Tuesday poem #74 : lary timewell : the map looks nothing like the thicket

(for Peter Culley)

world down / stocks up, time to

thought walk thinks over

you can count on me not to be

the same in person as on paper

here

where

there

essence credo dwells as an

orphaned bird in autumn light

infinite cosmology of

detritus pond

boiling the phrases down to

the sparrow bone, down to

the personal opaque, the

what the hell ravens no

nightingale

*

cloudburst over mirror puddle

& busted pay phones in the arbor

that other poet is the real me, see

him waving back from the daymoon

the meaningful wanders

as the afternoon (just ghostly)

turns a foot fall, suck of mud, sight

in siesta, myriad coastal echo oscura

writing present later in chlorophyll

sweat & the milk of fallen apples

always, each time, more than enough

sun to chamois pears,

the winks of cinders, tattoos

under dirt shirts, abandoned

bedframes, perfect &

inept affection

heart’s a hard breath now, all

pleasures evaporate, sing THE

techne    /   episteme

Heraclites of Wellington, Nihonmatsu,

Fukushima, the unbored because

each step exhales chord progressions

against the grain of cabana coffee tables

that hover low as the lowest Frisbee

skim over sleep-feigning wide-alert dog

thought being

of two minds to pounce on

the immaculate scraps,

lily pond to

lotus gunk.

lary timewell is a North Vancouver writer recently returned from 20 years in Fukushima. The co-founder and publisher of the late 1980s and early 90s Tsunami Editions, he has published a number of titles, including two chapbooks from Obvious Epiphanies and tones employed as loss (a section from molecular hyperbole) recently published by above/ground press.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan