poem || rob mclennan

Imaginary Fred

for Wah,

            Text still as the lake this evening cantoed time late

history birded into the space nest the really real or as

they say now in Banff the virtual line gone fishing.

                        Fred Wah, Alley Alley Home Free

1.

Centretown. Text still as air. Proprioceptive. The god of uneven numbers, loose leaf maple, a thousand single clapping hands. Sky thick as soup, the sagging light. Nostalgia. Into the dappled wood, reverse the moving truck staccato. Analogy, in letters. We stood upon the deck. Spill upon the poem-banks. Upriver, squall. Spells breath, a sigh. Outmaneuver clouds, this sound equipment. Glacier.

At what point would you, double. Architecture, skin. A radius of marble. Statuesque. Fall, or fall enough. A deepening spire. Look to where I stood I stand, he gestures.

The snow would sleep, step. Margin, kindled errors. Sweetened, filter. Pattern. Gesture drizzle, curled. Spy a map to earth, or launder. Kind. Brick, along. Wide sentences. Sleek magnetized, bone. Emergency, measured. Audio-sensitive, how grammar birds. Charm, caw-cluck. Squirrels. We bare these, mountain-thick.

At the centre of rejoicing. A peak upon, sun. Parliament, a public house. It never sets. A mode, pictorial. Gestates, swift. This turbulent, Medieval mass. Indigenous engine.

Mine began with scholarship.

2.

            Assembling, a synapse. Finished. Blink, your flower eyes. You’ll miss. Stockholders. Digital mélange, collusion. Three decks, legacy. Margins. The signature might shift, a cadence. Vertical, the footfalls. Second landing, skyward. Aimed. What seasonal, a costumed sand, or species. It November, analogy, comparison. I am nervous. Repeat. I am nervous. Awful stammering. Still.

Dreamed I had to kill a man. South facing, ghosts on bikes. Passing theory, hours. Shape, no wing to bear. Lapped up, spinner turns. It was no secret. Clap your, magnetized hands. Ambiguous. Deliver. Film remains, first page of light.

I wrote the patch you swerve. I wrote the ending.

3.

            A startled, urgency. Wave, you wane. Pacific, sonnet. Counting lines, a soda fountain. Diary. How do you claim, central Canada. In the prairies: tunnels, cave. The windowed past. A rain of syntax. Breathable, hours. Invisible, by then. The west flew over, we.

Calendar, bred. Enticements. Metaphoric, tied to posts. Wait, and then. A clutch of dirt, five minute pavement. Stormy courtyards, run right through. They bend their, backs. A station feat or win, defeat. Beautiful hideous. Maple stone and sun. A female, line.

Absolute, the grey rock. Did you sing the hymns. Asphodel, poem. Typology. A pile-up of bone. Aghast. See everything at once, a meltdown. Categories. The future’s thorny issue. Crisp.

Begin by noting words, the weather, wrong infinity. Shut up, Hegel. Dust.

Domestic, arts. We all fall down.