rubbing
against the idioms
of a certain school
conflicting
with the
familiarity of neighbours.
A
loin-cloth left behind
in the bus shelter, drops
of
rain making riverlets
on the windows
of
the train, obscuring
the view, but loving it
just
the same. Anticipating
a particular gesture, parsed
peculiarly.
At what
point do we admit
we’re
mistaken? I thought
I saw the orange lights
of
the bus, but perhaps
plastic caps cast
reflected
light, wooden
slats surrounding the
concrete
slab on which
the structure rested, for
in
that instance I was
convinced he was a changed
man.
His grandmother
would exclaim ‘for the love
of
God’ while his father
would mutter ‘crissake,’
an
epithet for any
eventuality, absent
a
viable alternative,
members only.
What
if I said
I like peeling
potatoes?
The placement
of your hands
suggest
you may be
uncomfortable
with
this suggestion.
Was it gorily
depicted
or were
sensitivities misplaced?
She
was wearing
a military surplus
jacket
when we
met. My corner
of
the desk
was overrun
with
stacks, so
I had to balance
it
on my thigh.
He spent hours in
silence
attempting
to master the daily
puzzle,
but I was more
surprised than puzzled,
thinking
we could catch
the last bus, but
of
course the lateness of
the hour had eluded
him.
Don’t we always
have a situation?
Considering
the predicament
in which she
found
herself, the notion
of melting into a crowd,
the
crow’s evening migration,
without a pot to cook
it
in, and the dinner
was only a small failure.
Of
greater significance
was the complete lack
of
envy for the kettle.
This was a conversation
he
wished to avoid, for
he found it impossible
to
explain his lethargy.
If the current is cut,
there
will be no
bread, the bills remain
unpaid.
No allowance
for allergies, the joy of
others
through these
flimsy walls has no
paregal,
what?
