folio : Forty-five Ottawa poets
memento vivis
“The
fly that lives a single day
Has lived as long as we.”
T. S. Eliot
lifetimes are an elastic measure
as pleasure can cover both loose and bound
where are my glasses?looking down
they fall from
crown to nose, oh
with excited interjection he crows
this next poem is true! it really happened
verse is a common-place book
but higher in commentary
the footnoted (s)creed,
a scroll of a dot matrix printer
how M. received it with
dismissive brow, declared “not poetry”
close as a kite to a kitten
or a butte, to butter
the ritual scarification
that is reading and writing
do we conflate the actual
with credence of derivative dreams
eating five fluffy sticky cinnamon
buns and five brownie sundaes
each taste is the same as first
this is how we know our sleep
magicking her general store, wave
a second floor, round windows, inventory, crowd
and us chasing the runaway calf
back to the bookstore
truck tracks, broken honeycombs
of snow, the honey road home
honeycones and pinecombs
my mother always said
when she had reason to speak
of them or the Specific Ocean
what we retain and why, clod
of broken cement for defence
we exist, we exist. is it enough
to persist, to simply not entirely fail
an earthquake scavenger, driven
by what is useful not indulging in souvenirs
we must be economic about
what we carry, or else hurt ourselves.
a placebo science
kitten, think your way out of this wet
paper sack, wrenched shoulder
pious adventist straightjacket that
press painkillers out of reach
playing monkey in the middle
but the toque, the torque is hope.
a thrum of place in usual
midnight perch in tree crotch
is sissy derived from sister?
the worst insults are true but twisted.
dad’s story of how Whey’s Corner was
named
fades. what falls by the wayside, whey.
yesterday’s bread is
motivation enough.
concluding too soon is how
you miss little aggregating truths.
homeopathic soap? it suds no dishes.
a Baptist immersion of cups.
cheesecloth straining. control groups
of devout vs cultural christians
pop quiz: the names of the disciples.
countered: list all the green species here.
all the protestant family trees.
collecting cheese labels is "tyrosemiophilia”
at least there was noon space
to think when amply alone. a cedar grove.
wait for prayer’s
answer
to be a no. a thousand times no.
antagonizing uncles: “minds
so open their brains fell out”
their point was never to teach
brains but bait emotions, the bullies.
thus my mistrust of adverbs,
scripts and sentimental poems
a child’s reflex for autonomy:
don’t you guilt me in how to feel
the effects of feeling are lasting
and corrupt as a kick-backs
gravity is pulling at the skirts of the curd
the curd is resisting the cloth. separation.
such expository is like suppository
but more awkward and painful
hey, what do you sense against
your neck? is it ghost breath?
is the pinch of your shoulder
from a sling or a cramped wing opening?
I am re-reading Stilt Jack and the tendency towards couplets strengthens. The idea of link and shift inherent in haiku and renga seems to fit somehow, a tenuous link. Tension, intention, chaos and unconscious oblique links. I am aiming to permit emotions and deep past in for overdue processing and integration with now. And as ever to allow hope and humour.
Pearl Pirie’s latest will be in Al-Manach des Collines, an anthology of Gatineau Hills writing and in The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku in February 2025. She is an English book reviews co-editor of Haiku Canada Review and the coordinator of the Betty Drevniok Haiku Award. Recently: Heat Lamp (above/ground press, Dec 2025), We Astronauts (Pinhole Poetry, Spring 2025), and from phafours press: Crime and Ornament by Tamsyn Farr (Nov 2025).
