I.<\/p>\n
Tons of trees smack to smithereens!
\nAccumulated kindling!<\/p>\n
Pines crash down about us \u2014
\nInstant toothpicks!<\/p>\n
Men turn into meat \u2014 rare, medium, and well-done. Nothing so vigilant as bleeding. fashions artisanal apertures The pounding ricochets Cowards run, stumble over legless feet, Or step upon some mumbling husk, If only bare flesh could blunt bayonets! Dying, grown men ain\u2019t shy to beg Each one bays like a butcher. A pack of horses, avalanching, Whole regiments become front-line coffins: <\/p>\n II.<\/p>\n Gettysburg is a green furnace \u2014 In the cannon-splayed fields, Thanks to all the leaden lightning striking soil, We living get to taste Tiredness<\/em>.<\/p>\n Sooner or later, though, <\/p>\n [Ottawa (Ontario) 14\/09\/14]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I.<\/p>\n Guitar notes, piano notes, part, fall, rise \u2014 Under beautiful lamps, leaning \u2014 men slant toward their ladies or a female head graces a male shoulder, some hands deceive by coins, horrible smoking sears and suffocates. clearing space for the piano\u2019s what\u2019s Ragtime, its moneyed scales, <\/p>\n II.<\/p>\n Vodka gets to the point; or, merged with orange juice, The brothel is the acid test of Marriage<\/em>. or, tamed by the repulsive honours of whores, and fantasize about cutting the throats <\/p>\n III.<\/p>\n The jazzers\u2019 unfrugal playing in beds, where Jazz<\/em> squirts becomes the bitter daylight <\/p>\n IV.<\/p>\n Now, Ophelia transports long legs to bad boys whose suits are curtains per annum, the confidential rich, The curs like to snag a custom slut, A chilly Madonna, despising Euphoria<\/em>, No creaking in her wake; <\/p>\n V.<\/p>\n White pearls against pale, violet skin: Slender, immaculate as a gem, I put Innocence<\/em> aside, True: Ophelia came sideways out the womb, and half-strangling her own self. To go to bed a wild thing, the Nana of Naw Leens \u2014 garmented only in sunlight but lips and tongue kept cat-clean <\/p>\n VI.<\/p>\n I spy in her Malevolence her vagina incubating razors. but she\u2019s as deferential She is a successful whore \u2014 unless she be caught with a black crow <\/p>\n [Fort Lauderdale (Florida) 28\/04\/15]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n GEORGE ELLIOTT CLARKE<\/strong>\u00a0is Canada\u2019s Parliamentary Poet Laureate, and served as Toronto’s Poet Laureate from 2012 to 2015. He has a clutch of prizes and a trove of books to his name. His newest are the unblushingly erotic\u00a0Extra Illicit Sonnets<\/a> <\/em>(Exile, 2015) and The Motorcyclist<\/a><\/em> (HarperCollins, 2016). The\u00a0Sewer<\/em> Lid<\/em>\u00a0pieces are from his epic,\u00a0Canticles<\/em>, due out from Guernica Editions<\/a> this year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At Gettysburg I. Tons of trees smack to smithereens! Accumulated kindling! Pines crash down about us \u2014 Instant toothpicks! Men turn into meat \u2014 rare, medium, and well-done. Happy horseflies corner Anthropology. Nothing so vigilant as bleeding. Every cannon belch… Continue Reading
\nHappy horseflies corner Anthropology<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\nEvery cannon belch<\/p>\n
\nof eyes, assholes, lungs.<\/p>\n
\ntorch wheat and corn and cotton.<\/p>\n
\ncropping up in orchard and pasture.<\/p>\n
\nconvulsive ruins, a squelching statue.<\/p>\n
\nNo: Bone\u2019s as crushable as a rusty tin.<\/p>\n
\nto see mama one last time.<\/p>\n
\nLuckily, wounds don\u2019t hurt long.<\/p>\n
\npitches upon the invalids.<\/p>\n
\nCase baby-faces ranked in caskets.<\/p>\n
\nan incinerating inferno of grass.<\/p>\n
\nsmoky al fresco <\/em>\u2014
\nthe anguish of metal among milky fire \u2014
\nI survey Gehenna\u2019s frontier \u2014
\nHell recovered \u2014
\nthousands of cadavers congregated
\nlike pale, rotten mushrooms \u2014
\nfodder for a prudent farmer.<\/p>\n
\ncemetery worms jump and butt against caskets.<\/p>\n
\nthe battlefield\u2019s again a field
\nas silent as Sunday prayers
\nand as sanitized as a lawyer\u2019s crimes,
\nand all is shiny,
\nthanks to the cleansing ranting
\n(what outdins noise)
\nthat is rain.<\/p>\nBellocq Snaps Ophelia<\/h1>\n
\nlike curtains.<\/p>\n
\nalmost invisibly physical \u2014<\/p>\n
\nwith ambiguous camber,<\/p>\n
\nas some lips deceive by compliment,<\/p>\n
\nand throughout the cathouse,<\/p>\n
\nNow, a charitable trumpet brays,<\/p>\n
\ncascading pizzicato,<\/p>\n
\nbut the Americanization of the French Can-Can?<\/p>\n
\nshoots straight from throat to guts to bowels;<\/p>\n
\nbrings on hyperventilating Hysteria<\/em>:<\/p>\n
\nHusbands either begrudge the grip of wives;<\/p>\n
\ndeplete their gold,<\/p>\n
\nof their own children.<\/p>\n
\naccents the fugues playing out<\/p>\n
\nin incidental darkness,<\/p>\n
\nunfurled in hurled-back sheets.<\/p>\n
\nand tan, sporty breasts<\/p>\n
\nand to bastards raking in tens of thousands,<\/p>\n
\nwho like to party in smog and scum.<\/p>\n
\nand bitch, bitch, bitch!<\/p>\n
\nOphelia steps lightly on the pine staircase:<\/p>\n
\nshe\u2019s as level-headed as a cat.<\/p>\n
\nThe camera digests her, gathers fog.<\/p>\n
\nshe\u2019s been a sex toy since Kindergarten<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\nfor that\u2019s how clouds wipe out light.<\/p>\n
\ndestroying her mother,<\/p>\n
\nHers is a downfall lesson:<\/p>\n
\ncontriving filth and disease \u2014<\/p>\n
\nwith incomparable ivory skin \u2014<\/p>\n
\nand\/or cigarette smoke \u2014<\/p>\n
\nby licking toilet seats and bowls.<\/p>\n
\n<\/em>disguised as Indolence<\/em>,<\/p>\n
\nShe awards me a sunburst smile,<\/p>\n
\nand as arrogant as worms.<\/p>\n
\none of the richest octoroons,<\/p>\n
\ncaught fast in her white, pussy jaws.<\/p>\n
\n
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