December 31, 2008

menace

in grade nine my grandfather gives me the .22,
tells me to practice my aim—
the gun, its giving, a sentence
with perfect grammar:

the range—syntax, my life as man

the target—dependent object, success as a man

the bullets—the verb, the act, actions, the motion of raising
my voice just so, an entrance/exit pattern
(the damage done—mere semantics)

the gun—the noun, the enunciation, that shadow slung over, well hung,
an inheritance (tempting heresy)

the miss—the ungrammaticality, failure, fallow, the unmettled
forge, the blank, a single feeble flag
sprung from the barrel, a bleating guffaw
a sob, stop, the sentence un—

i broke the gun, literally, a small part near the loading mechanism (i
refuse to look up the proper terminology) snapped when i threw it down,
shocked when i swear i saw blood on the barrel

that and a belt-buckle with a horse rearing, this
taken cumulatively, equals lineage

several listeners have approached me after readings
proclaiming that I hate my parents, citing
my narrative choice to kill off the father in several instances

that passing down, passing on, passing
through my veins the impulse
like an addiction at birth

i did practice with my .22, set up clay targets and took careful aim
the gun hard against my shoulder like a hand and i hit
quite often, i was pretty good, spent afternoons making
clay spray into dust, and then one afternoon, clouds brewing,
a chickadee that had landed on one of the clay targets
sprayed into dust—aim raised just so,
a sob, stop, uncock

December 21, 2008

Poem’s Rehab

not many readers
left like antibodies and the town
has the shakes
and this empty space where
it was before returns

poem is leaving town
leaving the collective
the addictive system
where positions remain
without people

rivers continue to run
underneath the street and
if left to, would sluice out
again taking away the parking
meters and sandwich shops

Poem has doubts on how
the drugs have affected memory
function and sensory
calmness can be settling
and unnerving

Poem shirks the narrative
bridle freed from the need
to make coherent boundaries
between what is known

Poem repeats names, ponders
parts of speech, finds the city
doesn’t meet any of the lives

The Plan is the Poem

that/this body poised for some
intervention into

or pulled from
what is Poem

but the question
preceding this

this strange porous
(sense) contact

October 6, 2008

ashes across the pass

the sound of land, wet and
stopped, alternating
language and substance, subject
and object, lost
in a host’s presence

and how he greets you—
the welcome is
stone glottal and aspirant
wistful over the river

(but that river bend, that one
over past the joining, that one is
not for you)

problem: standing on the ground (yun)
double dawning like that other
idea spoken to you and (‘ust’oh) you are

like days of the week and work
ethic and the lord’s order/layers
of speech when the young girl says
she is not coming home

the language comes like (I am)
a four-year-old

an uncertain anger for a verb
its sound eluding your tongue

July 21, 2008

Indices: 2nd Quarter Returns

so how can I get you to buy this poem for 34.6% more than it’s worth

when the earth goes into anaphylactic shock from us

in 2005, 975, 622 dog jackets were sold in North America. I have no way of confirming this data. Fastening devices vary

it might just not be for you; let it go—

Boredom, n. (bôr'dəm, bōr'-) the malady of ennui, a fit of sulk; a dull time: "to drill", a persistent indus-trial or developmental annoyance; bourre padding, triviality, bourrer to stuff, to satiate; abhorrer "to shrink back from, have an aversion for, shudder at, abhor": the phonetosphere of bore, bore, bore, abhor, drill, boor, bore bore bore BORE

work doesn’t work

poetic value is a territory without totalities

where did that last line come from

There’s a hole in my poem dear liza dear liza there’s a hole in my poem dear liza a hole.

back then it was said, “as it is written”all the terror and salvation stamped into the inked word so even now we hear the breath beckon

I suppose you are expecting something like a poem here

note: 23 of the 112 lines of this poem are not “mine”

Close: 7.80 Change: -0.27 %Change: -3.35% Volume: 441,151 Open: 8.00 EPS:
-2.83 Shares Out: 142.6 M

I write a lot at the bus stop, before getting on

a piedi

The indices of me: to indicate use or position in an arrangement (see poetics); the index of the expression of values; a character used to direct attention to a note or paragraph —called also fist; derived from a series of observations and used as an indicator or measure; specifically the relation of one dimension of a thing (as an anatomical structure) to another dimension. When I speak to you, the index shifts.

noting that “beetle” is the exact perfect word for a beetle

the value in wondering at the nature of value

inquiring into the symbolic dildo I strap on every day

While no one will argue that 32 offsuit is somehow a "better" hand than 32 suited, what we can easily see is that people play the "better" hand worse -- and thus make the expectation of the better hand to be worse than the worse hand.

poetic value is a goose in love

“Every form of aesthetic must necessarily choose between what is worth preserving and what should be discarded, and what should not even be considered.”

