folio : Barry McKinnon (1944-2023)
you taught us to read
Prince George through you, &
more than one (kind of) time time over & above
into & out of syncopation
th heart
& this location
beats time & a half
see it from Machu Picchu
what we learned:
one
price to start, a higher one to end
th time this note takes
will itself form a line
a brittle spruce branch a struck match
or smoke curling from th ashtray
in th Sears Country Inn
th time was all that went anywhere
with all we heard & over
heard
you read my bad poems & didnt say they were good
but you did say keep
writing
if thats th call, th response could be
root
hog or die
a hard chorus or
secondhand teaching you gave
in an unclosed parenthesis
once more over th changes root hog or die, you
sd
(why not both?
if we find time
if we find a form &
as th elevator door opens I
remember your advice
start
with th Empire State Building, you sd
youll
get a view of th whole island
when I got to th top, looked out & saw
what you taught me
to see Prince
George from here
& something
Jeremy Stewart is the author of experimental novella In Singing, He Composed a Song, as well as poetry collections Hidden City and (flood basement. Stewart’s fourth book, I, Daniel: An Illegitimate Reading of Jacques Derrida’s “Envois,” is forthcoming in 2024.
Stewart lives with his family in Surrey, BC. He once dropped a piano off a building.
