rob mclennan


First you know, and then so ordinary,


I wanted to say: the big dumb
                excuse of me,

the phone rings
all the way from lakeshore,

Toronto Island Airport

                a school bus with its top down,
                subtracted,

sling that holds

if the power of thought
could actually move the sky,

the earth, long enough

dare to pick at raw skin
, call it

first heart she tied her horse to

                remember to be pushed
                alive,


Indecent angles + sour consequences,


constructed entirely of small moons,
a dust made of couplets

                , what colours my hands were

no longer held
the best card; immaculate,

the straight-laced words of a wound

                I would shadow you here
                , leaking particles

a radioactive circle
clockwise the drain

dark side
of the room,

                not even the stars know
                , of what they are made


from avalanche


*

during the course of temperature       ;
                               precipitation & wind
; medium latitudes
                                              arm in an arm
the way your body leans
                                                             soft caress
                oh, soft & supple medium

a tree would you
                               remember (me)

would you feel the blossom worn thin
falling
                the bud                               a sprung line
                               free from complication?


*

after a visual search                  ;                              of surface
                                                                                           clues
                a through-location, digging snow
(where are you, heart?)
                                                             a hand
                                              through fisted wall (in tow)
;               a large scoop, sturdy handle
                                                             (in way of things)

                             important           ;             a reliance on birds
                                                                            to summon

a discount blend of facts
                                                             ; both real,

                                                             imagined


*

an instability                   ;                               an overlying slab
                ; observable properties of snow

through thin silver dust of moon

                               ; where, on long lost snow
                               & dream of the snow

                                              dream of you dear heart
                                                                            , drifting, in

slow
                & stumble                               ;
                                                                            never drifting


*

dear hurricane

                               you have nothing on me
this poem refers to a natural event

                ; a sheltered mess
                of rock, large snow

                                                             a piecemeal act
                                              , recovery
                                                                            , delivered out

                ; poems only an illusion
                against destructive slide

                                              ; rebuilding
                               want

                                                             out of you so much
                                                                                           more


*

an uninterrupted heart ;                             of staggers depth
                if you were any              in
                                              capable speech
words believe you
                                              ; if           &               only

                out loud, pray
                                                             I am desire-sight,
I am night-known
                                              folly
                for these engineered escapes

                               would we imply or impune

a dusty, salted fact
or critter


Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa. The author of more than twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, his most recent titles are the poetry collections Glengarry (2011), wild horses (2010) and kate street (2010) and a second novel, missing persons (2009), An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Chaudiere Books (with Jennifer Mulligan), The Garneau Review, seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and expects to spend much of the next year in Toronto. He regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com.
 
 
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