{"id":953,"date":"2012-02-06T04:11:07","date_gmt":"2012-02-06T04:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/?page_id=953"},"modified":"2012-02-06T04:11:07","modified_gmt":"2012-02-06T04:11:07","slug":"chris-banks","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/writings\/poetry\/chris-banks\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Banks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Griffon<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Unfathomed for centuries, it sleeps<\/p>\n

at the bottom of Lake Michigan,<\/p>\n

the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes,<\/p>\n

after mysteriously vanishing on<\/p>\n

its maiden voyage in 1679<\/p>\n

with its six-man skeleton crew<\/p>\n

and a valuable freight of furs,<\/p>\n

so we are forced to improvise a myth<\/p>\n

around this grail of shipwrecks,<\/p>\n

an antiquarian\u2019s water-logged dream,<\/p>\n

imagining its wooden spars<\/p>\n

splintering in the lake\u2019s grave-yard,<\/p>\n

squeezed by black bellows,<\/p>\n

its wet hafts, mud-struck beams<\/p>\n

battered by limestone, shale,<\/p>\n

sandstone, halite, gypsum\u2014its hull<\/p>\n

revised, deranged, unmade,<\/p>\n

until it is no longer a lost ship,<\/p>\n

but a tangle of rotting planks,<\/p>\n

the wreckage of a forgotten age<\/p>\n

treasure hunters trawl for like thieves<\/p>\n

in long veils of lime-silt water,<\/p>\n

as if something both permanent<\/p>\n

and real could be salvaged by<\/p>\n

a human desire pure enough<\/p>\n

to haul what is left of its origins<\/p>\n

all the way up to the surface.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Late-Great Encyclopedia Men<\/strong><\/h1>\n

They stand at the entrance of a house<\/p>\n

unable to lift a finger to ring the bell<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

knowing they have joined the late-<\/p>\n

great ranks of salesmen who haunt<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

airport lounges and hotel bars<\/p>\n

telling stories of how they too once<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

carved out a territory for themselves<\/p>\n

like Romulus and Remus, an empire<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

of neon lights and red clay-dirt farms.<\/p>\n

But had they lived in that other time<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

their lives would be worth the same,<\/p>\n

no more than the scattered leaves<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

rattling under a car\u2019s dusty wheels<\/p>\n

as they go to and from destinations<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

they cannot even recall week to week<\/p>\n

which is why they stand so motionless,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

hesitating on someone\u2019s front stoop,<\/p>\n

not daring to disturb the neighborhood,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

watching the faint shadows they cast<\/p>\n

on the sidewalks in the early evenings.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How insubstantial they look walking<\/p>\n

already forgotten in the coming dusk.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Thief<\/strong><\/h1>\n

I jimmied open the basement window,<\/p>\n

rusty hinges swinging slowly inward,<\/p>\n

shimmied myself onto the high shelf,<\/p>\n

letting my feet drop toward the floor,<\/p>\n

before padding stealthily up the stairs<\/p>\n

like a five year old apprentice thief.<\/p>\n

My neighbours were eating breakfast<\/p>\n

at a small round table in their kitchen<\/p>\n

without ever speaking to one another<\/p>\n

or seeing me standing on the stairwell.<\/p>\n

I kept my vigil for maybe five minutes,<\/p>\n

then left the same way I had come in<\/p>\n

without ever thinking of their privacy\u2014<\/p>\n

until yesterday when I was cleaning out<\/p>\n

the basement, then saw a shaft of light<\/p>\n

pour itself through an unlatched window.<\/p>\n

It triggered in me a sudden wave of guilt;<\/p>\n

or was it simply d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu? What passed<\/p>\n

passed I always thought, but how else<\/p>\n

to explain that sliver of light, and then<\/p>\n

a who\u2019s who of my memories, breaking<\/p>\n

and entering into the story of my life?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong>Cold War <\/strong><\/h1>\n

Rounding the pathway, I said my prayers<\/p>\n

like any twelve year old after confession.<\/p>\n

Oak palisades lined each side of the street.<\/p>\n

Big trees in full-leaf wearing rusty colours<\/p>\n

like insignias of Fall\u2019s surrender. I thought<\/p>\n

about the soft cymbals of the falling rain<\/p>\n

hitting the sidewalks too. How it dampened<\/p>\n

everything I passed \u2013 the friendship center,<\/p>\n

the candy store, the dirty garage smelling<\/p>\n

of oil pans and used tires \u2013 and whether<\/p>\n

it was that awful rain that turned bones<\/p>\n

into a brittle chalk. Would it be possible<\/p>\n

for Soviet soldiers to surround my town<\/p>\n

like so many Hollywood films prophesied?<\/p>\n

How would planes sneak past the radar base<\/p>\n

sitting like a giant modern-white Pantheon<\/p>\n

on a cliff face above the iron trestle bridge<\/p>\n

trains rattled across on their way out west?<\/p>\n

TV preached Star Wars and apocalypse-light<\/p>\n

to children who, bequeathed a world<\/p>\n

they could not yet begin to fully appreciate,<\/p>\n

took refuge by drifting inwardly as I did,<\/p>\n

scuffing wet clumps of leaves with my shoes<\/p>\n

noticing the mark they left, the impression<\/p>\n

of bodies vaporized, there on the sidewalks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Griffon Unfathomed for centuries, it sleeps at the bottom of Lake Michigan, the first ship to sail the upper Great Lakes, after mysteriously vanishing on its maiden voyage in 1679 with its six-man skeleton crew and a valuable freight of furs, so we are forced to improvise a myth around this grail of shipwrecks, […]<\/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-953","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/953","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=953"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":955,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue9\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/953\/revisions\/955"}],"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=953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}