Dunvegan, translated from the English by sean s

after Dunvegan by Sue Chenette

The ideal of all in Dunvegan's heart,
like a home of clapped baked stones, the gate
fashioned per the avenue's limit, an apparition
risen from raw and distant property,
its feet quicklimed in dark and permafrost.

Her libations on our heads, then clambering steps
in the child night. Sleep tumbles us a hall's width,
an unadorned bed, a facecloth and bowl,
as plain as the spiritless, bodiless weather.

Morning and the light stroke of an oak's twig
submerges the daylight's plane against your window.

Backtracking by JKD

After Sean S's Threadjacker.

There are tunnels under skycliffs
and old bottles,
decades of cobbled raft crossings
mysteries of spindly winesacks and marriage

vows drunk in a labyrinthine corner,
yellowjackets threading
a pathway through matter,
scratching useless to get out.

The dulcet clatter of loose history
is like the rest of us,
awakened over cracked shells
pressed, listening, to hear no echo

where feet splice, bleed
maroon over volcanic sands
markers as unnoticed as trails:
there is no roaming back, or tide.

threadjacker by sean s

after JKD's To Be Read, Perhaps, In Reverse

These are tunnels under the sky
because sky is earth
and earth is where we go when we die.

Cliffs and old bottles tell
elsewhere tell the decades of battles and treaties
a cobbled raft crossing history's
spindly winesacks and marriages.

Vows knotted arms drunk in a corner of our labyrinth.
Threadjackers.
You, for example, whispering under

shelled yellowjackets, curled on a stone step.
Betrayed by a chemical, a pathway through matter.
Hospitals under your fingernails

where scratching is useless.
The dulcet clatter of loose change in my pocket
a history like the rest of us.

To be read, perhaps, in reverse by JKD

After Lisa Pasold's Whoops-a-daisy..., Jon Wonham's In life the rampant mind has limbs and Tall Tale of Short Hours by Amy Hollowell

Clinging onto the rampant limbs
because these were things we would not do
not see not be part of not parting
being the thing passing through or
bygone

nights not anymore
risking time and pinned-together boulevards
the intertwined life of its own mind
when the red and yellow fall
in an orange nightscape

inverted constructs rattle and sliver
unseen along the scenic drive

elsewhere cliffs and ruins of old tunnels
tell me about the centuries of battles and treaties
of a cobbled route up which someone drove us
of myths and unknowns
this was haunting if we could be there

but in this small car on this wide and vacant road
there are only elevated furrows
extended courtyards
barriers penning in a preordained timeline
telling us how what was was

you, for example, whispering
words syllables clicked consonants left underground

so when I was there, later, I could unearth
remnants because things
like cut glass, painted pottery, bronze blades,
gas masks, spittoons, an ivory comb, dictionaries
that are left adrift never came back

because there were things we would not do
anymore, to hear me listening, to be
in the enunciation or simply riding
round and round on Bay Street, arms interlinked,
until everyone would clamor awake
dawn overbright in the joyous crowding

whoops-a-daisy (nuit blanche, toronto) by Lisa Pasold

after after seeing lots of bad art (and a little good) by jkd & In Life by Jonathan Wonham

what are the sections
sections of? that rampant mind
leaping from World of Warcraft: white bobble babies
inflate along buildings, muscular cherubs (security guards
checking their umbilical power plugs). a certain amount of walking
towards that vodka pool, backwards bank door,
hotdog stand, carny ride. did the Millennium Angel
distort so, melting brand ads three-storeys high?
the train station was filled with dry ice.
Union Station train station? no! he didn't know
about that. whistle blowing, blue snowflake. unfortunately
the dancers
were not naked. sometimes the bench
is not going anyplace. sometimes a person hopes
for less. such as,
everyone should wake up
today. with that ride still going around and around
down on Bay Street, arms linked and joyous crowding.

In Life, the Rampant Mind has Limbs by Jonathan Wonham

After "The life of the mind rampant in the boulevard of limbs" by Amy Hollowell, quoted from the poem Tall Tale of Short Hours.


In life, the rampant mind has limbs, the boulevard
in the mind has a life of its own, and rampant limbs
fill the mind's lively boulevards, as if the same rampant
boulevards would not mind the risk to life and limb.

The boulevard of life raises a rampant limb in my mind
and I do not mind. In life, these boulevarding limbs
are not less rampant than the most rampant mind
in whom lives and limbs and boulevards are intertwined.

