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But, above all, go to practical people--
go! jangle their door-bells!
Say that you do not work
and that you will live forever.

-from "Salutation the Second", Ezra Pound
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Feb. 27th, 2006 @ 04:40 pm Undergrad
All us sinners chummed like gulls a gaggle,
a scatter, cupping back Friday and Saturday
over stewed beef. Heady months-cum-years.
We struggled over our own motility and the
murphy bed, heavy and awkward. Where to
put our hands? Chimed the bereted snapper:
No oglers. Jump fists in. Shock and clobber.

Slum-baked wood floors groaned, holding up
the grumble-gut snarks to rabble laughs. Tasked
at sad tests. Litmus and lime. The gin-caddy
thumbed our sci-thatched goggler (like loogies
before, or, later, drool): shake the conch, coax
a slight sound out, or leave apple cores hoarded
on an acidic Sudbury beach, and puked the sink bin.
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Feb. 25th, 2006 @ 09:21 am Silliman's blogroll reaches 800
Ottawa (AP) -- Ron Silliman, author and archiver, added Jee Leong Koh to his blogroll on Feb. 23, bringing the tally of poets he's listed to 800, according to his website. Silliman's blog is one of dozens of similar websites featuring an exhaustive list of poets-cum-bloggers. His list includes Ottawa's rob mclennan and angela rawlings, as well as Calgary-area poet Ryan Fitzpatrick.

The problem is, according to some, that these lists become absolutely daunting to explore. After wading through inane or abandoned blogs, one might throw one's hands up.

The thrilling interconnectedness of these blogrolls, conversely, represents a network of poets in dialog with each other - at least symbolically. How tightly knit can the group possibly be?

It seems a hard question to answer. Silliman has a few dozen regular commenters; his posts often refer to other poets and bloggers; and he seems deeply engaged with the contemporary poetic project. These things all point to a "community" aspect.

But Silliman seems disengenous with his mammoth blogroll. Blogrolls, after all, were originally designed to list websites the author frequents; as the size of a blogroll spirals toward 800, the likelihood that he's actually keeping up dwindles.
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Feb. 22nd, 2006 @ 01:21 pm for those who predicted our predicament and our predicate
The Winter 2006 Yawp is at the presses, as of today. Yawp is the U of O's literary journal; as the "Director of Publishing", I do the layout and design -- it's a volunteer thing, but the title is snazzy, no? I also have three poems in the little mag, but you've already read them. There were a few copy corrections, but otherwise, it's nothing you haven't seen.

If anyone wants a sneak peak at the issue via net-friendly PDF, I'd be happy to e-mail it to you. You can e-mail me (marcus.mccann@gmail.com), and I'll reply with the PDF. It's really... harmless. Promise.
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Feb. 20th, 2006 @ 02:05 pm untitled


Norval Morrisseau
Copper Thunderbird: Merman Ruler of Water

I saw the Morrisseau exhibit at the National Gallery last week (runs until April 30, by the way). It's really a thrilling exhibit. Well worth the $12 ($10 students). One of the questions it raises is about rights of representation, so much an issue these days. The Anishnaabe were upset at his display of the sacred stories, something that was taboo for them -- sound like another recent world event? -- but Morrisseau was at least an insider. I was moved by the exhibit, and i wrote some draft poems about it, but I shouldn't, right? He did some Catholic-themed stuff too, which is a bit of a defense... it also made me rethink 'Tungu', which might have been a bit of nonsense ... anyway...
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Feb. 16th, 2006 @ 05:04 pm 5 months of winter
I think these are thematically linked; they make more sense together than apart. So, nothing new, just putting it all together.

5 months of winter
( Read more... )
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Feb. 9th, 2006 @ 02:06 pm untitled
Yawp's winter 2006 issue is coming out, and let me say I'm pretty stoked. They accepted 5 poems--the three below plus two others: "At an airport..." and "The Survivalist". I requested that just the three prose poems below be included. All three are tweaked, but first appeared here on the lj.

