Tuesday poem #343 : Guy Birchard : My Tom "Roadkill" Bridwell

               (1945 - 2017)

The past is a spit-bucket.

In that Way of hers,

Anne dreamed

about Tom Bridwell

the night before

we got the mail

Howard wrote

telling Tom died.

Imprudent as may be

to relate one's dreams

at large, still to whom

she favors is confided

the nightvision

of having sent Tom

that trio of drawings actualized

quite awake:

the conical party hat 

run over in the street,

rescued, transported,

drawn thrice, dubbed in his name,

"The Roadkill Drawings."

Tom wrote,

It's passing strange... reading

Birchard... stranger still actually

understanding. He said,

I take a very long time to eat,

rereading Birchard. Said,

Hecatomb requires

ten or twelve

at the pub, at the laundromat.

Qualified praise thus:

My favorite Canadian

poet. The Canadian

Basho, said Tom. Elsewhere:

This rabbit, especially the gravy,

with lots of fresh-ground pepper,

and rice as transport,

preternaturally rich and earthy,

makes me feel so good

that I am almost guilty.

In the end we need a

Roadkill Concordance

to locate among his reams

of dense paragraphs the one

from the cemetery up his Ridge

citing (sans attribution) ... neglected

graves

               collapsing

Guy Birchard : Cigarette Cards (Vermont: Longhouse, 2009), Further than the Blood (Boston: Pressed Wafer, 2010), Hecatomb (Brooklyn: Pressed Wafer, 2017), Aggregate: retrospective (Bristol: Shearsman Books, 2018), Only Seemly (St. John's: Pedlar Press, 2019).

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan