Nichol - Martyrology Book 5

blue bluer bloor the martyrology In so moche that in my dayes happened that certayn marchauntes were in a shippe in tamyse, for to have scyled over the sea into zelande, and for lack of wynde, thei taryed atte forlond, and wente to lande for to refreshe them. And one of theym named Sheffelde, a mercer, came in-to an hows and axed for mete, and specyally he axed after egges. And the goode wyf answerede that she could speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry for he also coude speke no frenshe, but wolde have hadde egges, and she undcrstode hym not. And thenne at laste a nother sayd that he wold have eyren. Then the good wyf sayd that she understood him wel.

Loo, what sholde a man in thyse days now wryte, egges or eyren. Certaynly it is harde to playse every man be cause of dyvcrsite & chaunge in langage. WILLIAM CAXTON The greatest literary masterpiece is no more than an alphabet in disorder.
JEAN COCTEAU

Bp nichol dear bp Thank you for your note. It came in the mail on the same day D. Barbour was showing Sons of Captain Poetry, so I went and saw it, really excellent. It was weird seeing it, a flash of the past: naturally I recognized the various bit players Stuart and Sally McKinnon, Wayne Clifford (the volleyball game) are Kingston neighbours and the movie showed them before I met them genuine pre-nostalgia.

And flashes of the Coach House, Victor in palmier days. It was also weird to hear bits of The Martyrology that far back and I had a sudden image of your poetry capturing you like the Minotaur in the labyrinth and started wondering what is the relationship of someone to the mythology they make up? Anyway. Best, Matt. still
for Lea
still

