{"id":951,"date":"2012-02-06T04:09:38","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T04:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/?page_id=951"},"modified":"2012-02-06T04:09:38","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T04:09:38","slug":"catherine-owen","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/writings\/poetry\/catherine-owen\/","title":{"rendered":"Catherine Owen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aesthetics <\/strong><\/h1>\n

You can reduce it all to that.<\/p>\n

If you want.<\/p>\n

A technological fissure through which light<\/p>\n

falls, imprints,<\/p>\n

the scent of another’s funk tweaking one’s synapses,<\/p>\n

but this morning I am overwhelmed by birds<\/p>\n

whose pathways are not as rational<\/p>\n

as you think.<\/p>\n

Instinct, that machine of plenitude.<\/p>\n

It can’t account for everything.<\/p>\n

Or technique.<\/p>\n

The only way you’ve gifted me with this stone<\/p>\n

or merely one channel from which love emerges,<\/p>\n

floods onto the earth, lifting this geological clock<\/p>\n

and fixing it, just so, in its moment.<\/p>\n

Of all creatures,<\/p>\n

birds have the most knowledge of light,<\/p>\n

but it is the lilac tree that divulges it, the sky<\/p>\n

spilling over a field.<\/p>\n

I have no way to measure<\/p>\n

why I keep returning.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Demi-Glosa on Two Lines by Derek Walcott<\/strong><\/h1>\n
(for Frank Bonneville, 1974-2003)<\/h6>\n
\u201c<\/strong>I didn\u2019t want this poem to come from the torn mouth\/I didn’t want this poem to come from his salt body\u201d<\/h6>\n
The Wind in the Dooryard<\/h6>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Still, after all this time, I dream of him.<\/p>\n

Spring again, six years since his darkest leap,<\/p>\n

his life, the in & out of wards, a drought<\/p>\n

and nothing curing what cannot be healed.<\/p>\n

At night, the wilderness of his eyes returns,<\/p>\n

the endless walks against his death,<\/p>\n

he vanishing in stations of that final choice,<\/p>\n

a choice when choosing has no further face<\/p>\n

before the imposition of the sheet’s white truth.<\/p>\n

I didn’t want this poem to come from the torn mouth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My love for him the love for art<\/p>\n

: irrational, immense, a doomed pursuit.<\/p>\n

The small immortalities a gift or maybe<\/p>\n

just a blinder act. All he was has now come back<\/p>\n

in the under-oceaned world of sleep: the crazy<\/p>\n

vortex of his grief, his mouth on mine, unsteady<\/p>\n

heat of when his flesh found flesh in dark.<\/p>\n

And my life will not forget his life, nor<\/p>\n

his death ever leave my mind empty<\/p>\n

though I did not want this poem to come from his salt body.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Juliet\u2019s Quandry or Sonnets Partially Wind-Torn<\/strong><\/h1>\n

And so what it comes down to, Juliet<\/p>\n

has too many Romeos. Again. She,<\/p>\n

wanting only to sing to the moon, freely,<\/p>\n

high on her ersatz balcony, has met<\/p>\n

her match as they say, and now, how her bet<\/p>\n

with Plato is lost, the many, you see<\/p>\n

have not become the one, but……<\/p>\n

…living years on coffee and lust,<\/p>\n

Juliet is now thin as her sonnets,<\/p>\n

her hair wind-wracked, skin the shade of new rust.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yet still the rabble-rousers want her hand<\/p>\n

….words, her only commander.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After all she’s learned, is peace now…<\/p>\n

O god, the fields of daisies burn her mind.<\/p>\n

So this is fate, the end, her final cost.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Poem ending with a line by Brodsky<\/strong><\/h1>\n

I’m not going anywhere I say, the restaurant<\/p>\n

morbidly cheerful in the half-light of what our<\/p>\n

mouths approximate: a ticket stub, a blood drop,<\/p>\n

a tiny shell.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You’re not going anywhere, you repeat and the clock’s<\/p>\n

hands fold & unfold, in the closed Capitol Six ghosts<\/p>\n

watch their youth walk backwards, construction workers<\/p>\n

drop large coins over the eyes of sewers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No, I say, I’m not going anywhere, though (the bill<\/p>\n

is asked for, the mints are brought), you may find<\/p>\n

I’m not quite back, for there are objects in me<\/p>\n

that float, my ears become butterflies whole<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

moments at a time, though I’m not going anywhere,<\/p>\n

I might (still) not be here and I admit that one’s love<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

should be greater, more pure.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Poem on an interrupted line by Brodsky<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Darling you think it’s love<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0she speaks to herself<\/p>\n

in the mirror as the procession is going past, the awful tubas<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

and the pale mandolins, swallows are circling the rooftops<\/p>\n

before diving back into their nests as if they had forgotten<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

it is winter, the kettle is probably on but why this second person<\/p>\n

agenda, that saccharine nom de plume? You could forgive<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

her for getting older, but for still sporting a skirt above<\/p>\n

her shins, for dying her hair aubergine, for imagining<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

herself boarding a train to meet him, all the way out<\/p>\n

in Holysville, is inexcusable, beyond the pale, as her mother<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

used to say, and what does she think, that he’ll be there,<\/p>\n

bouquet in hand, natty tie knotted firmly? O no darling<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

you think it’s love\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 but it’s just another midnight journey.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aesthetics You can reduce it all to that. If you want. A technological fissure through which light falls, imprints, the scent of another’s funk tweaking one’s synapses, but this morning I am overwhelmed by birds whose pathways are not as rational as you think. Instinct, that machine of plenitude. It can’t account for everything. Or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":203,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"authorpoetry.php","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-951","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=951"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":952,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/951\/revisions\/952"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}