Rob Manery : Two poems

 

 

 

A Lute and a Lyre
for Nicole Markotić
 

Would you know the difference
between a lute and a lyre?

Did he radiate the terror
that prevarication brings

when replying to such questions?
Yet the quality suggested by

a pneumatic drill does not quite
accord with the liar’s paradox.

Were you, perhaps, a ringside
paramour? All her

autobiographies suggest
a casual lust, although

vapid desire might also be
suitable in these occasions.

What tends to be spoken in such
moments automatically

defers to idiomatic
equivocation. If you

prefer a jump-start, I would
suggest the quail skewers.

My insides are out of order.
My outsides depict a man

comfortably in his 50s,
although the dinner jacket shows

signs of wear. Perhaps we should
signal for car service. From

the far side of the lot, it
was difficult to get a

visceral sense of what went
awry. Still, we squinted and

 

wondered at the long ricercar
that shocked and left each of us

somewhat aghast. An astute
listener could discern the treat

of a clandestine fugue, but
if it were me, you wouldn’t

have recognized the frugal
treatment afforded to this line

of questioning. A quiet
adagio can carry

far, but formal attire yields
despairing discomfort. We

all want to cry but wont of tears
is teased from the unsuspecting

attendant who smirks while
suggesting a coat check. For

if we admit ghosts, then
this hotel is teeming. And if

the planets align, do they form
a quixotic team coming

together to be set in
popular songs? If I doubles

for us and you doubles for
them, then who doubles for those

who didn’t buy the book? Now
that is something to sneeze at.

We may have to double back,
finding reason, but no rhyme.

And yet he rhymed off his reasons
with such detachment, the echo

subsided almost as quickly
as I read the onscreen news

screamed as though doubt was left to me.
We decided not to attend

the performance which was
nevertheless unavoidable

and deemed the matter closed, or
perhaps I am mistaken.

I’ll have to get back to you, but
did you mean me when you said ahem?

Was it the knees that tease
from the far periphery,

and your rhizomes that tasted
of tar? Do you remember

just how far we have gone? And
so we strained for a hint of

a motive or a suggestion
of harmony before the horns

came walking back into the picture,
but there can be no coda.

He liked a twist or at least
an unmet expectation.

A motet to arouse an
emotional shrug of the

shoulders, a crossing of the
arms, or even a craning

of the neck. What is left when
the music ends? A small sedge

of cranes by the shore, seeming
to exhibit complete

disinterest. Is it such
a problem to believe, when

watching the sunset, that the sun
will appear in the sky again
 

tomorrow? Do you prefer
a king’s pawn in online play?

The delaying move failed yet we all
witnessed the hesitation,

more becoming much less. An
analogy to armies

will only, my friend, stymie
appreciation, more struggle

than dialogue, a responsive
algorithm. For weeks we

awaited Fred’s reply, the
ritenuto fell into place,

but such a tremendous fall-
ing. The alteration between

tension and release witlessly
breathed yet shunned. He suggested

tweaking the lease, but the ricercar
returned. They seemed a bit fried,

yet flexible, lax even.
Our seats were in the wings

and with a wonderful air of
ease one leaned into the sense of

staggeringly sustained sounds;
we now were fewer than when

we began the film, the questions
no longer lengthened the lines

that sent us to seek in other
works a particularly

permeable yet arresting
eek.

 

 

Ought
for Ted Byrne
 

No ought from
a gee whizz,
not from an
if only either.

With only a
scant familiarity,
his parents
settled

on Ulysses.
The sycamore’s
obligation, if you
will, differs from

the owl’s, yet
neither it nor
the sparrow
sees the similarities.

As a child, he
would seize any
opportunity to
slip the knot

leaving none the
wiser, but
got on without
a dropped word.

From a bird’s
eye view such
machinations are
achingly acute,

if the owl’s grief
is measured
against the
griffon’s.

From early on, we
grasped a rough
intuition, a raft
of rules not quite

a code. A coddled
owlet – this hope
becoming a nested
expectation.

An old woman
reading Beckett
on the bus.
What was

I supposed to do?
Waiting for neither,
by god, it was
difficult to live up

to his name, dispossessed
as he was of courage,
cleverness, and conceit.
Consequently, the heart

of the problem
was not easily
pierced, grasping only
a blunted understanding.

I kept my knives
in the knife-box, gently
rubbed my hands
and whispered something –

something about flesh
and wine, but my
companion began
to sing. One does

not need to be
a saint to break
bread with the poor.
A poor comparison

made poorer still
by the single-minded
conceit; a sympathetic
glance is no

substitute for a
continuing contract.
We were barely
noticed when we

slipped in late,
with time to fulfill
our familial functions,
a confessional

monologue missed
all my marks. We
left over-nourished
but under no

illusions that an
enlarged heart is
the same as a
generous one.

At this stage
any strange
deposition is
unwelcome. No

edicts either to
deter fate. The rough
ground is not
to be smoothed

bit by unbidden
bit. He answered
the call, or rather,
there was an

answer to a
call, side-stepping
the scorpion’s
sting.

Well then, what
account can you
give? To chase
the response,

you must return
the call. His parents
were forgiving of
all but him, or 

so it seemed. Did
you turn down
the offer? For what
it’s worth, the antidote

is not always laughter,
while the anecdote
you are seeking,
even after we’ve

forgotten the imagined
freedom to take the
time to carefully
consider Kantian imperatives

from the swallow’s
perspective, pondering
the malady most
likely to curb this behaviour.

The road might not,
in fact, be as hopeless
as it seems; nonetheless
a habit is not necessarily

an addiction to its
demands.  As the sparrow
flies so the cure for
prescription. Sometimes

the journey is immaterial
when being there is what
matters most. If there is
no ought out of is

from this,
what if
a simple delight
in the dilemma.

 

 

 

Rob Manery lives on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, where he is the editor of Some, a print-only poetry magazine, and the author of It’s Not As If It Hasn’t Been Said Before (Tsunami Editions), Richter-RauzerVariations (above/ground press), Many, Not Any (Some Books) and the forthcoming ELEGIES (above/ground press).

 

Rob Manery : Two poems

 

 

 

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. When
he does sit up 

and takes notice
he doesn't so much

as come with a thought,
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?

 

 

 

Rob Manery lives on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, where he is the editor of Some, a print-only poetry magazine, and the author of It’s Not As If It Hasn’t Been Said Before (Tsunami Editions), Richter-Rauzer Variations (above/ground press), Many, Not Any (Some Books) and the forthcoming ELEGIES (above/ground press).