a road a rod a walk along a long day a dying night an art a log a journal that is right here ere i begin2 among the streets & houses stand around me How Land over the bridge (du pont) to Davens Port & in between a sea (mer) Wal full tragedies are played accornedies points of view: St George & St Clair never meet (he goes to College & becomes Beverly) fits together in its own sense St George to separate Admiral & Huron history i shouldve traced race against race against time rimes of coincidence (sense arrived at in a later reading latter writing related rewrite of tone note placement of St Ick or Ylus in the hierarchy St Iff if if fits (alternate spellings suggested by George Pal in Dr Omics St Andard Dictionary)) SWITCH i live on Bruns wick so named cause it stuck out thick as his legendary stick into that wal of water flowed around the foot of Casa Loma licked its way between the hill that castle stands on & Russells Hill or south stretching round the ruins of what was Harbored Harbour D (a harmony) only puns someone says i says glimpses of another truth nother story worth the tell ll do as well as Mag Mell Olympus or Shanghalla all the old bars the saintsd gather at this new one comes into our ken i understand all i didnt see before connect these fact zones create fictions as someone (Brun?) did before me if i read the map aright Bruns wick kend al[1]3 set ablaze by light it was the light! a candle (Kendal) burning hierarchies suggested in a reading Wal Mers pa Dina Madi[s] son (her one & only) images of ancient lineages St Orm the saint of ships & seas was he Wal Mers father Dina Madis son & if the one then all these names could be nicknames for claimd similur things (Wal Mer stretches south into the bluer strait streets houses lived in in my time short tho its been one-third gone still learning trying to move on) more than the grand gestures aspired to actions give the truth to speech content of a daily life our struggle (ideals arrayed against the actual i deals) each morning step out that door onto this wick forms part of the shore head north for the bridge rise early get to work before the sky turns grey with smoke worlds of dreams & felt feelings memories evoked of childhood despair lost loves & lustres in this present world they are too present in struggle to return them to the past again archaeo logically walked today west thru snow across Dupont frozen streets/seas thot then of Kit James dead this past year caught myself (briefly) wondering whats Kit doing? but he is done one takes so long accepting the death of friends/ /relationships new twists your life takes in the inner circle of communication the poet is opposed on two sides of thought & i am mourning his passing caught up in the snow Spadina a dirt road trucks rumbling north for the subways construction underground underworld under wal mermur murmer mer made memories white world of whispered presences (Kit?) deaths deeds done daths deads dne daths dads dn & gone gin agin thn on as snows gone springs come changes tones tune my foots moved on the poem accumulates its clarity its imprecisions decision: lift my foot in march out the snow fresh fallen set it down in april when the flow resumes it is enough i would be done with all this dying would wake my friends from their dreadful sleeps of false reason reason enough to mourn reason enough to rail against a world no use getting hung up on a word no use not speaking say it & then (moving this very spring north to Warren Road above Russells Hill & Poplar Plains above the port that Daven named the ford where St George laid his bed hoping to woo St Clair there she lies north of me instead impervious to his need between Poplar Plains & Russells Hill some evidence of war & whatever battle fought there ends where these two come together north of the port the bridge now crosses4 as this bridge must connect two states of consciousness written weeks apart form a link your mind can follow paths my thots had taken transparent connections and composed of forty-two words makes it possible to travel from the bridge now crosses to walk thru the park past the castle on my way to work deleting quotes (take up this speech again) southern fringe of Forest Hill ravines & bridges (under & over) another bridge pont pointed along it as i walk angered by this mornings meeting not really part of this poem part of my life only only part of the life this poem grows from my own) early july day heading north from Toronto Ebenezer Wildfield crops already taken off the land & bundled sheep grazed gullies summer sequences first herds long gone from these barns outside the city numbers replace the names subdivisions of a larger purpose a reading changes left at Chinguacousy Township 31st sideroad right at Sandhill north east on the 6th line Peel Regional Road 7 Airport Road 3 names for Just this one path chosen sped thru Mono Road past the left turn to Inglewood down the hill & into Caledon East paused to take note of the poem when you travel on the naming changes Caledon left Albion right i drive the border line signs warn of deer over the hills Mono Mills pause again the roads renamed Dufferin County 18 take note as i have before invoked its signs if only partially i seek to inscribe the net of names & numbers encloses me 401 west to Kitchener pass thru escarpment south of Halton Hills cliffs to the left edges of perception re new ways of sea ings old lines ghost geography sail the lost lake bottom Ellie & me a thousand other cars cross the crossed out ross the rossed out sea cedilla softened slipping under disappears in eternity we will not drown in this july air tho one hurls ones lines as a drowning man or a falling fool might praying for connection some bridge between himself & the void that threatens drivin long writin poems that come out song sound tracking a life Galt Preston Hespeler they are all gone one sign now so many forms set my teeth to clicking semblances of speech change even as you pass them driving Huron County pass thru Shakespeare Stratford & the river Avon language & its shapers colonization of the Huron tongue i find i cannot stop these readings he reads too much into it he read the signs aright i stayed up half the night doing what? reading when Victors mother died he sent out the card that read AWAKE these words are simply signs signs i read as other words messages i saw that time wrote the phrase clues to unlock the secret mind thinking i hid the key the tumblers clicking awakened me up before dawns missed tracing cardinal signs North Easthope left South Easthope right we are driving into that east our hope resides in what maps yield dictating lines as they occur revising when the moment comes on headlights blurred by fog ellies hand shapes the letters so unlike my own infinite variety of form & pressure indexed by the measure chosen Nith River New Hamburg to the left Wilmot Township sky lightening in the east the most & least that could be written of put an order to the minds perceptions make them mine d to e shift work with those occurences extend dependent on that play to say the line ends or continues second take september 3 76 Forest Road passed beyond the boundary of a city sequences fall Stratford Shakespeare New Hamburg next Little Europe South Ontario the counties go Perth/Waterloo/Huron/& on its Toronto i return to r onto toron to T.O. ronto Lord let my praise or love of thee substain me when death comes tho there be no greater plan beyond our lifespan no plan even then let that be enough (ending on a definite note moves the poem forward like a foot a foot note movement out of Huron County into Toronto into your presence Lord am i Tonto or Jingles to your kemosaby your Wild Billing i am charged with so much so much i owe to you any chain of words could lead me speak to you as if i were Palongwahoya charged with his mission once more to make the whole world vibrate in praise of you (billing & cooing bulling but coyly as my father mustve made his move Father/ /Mother must have made her move too a priori movement into lewd onto logically thinking thru i m u r n g i c so clearly looking out across the surface of the words today the letters are not my n m e no thing is my n m e tho evil lives in various guises its i s is n m e narcissus as it was so long a go e go and maybe even i go o go s poe goed edgarrishly alla narcissistically so u go but u wonder y go as hugo ball did when e died e rose to heaven & his friends said did. d one & only hugo balls bell billowed boldly BULLONG BELONG BE LONG TO SING MY SONG TO YOU LORD flying out of TIME OUT the referee cries VOWELS so disconsonantly u n a me u name me i forget you i name me anew claim my signs my me m a r t in the word mart the word m art yr ology the ology word ology like some old bop phrase haunts my dreams ornithology horn it Ornette Coleman C.O. d one & only hugo balls bell billowed boldly BULLONG BELONG BE LONG TO SING MY SONG TO YOU LORD flying out of TIME OUT the referee cries VOWELS so disconsonantly u n a me u name me i forget you i name me anew claim my signs my me m a r t in the word mart the word m art yr ology the ology word ology like some old bop phrase haunts my dreams ornithology horn it Ornette Coleman C.O.Next page