_____<\/span>– 41 Keele –<\/p>\n Riding it\u2019s like bare-handing <\/p>\n _____<\/span>– 319 Wilson –<\/p>\n The seats on this one are more clearly <\/p>\n _____<\/span>– 310 Bathurst –<\/p>\n When we see each other again, <\/p>\n <\/p>\n You\u2019ve recently dyed your hair; We took turns sneaking glances I\u2019ve seen you a handful of times since We waited for the streetcar I was wearing a black hat I always sit across from you, We rode together on the bus today. and carrying a blue foam mat. my hand. We looked at each other <\/p>\n * All of the poem\u2019s phrases are extracted from posts on craigslist toronto<\/a><\/em>\u2019s missed connections section.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n To put it bluntly, the rain ricocheted on straight streets\u2019 soaked concrete. In elegant descriptors; still, the rain remains some billions of drops against the ingrown thought with this ripe plum <\/p>\n <\/p>\n a low word, appropriate a city but whose outskirts spritzed of Exodus,<\/p>\n a word thrown around the sprawl into a body that sticks fast and fucks, Scarborough,<\/p>\n a word hollow as exo- here I am.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n JOHN NYMAN<\/strong>\u2019s verse, visual, and conceptual poems and poetics have appeared in a variety of print and online publications including\u00a0Cordite Poetry Review<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0Hamilton Arts and Letters<\/a><\/em>, (parenthetical)<\/a><\/em> and Rampike<\/a><\/em>. His first full-length collection, Players<\/a><\/em>, will be released with Palimpsest Press in April\u00a02016. Originally from Toronto, John is currently completing a Ph.D. in theory and criticism at Western University in London, Ontario.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Three Night Buses _____– 41 Keele – Riding it\u2019s like bare-handing steel poles. Like pulling a skateboard rail grind in a videogame \u2014 single trick, no combo. Cold sound of rollers. The world resolved in swift sequence \u2014 one, then… Continue Reading
\nsteel poles. Like pulling
\na skateboard rail grind in a videogame \u2014
\nsingle trick, no combo. Cold sound
\nof rollers. The world resolved
\nin swift sequence \u2014 one,
\nthen another, then another
\nfloodlight over a strip mall.
\nThe world going back.<\/p>\n
\nred felt. The aisle is not clean,
\nbut people sweep it
\nfor anything valuable, and everyone
\ntakes their transfers with them.
\nGuys too cool to drive cars are watching
\nroute highlights: neighbouring guns
\nand guns and ammo shops\u2019 iron-shuttered
\nfronts, the 24-hour
\ngrocery store, the church
\nof universal love.
\nBased on the length of its south section\u2019s
\nentrails, you can\u2019t take Dufferin north
\nexcept by subway,
\nbut the subway\u2019s closed.<\/p>\n
\nguys \u2014 you seem like a bunch
\nof really cool guys \u2014
\nwhen we see each other again
\nwe\u2019re doing a whole lot of acid.
\nSometimes I just get lost
\nin my own thoughts, in my own world
\nwhen I boot up Fallout 3<\/em>.
\nI think we can still keep a beat
\nwith Bobby\u2019s tom, if we keep going. Guys,
\nsomeone\u2019s talking
\nabout punching another guy
\nin the face, and I have to ask
\nyour name, but doesn\u2019t everyone talking together
\nsound like music?<\/p>\nConnections*<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\non Tuesday at work
\nyou had black hair, freckles,
\nand sat down right in front of me.<\/p>\n
\nat each other. We braced
\nourselves and you gave me a smile,
\npaused, continued walking.<\/p>\n
\nJune, always downtown.<\/p>\n
\nat Spadina and Queen last night
\naround past midnight.
\nYou sat near the door.<\/p>\n
\nand overcoat. You \u2014
\nredhead, glasses, skinny jeans \u2026
\ngot off at Bloor subway.<\/p>\n
\nI\u2019m not sure you\u2019ve noticed.<\/p>\n
\nWe glanced at each other
\nand got on. You were wearing a beige
\nknit zip-up sweater<\/p>\n
\nWe both got off at St. George
\nstation, and as we were climbing up
\nthe stairs you slightly touched<\/p>\n
\nbriefly. I liked your smile.<\/p>\nWords for Rain<\/h1>\n
\nso hard off the 7-Eleven sign
\nthat it burned, and the pinprick blankets swayed
\nlike drain water, roving strike-through lines<\/p>\n
\nterms: We were inside, it thunderstormed. Or:
\nThe black clouds loomed, ballooned, till we were ants.
\nThere might be millions more<\/p>\n
\nacross and high.
\nMutatis mutandis<\/em>, it will not stop
\nresounding, even when I pry<\/p>\n
\nthat coats the wet road purple as the rain hums.<\/p>\nExit,<\/h1>\n
\nfor leaving a town
\nthat\u2019s awe-slackened all my best friends
\ninto themselves, another old city
\nswallowing the nostalgia for itself \u2014<\/p>\n
\n___<\/span>whose cells only felt like a heart\u2019s,
\n___<\/span>who only reminded me of the ground,<\/p>\n
\nlike white pepper, like a simile itch,
\na parabola ringing, delimiting,
\nbreathing-in and breathing-out<\/p>\n
\nlike slang here, in borderlands
\nthat have no right moniker, anyway,
\nfree in their nudity, unnouned \u2014<\/p>\n
\n___<\/span>that singled me out,
\n___<\/span>lifted me up and running<\/p>\n
\nand dies eventually, and rhymes
\nwith the plural of I<\/em>, whose wander rusts
\nand flits like a good scout.
\nHere, in this roundabout n\u00e9e<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>skeleton<\/em>, whiff smelled by a hound
\nwho finds she can\u2019t hound herself \u2014
\nland of big roads that roam longer,
\nskies bright as a pedestrian\u2019s aching hunger,
\nand some ridiculous number
\nof restaurants, whose strip mall signs\u2019 colours
\nemblazon the infamous banner
\nof something like an infinite nation \u2014<\/p>\n
\n
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