( And snatching the broad from the building )

( Dedication to an unwritten book )

( On meeting Eos )
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Feb. 8th, 2006 @ 08:22 am Unseasonal, 2nd draft
So the snow races water out like a leaking
Orange, and with as much a plan as an orange’d
Have. A streaming game of What time is it, Mr Wolf,
And the February sunset waremoon answers

With its subway token eye: refreeze. How unfair to run
The sidewalk like a sluice and not to warn of stop or start.
But then, how dangerous to lend voice to a quarter year.

We can’t foretell the kind year, and thank god
because if mildness were certain, how could we afford
the real estate? Unseasonal — ha! Like our winters
were predictable and not a staggering, risky pregnancy.

Later, despite the meteorologists, we’ll forget.
No metaphor lurks out there; no Tarot answers,
and a geography lesson pales to good advice.
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Feb. 7th, 2006 @ 03:54 pm Unseasonal
Unseasonal; or, What makes us thankful for a high of minus 10 degrees Celsius

And if it weren't for the cold, how could we afford
the real estate? Yet this February like a Pulitzer
winner: astonishing, unpredictable, heartfelt,
a feat. We nearly forgot the mildness was accidental.

So the snow races water out like a leaking
orange, and with as much plan as an orange'd
have. A streaming game of What time is it, Mr Wolf,
and the shifting sunset waremoon answers

with an unblinking subway token eye: refreeze.
How unfair to run the sidewalk as a sluice and not warn
of stop and start, but then how dangerous to lend voice
to snow or moon or the coldest quarter year.

The meteorologists like a logjam knock heads:
unseasonal--ha! like our winters were predictable
instead of a staggering, risky, pregnancy.
Lover, real life is no metaphor,

and a geography lesson is inferior to good advice.
Forgetting February's howl is national pastime,
and unable to foretell the kind year, you must
try them all, which is why we are often surprised.
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Feb. 4th, 2006 @ 07:39 pm Face down in a lake
Face down in a lake there's more to see
than face down on dirt: brown algae currents
and fuzzy growths; minnows; your own

waterlogged arm like a stranger-passenger;
the twitch of whatever lived in a finger.
The float fakes a nicer belly, or else the drier

arch of a balloon loafing over Confederation
Park. The cathedral dusk and muscular stench
excite like a gypsy jack-o-lantern, a fox.

A mum spot, a lacquer overcoat reprieves
the eye from leaf and weed and weepy tree,
the consequence of sight distilled, absolved,

or dissolved. Time, only, hates the foggy
sojourn, tickles us away, thrashing the surface,
lest a moment's rest be irrevocable.
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Jan. 28th, 2006 @ 04:12 pm Bus trip (Ottawa–Toronto)
Having gleaned nothing from summer or fall,
the rotted fence and tree poke out of snowed fields;
when the arch wind skips past the evened farm,
she is the big winner. But what could a post
have learned from the gilded sights? Can a log
to be moved by a fine view, or can a dull poplar
tackle what was before it, and, aware, hold fast?

The beaten house can feel the active cursing
of a warped boot in its coatroom, bleeding mud
and water as they puddling melt, and feel the axe
dumbly brought indoors--a reminder of other heavy
tools-made-weapons, of back ache, heath, bird heads,
of pa's black summer tobacco, and the steeling
to survive Canadian cold. And outdoors the passive
stubs anchor the house and scolding, scalding snow.

When sweat fell before the leaves fell, the grains did,
and the fence forgot the stock's troll and pattern,
the sway, lit green, the thumbed leaf and hiding fort,
and later, the diesel fume and slow metallic graze.
Few remember the last September days, or care to--
the fence posts least, now wadded in snow, half broke
half protected, which winking feign some sense.

