courtesy of guest poet Robert Colman
Bigger Again
What have I done with the world
today? I’m pretty certain I’ve let it
have its way. And that everyone is
tired of me, that I’ve barely tied
a knot in an hour, made it
fast. I don’t think death
more than once, although I do
spend a few days bent double,
trying to breathe, wondering
if it’s possible to forget how.
I haven’t touched anyone for days,
waving from behind sheer curtains.
Had no intention of
withdrawing this far, becoming
cotton wool, dull needle.
I had to leave a friend’s place
tonight – to write, type or at least
make noise that resembles voices
gathering just beyond the back fence.
I needed to give myself up
to something. Gorging on sweets,
the best chocolates, strawberries, spelt
bread, organic bananas. What I wanted
was to eat the sidewalk, and the dirt, and
the basin, and the shoes in my hallway.
This is the only way I know
how to talk – create an absurdity,
cause a scene, burn a memory.
Look at me, I’m drowning again
No. No, no, no. It’s too damn easy,
too fucking usual. The world knows
how to swallow me. But what does it take
to make me bigger again?
Beautiful Animals
I carry your telephone love you
out on my lunch hour walk.
The salt and the cold have burnt away
the snow, just a dust of white
rime in the roads, tongue-and-grooving
the tires, the slightest grit of teeth.
Everyone has been coughing
this dry air, the mirrored casings of
offices reflecting themselves
in a clarity of brutal blue and silver –
no equivocations, everything is
what it ought to be. Cars
fresh from the wash drip
like the mouths of dogs.
Smokers, faces chapped, unshaven,
rasp breath into their coats,
sharp-lipped. We are beautiful
animals, pretending this is all
we need, doing it on our own.
I come dangerously close
to forgetting your voice,
the weight of it in my strut,
playing my throat. And then
I worry it is bigger than
me, a mouth run to whispers.
I slide back somewhere between the two,
thirsty to trust, tasting the salt grit air
for balance, leaning
into the beauty,
close.
Rob Colman is a writer and editor based in Newmarket, ON. His poems have appeared in a variety of literary journals across Canada and his first collection, The Delicate Line, was published by Exile Editions in 2008.
You can purchase The Delicate Line at Exile Editions or Amazon.ca