I know you heard my sleepless tongue
\nrepeat in sleep how I yearned to rearrange every
\nwhitecap letter of my name, so I could blacksmith
\nmy manner into Edmond Dant\u00e8s.<\/p>\n
Each letter would spend a year in flame,
\nthe J into E, the U into D, and bend
\nfrom the pressure of the finest of tools:
\na short-bladed narrative and a gilded denouement.<\/p>\n
But you misunderstood my desire, and how that
\npatient fire would need burn for twelve years
\nunder careful scrutinizing.<\/p>\n
So thinking I wanted it easy and You gutted the Ch\u00e2teau D\u2019If, \u201cAs it was, And there, reading, I too felt a pang across my voice, an I noticed how the priest bled out in the hole, mouth agape, No surprise you mercilessly broke seven letters off his O my sleepless writer, <\/p>\n <\/p>\n JUSTIN LAUZON<\/strong> is a writer based in Toronto. He works to promote Canadian literature and literacy through The Word On The Street<\/a>, Hear Here<\/a>, and Lexical.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I know you heard my sleepless tongue repeat in sleep how I yearned to rearrange every whitecap letter of my name, so I could blacksmith my manner into Edmond Dant\u00e8s. Each letter would spend a year in flame, the J… Continue Reading
\nthat I meant to leave, you,
\nusing only ocean phonemes, rewrote
\nMonte Cristo as a damned woodcut novella,
\nThe Sailor Of Marseille<\/em>:
\nEdmond as he was with his first love, M.
\nand not the suave Count, without.<\/p>\n
\nlet forever drown his fortune
\nRobin-Hooded each inch of growth
\nbut first like a paper god, malevolent,
\nslit Faria\u2019s throat:<\/p>\n
\nthe priest tunnelled eastward against the sun,
\narrived too late for light, but with no suicidal
\nDant\u00e8s to greet and save, a new madman
\nbravely broke his plate and saved himself from
\nthe growth of stony hell, that dusted wizened throat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nAdam\u2019s apple bitten to the core, seeds seeping through
\nthe pores, heavier than their tiny frames atop a single palm,
\nas I clutched your damned Sailor of Marseille with the other.<\/p>\n
\nresting staunch on his knees, precisely simultaneous to M.
\non her own, pleasing Edmond the way you thought to please me,
\nalone, without inspiration but that found in bed.<\/p>\n
\nlove\u2019s name to leave the only good resemblance
\nof you to her, that capricious letter M.<\/p>\n
\nyou were stealing from yourself what was given to her,
\nfor I learned nothing from that book except of the twisted
\nedges of your mind, bent like the letters of my new name.<\/p>\n
\n
\n