Tense is a circle; lance and lamb trade privileges,
but a year's field again in six months portends
grain--name a city that will fare the least better,
and I will trade this field for his clay and fired lot.
Strange alchemy to an urban tourist will return
orange and gold to the sullen patch, anticipated
by the twist of wind, the introverted farmers,
and the black loops of fence which make a dance.
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Jan. 10th, 2006 @ 02:22 pm untitled
( Brokeback review )
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Dec. 22nd, 2005 @ 09:20 pm Niagara escarpment
A continent of ice dragged itself from the arctic,
scraping across the land, shoulderchecking the soil
in mounds south, past the forty-ninth parallel, melting, shrinking
as it skulked over the border to waste into the Mississippi basin.
We see its slow tracks: the wide ditch and the Niagara escarpment.

Junior high schools teach the land’s misery, how the migrating sheet
gutted the geography ten thousand years ago, wounded and wounding
which richened the soil for wineries in every place it carved up.
Every Canadian child learns how the ice age ended
as their body matures, as the girls turn Machiavellian.
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Dec. 7th, 2005 @ 07:00 pm Definately a draft, my dear
The timered kettle zings
in the bachelor. Coughing awake
like a rattle, I, the panicked pickpocket,
protestant, haphazard and slapdash,
frazzle the hour and him too.

Slipstream jet stream, the kettle's scheming
but I won’t leave my baby in bed.
No no, I’ll tackle the man like a subject, a rowdy
knickknack jumpsuit slave
to your every sinew.

Rotten! and vamped, spaghetti
in my sieve, he’ll be wishing I were
anything but the pickle plague,
so he could roll over like a cinnamon stick
and unboisterous or unbawdy sleep.

The whole day like a can before us!
Every junky tin like a day in a can!
I’ll torque the snuggled bristles after I
sideline dateline clothesline him,
and spoon him into a jittery jar with a ladle.
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Dec. 6th, 2005 @ 12:54 pm Saint Anthony
i

I crest the the mown-over
strawberry-field hill this chilly Niagara day
and find the man who’d asked for me,
the human field statue.

Saint Anthony unplied and lovely
watches the blush rise like a soldier,
like the Last Day. From wild Anthony
the bright day comes, a pouring pale,
a laying of warm hands for all Canada.

ii

Yes, I hissed, yes, suddenly a devil
to your always desert saint,
weeping spit in your beardy ear,
cleaning your teeth with my tongue.
I will give you all the ruin you ask for.
Gnash yourself on my rock,
strangle yourself with my long body.

I am the wicked wind who sloughs
off his face in a dusty heap, that
only meant to hold it.

iii

And I’ve yet to say the prayer right, no fault
of Anthony’s nor of the fruited words,
but of this fired tongue, burned,
knotted, and steaming like a poem,
and the halfwit who runs it.

iv

Or, at the roadside, slung over my shoulder,
grass tears for the man with god’s ear

full of sin and happiness and grinning,
waiting for the urban blow, the we are living bus.

I have not saved nor sullied you,
but carried you from the desert to the gallery,

the upshot silver, which is no ideal,
but concrete and glass and love enough.
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Dec. 3rd, 2005 @ 07:04 pm the update
...and there are confessions coming. or perhaps i've talked them into anecdote. one i can't wait to say: i'm totally gaga over someone. some man. perhaps a couple of you have noticed the tone of what i'm writing has changed. gone are the poems of leering. replaced with poems of love (or love and leering, in some cases). perhaps you all would perfer i went back to the lusty set? i can't wait to introduce you to him. he's maddening and otherworldly. enough. perhaps i've already said too much.

and to him, if he's reading: i felt young and nervous and barrel-toned. tonight was good.
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Dec. 3rd, 2005 @ 02:54 pm Wedding reception
Polite dim trolls the boxed hall,
gold parquet, paper walls,
brass ceiling lights, the wedding warehouse
puts on his sweater.

