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Fletched A flower—no I mean one who—unplucked—flows / the o as in holy—not ouch * When I was 5—asleep on a fold-out couch—my cousin Clint Gordon 16 sleeping there too I woke up he was in me hurting me from behind I tried to get up he held me down if you tell they’ll send you to the bad place It probably happened to him the same way—about the same age—maybe even the same words My first me is this breach—a pain—the conviction that I am dirty—guilty Words have their smells—they hit home * Try to think of the plucked stem as a crick—a creek—scared—in flood—lifted out A three-leggéd meat-eating horse of a river—contorting—above lots & concessions * Cling to pathetic details: the Alcazar Hotel Vancouver Xmas 79 2nd floor corner Contemplate foaming drizzle—down onto Pender—only a ballad mutters now My banjo’s neck had cracked on the train—I threw a Bic as hard as I could against the wall Later I crawled around—drinking from the bottle—hunting that pen’s dark inner tube—O mighty quill—it wrote now—a pin-feather bendy to hold No go the hotel / no go the song—or the cling-to—the long memory: gulls above slop near * Under what you can get away with—is the better line—what you can't get away from Between sentimentalism—& misanthropy—is the worse mistake—writing to please This fiddle-wind I tinker at squealing like goes: Don't eat & read—come un-Protestant-ing * I am always half / in love with the early / photos of at least / 3 women poets Shame honed to defiant beauty—& often I am right: they have been abused also Not only women—all of us who were made to—we were helpless—we absorbed fault We who blinded half-truths—excoriated normalcy—told disgust a joke To not end up in a ditch—to not go bonkers—to not become abusers—we had to tell When we finally meet—we are safe dry old white flags—with these great eyes Our lettered-halves long sunk deep into the red cork of the page Our thumbed guide-feathers whistling * Not holy—better say hardworn-sacred
Phil Hall leaves the machine alone. Everything escapes him.
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Volume 6, Issue 4
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