footsteps downstairs
bye clare
beloperone
booming
smaller
footsteps
attic footsteps
dark drink a whole pot of
to stir whirrings of the orb
booming: bone
A RED
SQUARE
no ifs: trepid
no buts
nothing
a red square creeps on wall
*
the size of envelope dawn
scours hills of the painting
clare leaves
early for horses
haytoter
ours (languagelesness and
dunno that dawn strikes
dawn in a country she invented
*
scouring the hills for news
when I say name
you say fame
calling at the hillside
echo echo
loss
loss
collection of dents in
the voicebox
*
bye clare but dreaming and didn’t
say
my work is of another
kind foamshod
floating
a miner in the heart and the heart
of the mountain
*
*
winter
squash
like messaien he was
shot by a hunter
dumped his hands all
over
the piano
OVERTIME
into the boards like a bird
initial kid joy then the feeling
when child is the shape of the eye of a goat
and paint drips
down
and kisses your brow
*
malachite in the gleaming cliff
in the taletell
gewgaw
sucked
skeleton
raw around the tall
lake
Blasted parallel to meaning
gaze down mineshaft
realize it’s an ear
*
*
nanaimo dances
Heard the dawn
the others barged
across harbour back
from dance 1 sobs
whole way a splash
horseplay one makes
crow of the rooster
Ill always unwashed
sheets smell enough to
feign (smile) I have
performed some deed
*
*
clare holds aloft
(obscured
by sun behind her hands
the donkeys grown
overfond and dogged
hiccup
clare translates all gesture
in the film we might see
watch the cat for clues
*
*
red slash axing dark
barely
awake return
w fleck
of gold in the pocket
white smoke boiled
fish sweaty low hat NO
I WANT NO WINE
the river is high
the green world is poison
a horse get on
plowing your own
furrow
*
never enough
flowers
In the painting
the hillsides are red god
joy
to grasp a season so
like shooting an animal
blowing up its head
Hamish
Ballantyne
is a poet from Vancouver Island. He works seasonally as a mushroom picker and
works on the Downtown Eastside the rest of the year. Hamish recently published Imitation Crab (KFB) and is translating Luis de Góngora's Solitudes.
the
Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan
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