Nichol - Martyrology Books 3 & 4

the martyrology carrots onions celery potatoes cheddar cheese beef for stock salt pepper garlic windy day keep the door open kitchen cool core & steam the cabbages peel the leaves rice & vegetables for the hollopchis sit around the table talk of nothing good feeling for the job thats done walk the fields the wind blows blue sky above you always pray that will be so

Bp nichol THE MATYROLOGY in its entirety is as i said originally for Lea without whom quite literally none of it would have been written this is the 16th straight day of sunshine hot weather here in divineland be so have found some little spots on the west van side for lots of swimming maybe i should have been a fish, deep breathing floating i learned all those years ago, body totally relaxed back slightly arched & just letting the ocean hold my face up to the blue sky. sweet heaven, who needs the jesus freaks, spine, which was wrenched again at work (in the valve factory, if yu can dig it, & i cant thus this is my last week & then taking a carpentry course) is feeling much better, thanks to hands of mother ocean. i think its becoming a good summer all in all. Pat & i going well, have much to love together, its been hard, lots of work to do. there are images we love in common, thats the most important thing ive ever sd. the garden coming in good with the sun & all the trees around it. * some paradise a slice * well, i tend towards the rural in my soul never was big on sophisitcated city images, were moving right along, its our time now. hope this letter finds yu & yours feeling fine. perhaps less time will elapse between, i hope so & look out there for your poems & letters. love
David Grant me a good dream, a beneficent dream. love
David Grant me a good dream, a beneficent dream.

If I shall truly marry the daughter of poetry, if she is to be the companion of my well-being, the companion of my fortune, and if we are to grow old together, make it apparent to me, O Ancestors. Batak prayer
to find a bride

The road which leads through the brush to the mountains is now open, The road which leads to the tatter-heap of memories is now closed. Trobriand Island Prayer a voice in a cloud a face in a storm distant drawn steps down from having been where yes wrong moment wrong song urgent long breath half dreaming in the train i saw you visible death a scream saint of no-names free of lies as in a like an if nothing ends except pretending your own existence blessed ears filled with echoes tongues with lies overlay la lu lu a w & a no another year of knowing you another life to go this is not the moment when the writing comes only the awareness thru another light a choice of words moving to be said pray god do let the consonance lead me broken rhythm as the mind is needing peace to sleep in language years or weeks white tips of mountains grey clouds blue sky oh father father there has been that which ive been told faces in crowds i seem to remember dreams that are foreseen as longings caught as the eye is an error in the sum often i awake in trembling nothing to be spoke of that can be seen hands around me to lead me gladly friends as family a kind of reckoning there is a dance within the room a w a g walls on which my historys written songs of joy an h in the sky an i at sea as was foretold me i am not what i appear that straightness or fractioning nothing like the face that floats above me crying always crying this morning in the curtained room the fear or loneliness seemed unreal sensing as i did the higher plane or place youd gone to you have no name now only a being so alive i know youre all still with me linked as one energy moving into song i wanted an image or a metaphor something to contain me within the flow of language presses in screamed so loud my father ran to save me not knowing i needed to fall in that place where all space holds you david said of the bottle in his hand pouring the liquid you pour the container too gone your skin flows out of you someone laughed we were all too drunk it is disconnected the drinks the ryme the too many times not thinking for myself the flower or the root plucked from the oceans floor eaten by the snake or turtle who knows his face who knows what eats what sloughs his skin or shell & walks away suppose i had never come here suppose i had done it that day jumped from the old stone tower on bigwin island pierced my body with ten stakes i could walk the water far as the saints would carry me leave that skin behind & pass away it is the full moon in the sky the rising sun watching from the train window i am moved beyond it in a dream walk the fields dumb & trembling as in a poem i cannot remember writing someone walks beside me whispering thieves THIEVES you take a mans words to use against him twist language to such brutal ends im sick with your scheming too lost in words to ever leave them too full with love of speech as feeling there must be a beginning made a starting over a writing down times when other voices do not distract there must be an order in all things to be discovered not imposed there is an invisible world opens a heaven or a hell filled with the men & women i have killed or disposed of who never made them but thot the power his there is a listing or a taking of priorities these things as i have noted them here are taking place have taken are the true & proper province of poetry & prayer II i wanted a portrait of a man so perfect it was weak in his weaknesses catch the leer the arrogant stare of one who writes poetry as part of a power play accumulating poems as one accumulates points on a scale moving up towards the ultimate chair or throne wearing the fools cap a black gown to cloak intention i need to inscribe a circle in hell my need to see a wish to find the words for being held as i am within the limits of my vision we hold such tension within ourselves call it duality we never hear the moment when the words stop or the silence begins lay in bed three days dreaming of this poem wrote it down the first draft it came out wrong the words stilted awkward as if there were no song to sing only the flat statement of what id seen a circle in which saint ranglehold stood holding the letter H within his hand taunting the man i described inaccurately a poet the confusion of parital vision the agony of half lies the endless catalogues the exclamations oh saint of no-names king of fools the days are spent in piecing things together the nights strewn with pages you do not remember writing third person to first person am i the fool sick of everything ive written fascinated by my own distaste keep placing one letter in front of another pacing my disillusionment it is mistaken silence & speech it is one talking & listening there is no duality i have nothing to say & i am saying it listen to what i dont say what i do say listen to me Next page