This is an indication that workplace (so, a kind of feeling of belonging) was the mobilizing force behind the revolt: a combination of solidarities based on craft loyalties and the engagement of craft union leaders and unemployed workers in citywide institutions.

poetic value is “an organized evasion procedure”

poetic value finds us, it finds us, we wait, it comes to us, freely, freely—and there is no avoiding it, poetic value happens, you can receive it or look away. . .

how not to say, how not to mean, how not to say, how not to speak, how not to say, how not to stay, how not to say, how not to not

Words have the power to heal wounds. Out of the mysterious place where words first come to be "made flesh"—

I am a dual citizen, born in America, the son of draft dodgers but my citizenship is of the English language and it is an uneasy allegiance

noting that “beetle” might not be the perfect word for a non-English “beetle”

In general, chapbooks were inexpensive publications designed for the poorer literate classes.

by dual I mean not at all

the design process of Brazillian ‘favelas’

a form of social death

so what, $32 for the babysitter, $10 for gas, $55 for dinner, $40 for the massage, market price for weed, $8 for snacks and iced coffee on the way home

Just weeks after Aguas del Tunari, a private company owned by London-based multinational International Water Ltd., took over the city’s water system.

poetic value has nothing to do with “yields”

If value was something it might be uncertain: market price equivalent of human need, the fluctuating idea thought of as being more or less desirable, useful, estimable, important, etc.; worth or, I suppose, intrinsic worth but also principles, standards. In a word, meaning, art, relative lightness or darkness, the relative duration of a note, proportioned effect, this poem’s rhythms, etc.; a symbol stands so we can be strong, stronger.

under written by an under man

this particular line written on a day when nothing particular comes to mind, stands

There are several factors contributing to the improved economy in Prince George. While the mountain pine beetle has devastated forests in Northern B.C., it has meant a significant increase in the amount of timber harvesting activity and the creation of new secondary manufacturing opportunities utilizing the denim pine.

Two-year yields closing down 9.9 bps to 2.43%, five-year yields down 7.9 bps to 3.14%, 10-year yields down 6.9 bps to 3.84% and 30-year yields down 5.3 bps to 4.57%.

the index would have three variables: one you, two an imaginary history, three chance, and the control would be form

it still stands

the art formerly know as form

This process is performed in large vessels known as pulpers where the raw materials are diluted with up to 100 times their weight of water and then subjected to violent mechanical action using steel rotor blades. The resulting slurry (known as papermaking stock) is then passed to holding tanks.

poetic value has nothing to do with “success”

Canfor's shutdown of its first mill last summer is now permanent and components of the mill have already been dismantled and sent to another company mill in Fort St. John. A Canfor spokesman said the indefinite closure gives the company the flexibility to reassess the mill's status if there is a prolonged improvement in market conditions. The consensus among forest industry analysts, however, is the lumber market will depend on the increased sales of local books of poetry.

Once again, at a poetry reading, we find that we have both an opposition and a unity. We have an opposition because the relative use value form and the equivalent exchange form are exactly the opposite of each other and form two opposed, contradictory poles. We have unity because each pole is a partial expression of the simple form of exchange-value as a whole. Together they are "mutually dependent and inseparable" but, ultimately, paradoxical.

once once was a war word

gives the company the flexibility. took over the city’s water system

poetry is not a taking up of arms; poetry is next to nothing; I would die of poetry

May 16, 2008

Indices: First Quarter Returns

poetic value (diagnoses) is repetitive motion disorder; the way a habit becomes habit or inhibited / by a turn

The Latest CFP-T Quote, Chart News, Company Snapshot, Dividends, Estimates, Price Reports, Internal Rhyme, Ends

poetic value rolls
into the ditch on that highway
curve near Cluculz lake

poetic value was indeterminate indeterminate
because the street price was quoted
from unreliable sources

EPS (ttm) 2.39 Low 8.480 P/E (ttm) 3.70

for chrissakes watch
where yr going

Auden: "poetry makes nothing happen"

poetic value is an eBay ad
for a 1972 printer’s proof
slightly water damaged
in Jonathan Ball’s basement

“No definition of economics is adequate or can capture the subject. For that reason, most teachers don’t like definitions and skip them”

the act of “grasping after ‘the poem’”

when language begins to devalue its object

I wondered why everyone was staring at me in the grocery store and then I got home and realized my hair was sticking out funny and I had a bloody nose

poetic value is the value of having a name for the source of terror

poetic value is questioning that name for the source of terror

“Investments in our distribution platform, product development and international reach fueled sales, while brand building, select divestitures and a focused acquisition strengthened our competitive position even further”

poetic value = “no one is exempt from playing the game of the ecology of the imaginary!”

