Continuations CX

a fade   a way   a moon
            gone slivery in
                        a near black sky
painted backdrop    context
            realized as darkness
                        descends  (depends

 

upon a pondering
            cool silver        gesture
                        the hand subsumes
     the fact of area       sung arias
            suspended       as if painted
                        with a fine brush

 

think synesthesia   act as if
            silver slivers/slithers
mercury will speed    guard
            or perhaps poison
the possibilities    retrograded
            toward a larger fall

 

without relinquishing hope
            even a sliver that defies
                        dark sky          guarding
    person from poisonous
            gradual            paint
                        unthinned        by thinking

 

a home space less walled
            in   as pain(t) thins
     each wainscot wanes
a shortness of brea(d)th
    loss of vision    thing
            only left   (out

 

of the bereftness
            short the mark(et)
                        breaking stride
    for(e)seeing equals thought intact
            the many mercies fallen
                        into definition of left(overs)

 

right on left out leaves
            scattered thought through
     though tough tiddly
            winks at the slight
                 sleight of demand
                        economies   dropped  (out

 

catcalls waiver amid dust mites
            and the sleigh flies through
                        in-kind ties
      collecting   deflecting        a known
            softness           slinking
                        into nightfall

 

deficits of light   a tight
            economy of shadow
                        cabinet rules
     the waivers   lessened
            privilege   privations
                 miss(ed) manners

 

fields of clover            fields of lilies
            fields of leisure           soft
                       slight   in growth
layered            while overhead
            flights of wings
                        far from starvation

 

in direction    down or up
            across a painted outlined land
     from artificial sight to sound
            ings felt alone above
ionosphere    a scattering view
            pointing out only the looked for

 

line out the route         by fiche
            of history         smudged
                       on a facsimile      revealing
lookout            icon
            sought only
                        in retrospect

 

introspection out   no lost
            looking back    wards
                        of the state strewn
across (food) lines   Ricco shay
            with no top ups
                        forgotten minimum wage(r)

 

back to the wall
            punting no longer just a
                        choice              and thereby under
taken               ruse prone
            fingerings        target the ill-gotten
                        goal line           underscored

 

über scared (scarred in the scrum
            point(s) taken   for
    or against    a vote in
            their pocket or just glad
                 to see the money
                        shoot to the top

 

feigning suddenness
            the ad hoc team first
                        clenches then unclenches
to enact in increments
            with stop-start finitude
                        the funneling of dough

 

just d’oh   a generative foolishness
            mutations   (or munitions)
                        track a mental devolution
ill barter   net bitter route
            to dead end     (s)kids
                        while another drone burns

 

four-four turned skelter
            quite apart from route
                        and all wish list
                                    unrationed
   into parcels sprawled past
            iterative endowment

 

shared  or simply shards
            fragments of that dream
     ed of gain    repeated
            day by day   light
                 foot    tap of
                        baton   boots

 

scree inadvertent         along the way
            and repetons    a slight
    sleight of hand
            some displays and some
                        dysplasia         an affront
     to nature as it falls

 

                                    giant splash
[what now] under the bridge
            over troubled rotters
     a slip of sleight
            a hand withdrawn
                 no bank to crawl unto

 

ridge protectorate began
            with earnest money
                        as trust-lite
   raw as any untoward procedure
            shifted into / out of place
                        so many tainted rubles

 

thought less of   bought more of
     have gone    will trample
            attitude not altitude
nerves a net of needs all
            kings of the world know   that
                 sinking feeling on the exchange

 

chance seller of the ex-
            checkout          blinded by
                        the next big     best      bonus
    belonging to others             addi(c)tive
            next big           net gain          
                        a sprain on the eco gnome

 

(s)elf protective    meme
            motivations    masqued
    behind proscenium
            a premium pendulum
                swing    latest technology
                        cash cache captured

 

apt amid the ’tude       dudes
            hunker down in lines
                        to hug the merchandise
     and wing home      with inflated
            self-imp           o(r) t(r)ance
                        by way of pendulous purchases

 

too well hung   over
            the top   cops
     a new feeling of lost
fulfillment   horizon
     of satiation falling
            beyond that faith

 

rootstocks,  meantime, carry
            forward some
                        pulse apart
   from forethought
                        near emaciation
      of the mobile stalks we are

 

we would move   under
            could we but stand
                        below  know
the ledge as full of roots
            so dangled   be
                        drag(l)ed  (into mazes

 

to know is not to have
            notarized the facts as
                        kept     beneath
   the much discussed              coin
            in motion         from one end
              of the spectrum         to an other

 

kind of speed     red
            shift to new blues
     a kind of night vision
            considers possibilities
in the ultra-viole(n)t
            ways  and mean s laughter

 

skeins              rethought
            perhaps gently
cover over       night
            blooming cereus          thin
                      strings              yet
     plump in p/laces

 

                               t/races  signs
demanding wonders   who
            semaphores from Egypt
     now    gone into a desert
            storm of words worth
                 less in each mouth   moving

 

as if to prove   forensic
            eminence retreats beside
                        the one gone to
gray decibels        a froth
            of winter’s       gentling
                        denouement

 

into white    annoys
            or announces
                        an epilogue
epicenter    implications
            implosion    (if) only
                        the facts  (meme)

 

replicate what is / is not
            repaired           or simply
                        amply              paired
     even in dissonance     a dossier
            in half
                        its tones enriched by air

 

 

Sheila E. Murphy

Sheila E. Murphy is the recipient of the Gertrude Stein Award for her book Letters to Unfinished J. (Green Integer Press, 2003). Her most recent book is Golden Milk (Luna Bisonte Prods, 2020). Reporting Live from You Know Where won the Hay(na)Ku Poetry Book Prize Competition (Meritage Press (U.S.A.) and xPress(ed) (Finland), 2018). Also in 2018, Broken Sleep Books brought out the book As If To Tempt the Diatonic Marvel from the Ivory. The chapbook Separation Theory (Writers Forum, 2004) was just reprinted (Trainwreck Press, 2022).

Douglas Barbour

Douglas Barbour is Professor emeritus, Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta. His books include Fragmenting Body etc, Breath Takes, and with Sheila E Murphy, Continuations and Continuations 2; and the critical texts, Michael Ondaatje and Lyric / Anti-lyric: essays on contemporary poetry. Listen. If was published by the University of Alberta Press, Spring 2017. He was inducted into the Edmonton Cultural Hall of Fame in 2003. Eclectic Ruckus is his review blog: https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/

 

Edited for Unlikely by Jonathan Penton, Editor-in-Chief
Last revised on Wednesday, March 28, 2018 - 22:47