Thomas - Maze

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Invisible Publishing Halifax & Picton All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any method, without the prior written consent of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or, in the case of photocopying in Canada, a licence from Access Copyright. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Maze / Hugh Thomas Names: Thomas, Hugh, 1973- author. Description: Poems. The solution is, as usual, dynamite. The solution is, as usual, dynamite.

You hand me the match, shooting cartoon sparks. I light the fuse. Bang! An explosion of confetti, the sparkling remains of words we thought we knew, marries us until we hit the ground which, strangely, we never do; suspension of disbelief supports us further and further into Saturday morning.

Once again, poem becomes pantoum. Everything repeats, even the moment of indecision. Following its own footsteps, the picayune detail reflected in a hundred mirrors becomes part of the grand design that you didnt even know about until someone came to the door selling encyclopedias, and told you about progress, about the course of the twentieth century.

You dont believe him, never did for an instant, but you think of him sometimes, when sweeping the hard-to-reach corner of the stairwell, all that stuff about planets, and walking on the moon, how long it takes to fall.

Its useless to call her. Laura monotonous, Laura like water, Laura like the wind over Nevada. Laura for distant causes. Arena of the South calling her, paid in white camellias. In Paris, crossing this bridge with you and many other people over hundreds of years. In Paris, crossing this bridge with you and many other people over hundreds of years.

Fireworks appear in the night sky: that great Bastille in the clouds is being stormed again, the Marquis de Sade free to walk among the living until dawn. He is charming and French, he loves the young men who throw firecrackers at each others feet. You go off arm in arm with him. Now you will have to walk all the way to Moscow with Napoleon. By the time you arrive it will be mid-winter, the army starving, the mountains impassible. I send you messengers who get lost in the snow that covers all the blank places on the maps.

I fold paper airplanes. What were they called before airplanes existed? Ill have to ask you when you crawl into bed, late, smelling of mud and gunpowder.

The coming and going of yesterday into the day before yesterday, of yesterday into tomorrow its confusing. Sometimes I worry about waking up in the wrong country, speaking Swedish to everyone only, actually, its Norwegian. When in a dream, speak the language of the dream. Finland is a favourable business proposition.

Sweden is a rocky country on the Scandinavian peninsula inhabited by figments of your imagination, each of whom represents a fish. Denmarkactually, I forget Denmark. Anyway, this isnt what I wanted to tell you about. I wanted to tell you about Africa, but your cheeks are pale, my beloved, and the cold fog envelops us once again.

for Elizabeth Brandt Eventually, the mutation becomes the norm. More people go to the art gallery, and the art gallery develops extra limbs.

At this point, micro-evolution takes over. Individual works of art change as layers of meaning are added or subtracted. Prices in the caf rise, and a new waitress is employed part-time. She sits at the till, does her biology reading, watches the patrons adapt.

You dug me out of the ground, and I hadnt an idea in my head. Love takes many forms: you might yowl over my torn-out heart, or sleepwalk through a wall of knives to find me, or call me when you didnt mean to.

In the age of heroes, at 9:23 pm on Tuesday, one thing led to another. The moon is waiting for a kiss, but she wont wait all night. Did you mistake the goddess of love for the shadow of a snake disappearing into the crabgrass? A young girl walking a tiger sold us water and we made libations. The soldiers got on the train, all but the unwilling one he had a drink on us, and Rome was queen of the world.

I. milk, light, book, loaf the main thing near, first, alone as he works suddenly, absolutely, quite simply III. to glance at, to blow a kiss to spend the night to afflict, to throw out to accuse, to speak ill of to hanker after IV. memory, writing, works, friend days, folly, portrait tending to corrupt, suitable, full there were a lot of people in the streets today V. to whine, to whimper to squeak, to crinkle, to crunch to twinkle, to shine to take out, to utter, to publish to hollow to rummage in to write, to be written to wake up VI. pocket dictionary letter bird ballad gadget snowfall whisper VII. ink by force to talk to itself engaged in reading too, also, as well and so am I The window of the dark caf is a mirror in which the policeman directs traffic towards the cannibal. ink by force to talk to itself engaged in reading too, also, as well and so am I The window of the dark caf is a mirror in which the policeman directs traffic towards the cannibal.

It is midnight backwards; everyone is going away to plug in their attachments. They are trapped in the maze in which we are also trapped, but I am going to go to sleep, and you are going to look at the moon.

for Ern Moure Dictionary, notebook, courtesy. This friendship a power blackout, a knife sharpener by trade. We are speaking/talking factory. I ask. I ask.

How many? Song. Understanding. (Not like a drainpipe! Cant you hear it?) In a song, spontaneous whoops. Till later, wheelbarrow, road surface, far away. Words, sea bird, diminutive.

I am dancing on a bridge in Avignon.

I have the plague in an inside pocket. Excuse me, I have to catch a train. It is a train of great speed. It is so fast it is invisible, so fast that inside it, nobody moves. The train tracks cover all of France, and are being extended into the fourteenth century. Soon, there will be no more waiting for trains.

The trains will find you wherever you are.

Walking around in my own hand-me-downs, much too big. The dangling sleeves knock the crystal glasses off the shelf. Sit in the corner and be quiet! Mummy is gone but here is a doll that says Mummy, here is a blank diary and an indelible marker that soaks through one page to the next, to the next. Didnt you follow the instructions? Always turning right will get you out of the maze if youre in a maze, but what if youre downtown? Turn right and left alternately and you might reach the lakeshore before dark. Next page