My love’s tux rides his limbs.
Its chafe grabs his shoulder
like discomfort were
clasp, knot, and pin.

Left a second alone, he’s watching

sweat spread to the tablefabric
from a squat glass. He rolls wet cubes like giblets
with ginger and gin,
gentle and stitched in the crepe.

His forever pledge stunned me today;
now, his twitch and distraction show
he’s still reeling too,
hours after the first dance—

holding and having should always be
an invented and reinventing dance.

Our stuff’s crated, forks, spoons, books,
to be shipped where wind streams
with no end over the hardwood,
slipping over the couch

free and leaking.
cartography did not constrain the architect,
gravity, Scrabble, gym floor lines
the dance's steps which thieve nothing.
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Dec. 2nd, 2005 @ 04:08 am nuit blanche? mais, oui!
Said, on very little sleep: "I'm like a dead person wrapped in a live person. It's like a pigs-in-a-blanket, except made out of dead people and living people."
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Dec. 1st, 2005 @ 03:22 pm dedication to an unwritten book (draft)
for the bread in the basket and its gospel, for the kneeler and the prayer, for the oratorio and the orant, for the blessing and the jest, for the helper and the help, for the tobacco and the rosemary, for our lady of guataloupe, for our lady of good counsel, for the streaming good, for the kingdom and the power, for the stephens and the christophers, for animae and anima, for the totem and the taboo, for the magician the fortune teller the witch and the Rebecca, for the tock and tick and the trick and the trickster, for our mantra repeated, for your spirit guide's spirit guide, for perfection satisfaction promise, for the procession and the hummed hymm, for the bomber and the bomb, for the sly and the slime, for our rudimentary grammar, for our sign and our signified, for the sine and the co-signing, for the spice of splice, for those who predicted our predicament and our predicate, for this comma here, for this one too, three, for the enormous nick-nick-nick that pointilates the framed photo of the earth at a distance, for New Jersey birthing you like a whale like a heavy fish, for the kelp, for them who have kept you and blessed you and primed you for this, for the dressmaker, for the everything you touch is magic, for those who have scattered you in the wind like the already dead, for the all the weapons that misfired, for our ruin and our rune, for my ruse, for Alabama has a weight on her shoulder,
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Nov. 29th, 2005 @ 11:47 am Listen to this, baby
I’m gonna this write out
then fuck you with it,
and you can bet which’ll be more beautiful.

Oh man, I’m gonna lay you,
steep you head to toe
in my hot breath,

rumple, rustle, razzle you,
hassle you until the rock
is crying.

I’m gonna antagonize you,
displace unconnection’s pain
with nagging complaints.

An hour’s moan’ll begin
a week’s taunt.
Like a whistle. Like a goddamned brick of coke.

Oh man, oh man
I’ll rip out the sad skeleton
and sniper the injured part with distraction.

You’re gonna love this shit.
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Nov. 28th, 2005 @ 06:59 pm The revisionist
ii

Or seducing a drunk at home
and curling him up inside my bed
like a blind kitten, and pressing
my knees into the back of his,

and letting out the half-monster sigh,
imitating November. His eyes
tracing panic on my ceiling,
I pushed him to his edge

but no further. Another night
I'll push him into his bed moaning.
The night before, I kissed him
kamakaze-style the end of buddy night.
Today I sing a song I well remember.


iii

Stone stairs snap twigs down
forest's cleft, - hammy stone rail,
gothic, fat enough for us both
to sit, with her lolling
head at my meated chest,
trading parts in For the Time Being -
and indeed. Dense stone, forest, verse,
friendship. She, at sixteen,
could press Proust into my hand –
exam in eight weird years,
like a psychic with a straw roof.

I barely studied. If it doesn't cut in
line breaks, I didn't read it.


iv

And in your bed,
gummed up, fucked in the guts,
afraid of all talk,
I add a scene to my understanding of happiest,
clipping and recollaging
the others before sleep catches.
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