Douglas Barbour and Sheila E. Murphy

from CONTINUATIONS

Section LV

a summer sky fills the eyes
      sleep fulfilled and dream
                rammed tokens taken
                in colour or
        chiaroscuro / hard
copy cat a gory noir

     nets     cast     make     wide    places
traceable         fill color pressing (edges)
            as if     to lure     contrasting
     s   pills to r   each in   side the d   reams
and sort away the brunt of
            brute force            (bardless)

repressions / pre sent nations
hard lessons / lesions in
     a bodied politic     all gone into
            the world alight
     ing as if from airy platforms
as if a spiral pirouette moved up / on

           as magician's h ands tilt the n form
     the letter s and d raw       window
light     in one stream t urned         oven
    of a morning         late upon         conscious known
                               empathic snaking
             provenance     still in keeping

coping    with in to van
             e / motion meters matter
     mutter engine/wise windturned
sanded down on a nightflown flutter of
     wings across moonlit desert
             ing runners shadowed from above

power comes             from near wind
             interchanged (with/via) lute
    landed via      lit wings
                  running course free
  metrics             stationed          across
shade                 wizened this far

wish wind lifts wings tipped
             into sanctioned possibility    how
      mute (or) mutable string lit for song
rings (bell [e]) / that fire in
             bellied sails belief pushes
     ever further into haloed (halted) dark

             all clear             here     torque
of capo             blunts      other-
            wise spun tones             lingering
all haloed             choiring
            into smoky luster
of robust moods

                            reboot / modes
             mask martyred notes held
out / on to fingers strung
too tight slight slippage / flip
      resonate routes      how high
             notes note nothing more than

the continuum of resonance      stretching a
             cross             notation as if
                        visual proof made
      music real      from fingers
           brushing shine from merely
                tangible strings

tangential wings    / mood swings
           st rung out     long
     ing / études / wreck
     ages against harsh song
         a tonal ties knot
ed ited    iterated   re ad

         sages         stray from mime
         while tono     graphic           traits     sequential
       in re         least of knots
                 inhibits         under
       rated straying into out         comes of
                   reed instruments

all musics call    out    into a whirl
         ed ited      tied down    to ward
         too weird    lie of
     whole    some    (song)    where    were
wolf   whistling down the wind
         ing trail of gloss blown out

             idem     wind
        strewn down       thought once     warded
off      a long      schwa      lone
           gram    histo-      tied to
             sport      the loss (dross)
       whist     curved     cues     in sync

                                  chrono isolation
          temp    or    airy     failings
                              fallings through hyst
ory city    how it almost grew
     some    where    ‘you’ see it / a hill
                              (a)side / ways of (un)being

          even          in the d     ark
                         side by ways     (source of) en    ergy
downgrades city         the 'you' o    f     ailings
            dram-ed skeet      shot to
                            hilldown           stark town
         not this

                              fall     ing    a    way of
         being in(g) corrigible    shot
shat    (t)error    ed    out    faced
       faceted pos     ability
         scissions    sessions     how
tell      taled tallied    loss lies    hillsidelined

            estrangement's tallied     against
        skin            the lilies    bleached of
     evident intention            firm       with
direct            shade       thus keep
    hope            an art
    if     act            in chambers

vesseled    tessalated trans (re
        lation lesion       scarring
    un    tell talings      formations
                              a genre generated across
        skin      storied signs        or
the clothing of rule    hung awry

        gloaming form trysts with
intelligible        scars      the storied
                           blessings        wry
        intonations            loath to gather
and interpret       cloth
                            generic as repeat signs

        robotted into steeled     stolen
endless response    thought less
           than pattern    s      ly
    ing down     across      above
                            re/part    e e e e
roar     not compatible     no   t    ed (end)   it

        wan to luc      id        tres
                            pass        a      long the
tall to pretty trees           part blessing
        and part patterned        oars
             press 'cross        less
        knowns        in qua si      re      pose

posit    ed     it    out      ex
        plosions      fract
      ured     alled      root   branch     bit
ten    peaces     lost    let go    lector
             hectoring     in fire
         falling    blown     so far    back

                            raceways to
ward (off)       pacem         as if
         ranches    replete with
hectares                         lone
              went slack in face of
           a root lack

                                      locked in
             be      hooved     to    run
     a way    who     can   (k)not
(k)now       slewed in skewed
             slide      off      out         from
the state (d)      object (ive) on

     t     rained relief relived
                luge th ought to have
bee n    lidded         by state
             me(a)nt      w hole
some                 'glect
             of         parity

            re     gain       ed
u    cate         gory    (t)here
       and     lost in starry eyed
             rom     antics
huge screens lunge       a
gainst such eyes as stare there

         land holds      mind ex
pan    ds (as double screen)
         what doubt gives back
                  to stars      that
d           raw         be      yond
         the usual end    orph     ins

Douglas Barbour, poet, critic and Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Alberta, has published many books of criticism and poetry, including Fragmenting Body etc. (NeWest Press/SALT 2000), Breath Takes (Wolsak & Wynn 2002), A Flame on the Spanish Stairs (greenboathouse books 2003), and, most recently, Continuations, with Sheila E. Murphy (University of Alberta Press 2006). He was inaugurated into the City of Edmonton Cultural Hall of Fame in 2003.

Sheila E. Murphy's most recent book publications are The Case Of The Lost Objective (Case) from Otoliths (2007) and the above-mentioned Continuations.

The University of Alberta Press book is the initial 25 sections of this extended collaborative work by the two authors.

 
 
 
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