Camille Martin
six sonnets
poor souls
i copied it out of some book.
what a kind heart you have, do lend me something.
i decided to read it, as quickly as possible.
what's the use of writing this?
i've never read a better book in all my life.
you say that you are useless?
there are many of them, all rare and expensive.
they are starving.
i should read it again with attention.
now, i must say a few words.
but enough of this.
we really don't need so much.
it's all talk and nothing else.
i know nothing and have read nothing.
and if the seeds and if they sprout in the bulldozed
forest the forest where trees tall and green once
where they once where they swayed in the wind where
treetops back and forth where they waved and if the birds
drop seeds if they drop them on the razed on the vanished
woods where birds remember perches where bird nests
once perched if birds remember if they know that here
they once flew if birds drop to the bare ground if they drop
seeds if the seeds sprout in the mind of the bird if
the bird's mind sprouts if it grows its own perch if that perch
on the sprout in the mind of the bird if the bird's mind remembers
a nest if the eggs in that nest if they hatch if they remember
hatching little birds if the little birds fly over the forest over
the bulldozed forest if they drop seeds and if the seeds
snow crosses all borders. can you will
it to fall on the feast of the czar? plums
and avocados rot in anticipation
of colours morphing in the blustery wind.
fermentation under the powdery white
blanket passes all understanding despite
intricate synapses sparking around
the table. all this white! why not
orange? the czar with his stained
bib remembers fondly the perfect
spheres of his tender belches amid
snow blown all the way from persia
under the orangey stars he cannot see.
can you?
i plant a tree but later can't find it.
massless light won't quite slant.
rain later proves conceptually wrong.
zombies devour worthless blobs of ink.
stoic electrons ignore stage directions.
lovely petals wear pernicious masks.
so what if it doesn't work, so what?,
fluted winds rifle moth wings.
flimsy doors welcome dreamy flocks.
skeletal ice touches tiny shells.
bruised suns twirl in shimmering futility.
infinite wattage beckons funneled breath.
vagrant gods sprout flawless feathers.
so what if it works, so what?
dusk of airless balloons floating stems-down to pitched slab
dusk of heaven's puzzled kiss athwart shifting rooftops
which dusk grows, lighting speechless verbs perched on dim cattle
shiny eggs toned down by dusk to the edge of a cottoned gong
dusky fossil sonata rippling toward impoverished fringes
scarcely swarming dusk in soft paralysis
dusk of tomorrow's noon, dissolving in past imperfect vats
hairline cracks in unwitting dusk emitting ceaseless whiles
dusk of rhythmic erasure, shielded waifs, recoiling flags
one hand reaching one dusk, tumbling looser seasons
dusk threshing dust in zero gravity for evasive retinas
whose rich dusk plunders photons muted in the burgeoning blur
whose dusk in turn envelopes the blind buzz of sifted bells
in the dusk of unknown mollusks awash in the honing dusk
comatose in paradise, but happy, happy
feet! is this where i want to go? thrust
into an age unfavourable to being
a guest in one's own home? the guest
so evolved its dying smile causes
offspring to birth on the spot? progeny
doomed to fail superbly, like houdini's
fetters? is this what i want? am i lucky to think
i am? these twittering birds have nothing
on the silence of magicians from the grave. someday
paradise will be thought savage. did rain fall
because i wanted to write a poem about love,
causing significant damage to blameless paper?
here comes the bus, fool. is that it?
e-mail the poet at c8martin@ryerson.ca
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