how to cope with scarcity

poetic value runs a deficit for the public good

the call was silent because the automatic dialer had a hit on the fourth call, yours was the sixth

Net Change C$ +0.130 % Change +1.50%

there is a moment during a 1981 episode of Mork & Mindy in which a pun (intentional or unintentional) on the word ‘association’ caused a 37% drop in the Nielsen rating of national viewership

nowhere was the job losses felt more deeply than in the manufacturing sector where tens of thousands found themselves without a paycheck

poetic value is that feeling you get when you watch a slick sports car slide into a crew cab at an icy intersection and they mourn the loss of paint, the loss, that is the value

poetic value: I had none so i went on pogy

poetic value curls up on the curb
thinks about the land (under)
and what next

“discourse comes from a word meaning ‘to arrange’, so engaging in discourse is a kind of [flourish of the hands] interior decorating” Robin Blaser, informal talk at the University of Calgary 1995

poetic value is location location location shelf space and facings, merchandizing and traffic flow, the change you toss in the hat

or maybe it was 1994

the brain’s music

royalties for year ending December 31, 2007: $31.29

after the reading we can haggle over the value of this book the “value” will be determined by that brief and awkward exchange

Open 8.550 Mkt Cap ($Mil) 1,255 High 9.130

. . . oh, I skipped a line oh, sorry about that, where was I?

poetic value is the freedom to be ineffectual

i wished i had been born a ruthless business mogul
a tall serious business mogul

who are you people anyway . . .

across six lanes of traffic to retrieve an 1975 8-track I had tossed out the window after sitting on it for the thirteenth time

“Begin by instructing students to use the economic way of thinking to assess and guide their own lives”

Bid 8.770 Forward P/E Ask 8.800 PEG (est. 5 yrs) Volume 237,318

are you taking all of this down

poetic value is post-human

royalties of 10 % for foreign translations

“I just hate forgetting a great line—the idea is lost forever”

The Economy is based on sound principles and will, over the long run, be stable and show steady growth--consumers should not panic but should rather go about their business as usual

in language when damage to the soft tissues in the body are described as a product of the mentally/physically induced environment—if not, the subject may experience complete loss of function

it is the structure of feeling caused in a poetry audience February 2008 in Fort St. John (I will have to edit that part out for the book)

the end of the book of poetry had absolutely no obligations to the state

if something is worthless, truly worthless, then that’s when real work is getting done

Victor Jara's hands

poetic value values poetry and treats it well
how do you say
gingerly
in its old age

poetic value is post-media

measure is not numerical but a matter of aesthetic time and space on the page—it is to poetic what dollars are to donuts

1/3 Canadian 1/3 International 1/3 low interest bonds

April 5, 2008

Thursday, March 22

Living here, breakfast cereal
and 1 year old spooning
apple sauce on
to the floor.

Last night’s snow melting,
a mist of rain but
clear skies over Cranbrook Hill.

Ice in my coffee so
I can drink it quicker.

Living here, not summarizing
the weather or whether
somewhere else is different.

In The New Sentence
no one reads
Prince George.

What might be valid
in the face of writing,
land, an “attack” on language
poetry and staked claims;
the line a territory.

The sun saunters the rim,
other kids wake up,
the table fills,
the bus to campus leaves in 15 minutes.

With regards to the particulars
living here is writing
with the latitude to do so.

January 27, 2008

Hwy #16

a poetics of interruption, green
signs that names exist, shifts
in zones of code, the topography a knowledge
in the syntax of rivers
that can kill you

the weather is from the north and west
a text tracking eye
but the water flows everywhere
even here

on the new highway the poet’s teacher
talks behind the poem pointing
out the old homesteads, overgrown roads

each valley is a climate
a tincture, a spool of vegetation
veering away from the asphalt, axles
refusing the traffic laws, progress
sliding in mud, a bloom of spores

travel was a finger pointed
at a spot up the valley—now
the highway goes around, longer,
inefficient; and old hazelton exists apart,
a benchmark, an anthology of poems
from the predecessors, dedications
inscribed in finding one’s way.

The Regions of Out

traces of the town unsettled
like populations of who

terrace’s mill shipped out
on flatbeds of gas and oil
and the mall fills with associations

is a name sustainable? are bar conversations
a poetics of the north?
is the way out commercial
drive and shop?

a fistfight on the shore
over access, modes of use
but none of them really work

purdy & newlove
the paths and waterways
knowing the overgrowth of living language

i travel the regions listening
for the old ways, a funky answer
to an 1890’s question