Tall Tale of Short Hours, by Amy Hollowell

(On the occasion of the second Rewords anniversary)

I think I am beside myself in slithers
Of light, pervasively rattling on
With a tall tale of short hours.
But I am not. The city
A newly old world, this endless story
Of what I see
Is impossible to construct
In inverted pyramid style.

I have tried not to feel
The pinch elevated
Or sometimes furrowed
Underground at the back of my extended courtyards.

It can’t be helped
Not white or black tonight
A Marlboro and Coke at the next table
Must include leaves skittering
Dead on the walk in liquid sun
And even long past
Early night under the plane trees
No one pauses to look
Or hear what empties,
The life of the mind rampant
In the boulevard of limbs
Quietly moving on.

Occasions at Spirit Plane by Jonathan Regier

(happy second anniversary to Rewords)

London. Cherubs in.
Chandeliers which factotums
Turn on and off by their peculiar
Quotidian accounts of home life. Phantoms
With muscular faces who rode
On top the red omnibuses in shaking
Coats when long coats only
The sciences can be honest. Women
And their bosoms tied and glyphs
Rudely on their underarms.
Unknown and unseen
Prevail. The fat in the
99% milk without fat.

Resonances of Green by RS Oventile

Before the light fully orders your thoughts,
a hue hijacks the day,
first with Mickey’s verdigris eyes
demanding an exit to the garden,
where, among the bougainvillea’s leaves,
camouflaged for chlorophyll,
a mantis prays for prey.

Then to the farmers’ market for
broccoli, asparagus, spinach, avocadoes, and leeks.
Return. In a skillet, the string beans sizzle
in sesame oil with turmeric, garlic, cumin, and onion.

At noon, you uproot a neglected aloe,
transport it, replant it, water it,
and write off your theft
as anarchism.

Watching the palms wrestle the wind,
you recall a dream:
In a tiny bedroom, an implacable woman
clothed in emerald foliage
ignites a massive klieg
to illuminate the resolute sleeper.

The sun’s shrinking arc shows
a spectacular flash, and a black-haired youth
deftly smears a tilaka on your forehead.
The dinner guests gather to praise
the tree of life’s natural colors,
but the hostess foresees only earth, and insects, and grasses.


(PS--Happy 2nd, Rewords!)

after seeing lots of bad art (and a little good) in the great company of friends, by JKD

Everyone should wake up today after having not slept. A cascade. A 3-D star stethoscope, barometer meting out the affections. What is the bag of trash scrawling on that wall? We are the faded lilies on the maroon(ed) carpet tree. Where is the nature in our natural habitat? He would pee red, dressed as a dog, in the shade if given time to consume enough beets, the ability to wait out daylight. We are waiting by a bus that is not going anyplace. Just CDG. Only Orly. I feel closer to the air after a bottle of rum. I want to go a few city blocks, but no one will carry me. He says it is not quite like that, set theory. He is measured out by her gaze. Pleeaasse come out, she says. The dancers are, unfortunately, not naked. When she tackles him in her small slipdress in the shadowy audience they skid a long way on the satin. Did you hear the ice cube melting? Was it sugar? Over and over, the block drifts off. We, too, carry ourselves into the dark. Stop at a streetcorner by a stand of bananas and beer. The trumpettist raises his horn and plays a few notes as he walks. We keep parallel. Our footsteps. Mine. Timing into the day. The statue there spies at us, lounging on the angled lawn. She has been waiting since 1864. Black smoke, boat stalled, the stranger who wants to shake my head as I enter the code into the door. This is what she means, in the case, speaking out from behind glass. There is no cure, after all.

to the amish cabin by sean s

after Medusa by JKD

A trip to the Amish cabin
A distant will scattered amidst the provinces.
Route 14, a detour

Inside her sensorium surrounded by oversized sunglasses.
Sundaes. Daysuns
in mirrors shining from the backseat.

NYC - part danger, part reason.
A medusa clinging in your hair. A job hunt,
the revving of a leap that never jumps.
Squeezing a meantime novel from clotted sinuses,
another anemic winter on its way, your handwriting
blurring the distance between hibernation,
liberation, hanging from that bed post or the
other

The mileage sleeps her dyedred locks
into the passenger seat curling. Shavings
of connection, split ends flying
down four palms of wheel on the road.

Dunvegan by Sue Chenette

Everyone should have a friend in Dunvegan,
her small brick house with one front gable
built close to the road, seeming
to have grown out of the north Ontario land,
or to have become part of it.
Climb the stairs late after red wine talk.
Fall asleep in the narrow room
with its simple cot and wash stand
only night and wind outside.
Wake to the brush of an oak branch
against the window
slow seep of uncluttered dawn.