Calls This

This blog seems to be difting towards being a poetry blog. If I knew myself a bit better this would not be surprizing, as poetry has long been an important part of how I learn. I have also reengaged with writing over the past few years, part of my response to being in a new situation, living in Boston and working in Cambridge MA with an interesting and engaged group of people. At the same time, some of my children's friends engaged in writing as well, and I have been able to learn a lot observing this.

A few weeks ago I was doing some work in the basement of our old Vancouver house (the house is 100 years old in 2010) and I can across a box of old manuscripts. One of these was a poem sequence Calls This that I wrote while in Tokyo in the mid 1980s. It was published in 1987 as issue 24 of Peter Ganick's magazine Abacus.

Rereading these poems after a long absence they still, surprizingly, work for me. Some of the language is a bit sentimental and naive, but I am still obssessed with many of these themes - voicing, silence, faltering communication, observing the other ... I may try to rewrite this sequence next year. As part of the rewriting, I want to share it here.

Calls This (1987 Version)

 

Water not the same

not of me

nor yet given completely

to its other

The water’s other self

(its surface) blind to chance

will not accept refusal

but shares its qualities completely

A quality of self

as fluid as

its source

knows no distinction

 

Completes all chances

equally alike

like death the water

bland to taste

 

that what I said was, and after

you took that from me

and went away.

part of the sky found

without light

and less distance

to believe in.

I followed anyway,

wanting to find

a way in then.

some fault in your voice,

a high note after rain,

that would let me remember,

escape,

all I had said.

like that dead chip

off the sky

you had kissed

then brushed away

in the silk

of your desire.

but what I said was

always held

and now

there is no way back.

for after

 

when after your looking

    you paused

covering your eyes

there was

    this again

this again after

the darkness passed

in pieces

broken from rain

the ability to place

mine in this

you the place of

a dry sound

part in sedge

the trembling

again

time for speech

I not kept

to this loss of air

or

 

a gesture might

    given

have been offered

like the present.

I, offered

a way past this

or testimony.

and taken, swallow.

eat. that too

is done.

the offer allowed

for appraisal

like some of us

imagined hope –

the will to drive back

necessary failure.

the taken places

present.

    this sembles a fictional

------------------------------------- gift to this

    dry stick in the mud

want holds a sacrifice

of part’s integrity

to a lesser whole

(a measuring

Against itself)

and what you want

you take

of what you need

you give but part

is isolate

and draw a thread of cotton

from your nose

down through the anus

made whole the measure

of your need

 

innocence or incoherence in the attempt,

I have a shelter.

The air too thin

To carry sound.

I’d not intended that.

a person placed

above me on the stair

has fallen, damaging his throat.

I call,

I call his loss

towards me

for the words it gives

he does not close his eyes.

nothing to hear,

the air is farther from our want

than we can give.

what I want from him

what he needs

the blood between us

innocent.

 

here is enough.

this a flatter part

of what is called,

not the suggestion,

endurance,

to what is borne.

what is part of a place

when that

cannot

be found.

ever found.

there was a sense

that here,

but enough was taken.

the soil

thinned

till duration.

like the film of your face

after death

is

mine again.

possession a last

part of place

belonging

for what is not.

 

I cannot speak

and say less

but there is no protection,

those who love me

repeat my failing.

injured figures

beckoning

across the pale,

the order of words

fixed

in the moment of light

and we are caught.

no accusal taken.

the white

impartial

gives nothing of itself

‘I love you”

fulfills our possibilities,

and you and you.

are taken from me.

what I would say

not say

that I might give to you

 

light no longer to the room

what thought was once to the skin,

the table bare apart from its utensils

resting

still water in a glass

sleeping

our skin marred with images –

like naming flowers in the darkness,

their scent

remembering weight.

a knife a heirloom a fork

arranged,

always arguing

balancing

water in the glass.

‘keep the light off’

broken,

there are enough names.

‘enough’ I said ‘I’ve had

enough’

‘it’s the pressure in air

causes silver to tarnish’

eventually even bone decays.

its fine edge of water

against roses?

 

(after Satie)

if a square of light on the page

is called yellow

what is blue?

or not blue

but refraction at the boundary.

a place to breathe.

the yellow square cut out

and glued to the sky

Denies its brilliance

while blue remains on the table

modulating

into black (or one of its sisters).

never enough light

in the room or vanishing sky

as dinner ends

to forgive the blue or make it

speak for itself.

a tinkle of cutlery against china.

I would allow the blue its yellow

with the tea.

the yellow speaks of black

but is this memory

or prophecy

(as sky is liable to).

the sky is yellow.

the sky black.

blue a variation on black played after

our melody is complete.

or in some place lost

between dinner and sleep.

 

an interval held

too long between breath

the intention to speak

your breath on my throat

or water in a glass

remain

part of what I know

the blood

quieter than water

the first sound

slips from your throat

onto my tongue

like a perch

unconscious in

the air we speak

I swallow the sound

of your refusal

and breath

draws blood

from my tongue

the interval

in our bodies

aged with water

a fish

gelid in the stream

would speak

 

may have this light

or other

shadow in it

shape of a hand’s

grey drift

a small room

without windows

clasping the shadow

of a hand

fixed on the wall.

searching the shape

of a door

some flaw in the light

as distance

in time

of a room’s shadow

edges into decay

a slip

in the shadowed light

like memory

of a door

the hand of memory

of past light

so severe

it blanketed distinction.

 

the occasional need

to accept disturbance

into one’s breath

and grasp a fragment

of the day.

the day a fragment of the self,

its broken mirror

of the other’s desire

for self

without its other.

and breath never alone.

always

as it is

filling

into a sky

the other, breath’s absence:

flight

allows the I

trilling

its right of refusal

to pass into pieces of sky

like cloud.

as cloud sky’s breath

the trill breath’s tool

to embroider absence

with intent.

and pass

in spaces of a day

the air drifts free.

 

that too and

something less

listening

a reed bunting

too far off

listening to

the to

gaps

is there

water by water.

the bunting pauses

closer

pausing

repeats its

call its

flighting

    are

there are

threads of reed

bunting its nest.

listening to

water

trip

drop by

again

 

the other day

today like

wisps of

nimbus of

the sky

to close

give

a reed bunting

by water

that too

and

you to

listening.

Comments

[Software companies]

Interesting,
Great poetry, i find it very inspiring and go on to right my own,
Thanks for writing, most people don't bother.