The Ghosts of Jay MillAr (20 page)

We all sat at the table drinking beer

drawing the cover to an imaginary apolitical magazine

& were joined from time to time by other spirits with similar names

who would disappear quietly scraping their empty chairs

when the lights went down John got up to use the phone

& Stef started apologizing to me all over again so i knew he was drunk

our minds have been hinged upon that moment of the apology for months

& it's so fucking tiring

i often fall asleep at that moment & dream the rest of the encounter for days

i always seem to notice afterwards that moment

when the slight tilt to his appearance comes

the aggressive remarks flying out of the tabletop to the drumbeat of his voice

would not help during the coming mornings

to smooth over a year long rent in the collective position we had invented

in the years leading up to my wedding

& has continued since then to build aggressive positions

between myself & my wife

but that's been saved for the latter portion of the evening

he accuses me of various emulations on my part which i felt was ridiculous

as i was perfectly aware of them

& he began to float away then

in the form of several well known minimalist discourses

& i became suddenly very heavy

& i drifted away from the situation & out into the street

walking through the dark snowing evening a voice came to me out of the traffic

the usual hallucination all over again that never realized before

just how solid he had ever been

butting his head with mine across a table cover with spilled beer & ashes

now he lives only in my memory like everyone i ever knew

& i hear his voice calling to me today with the casual
             disintegration of the past

 

Within Finity

sitting with her

always like sitting

with infinity

as it has been for some time now,

& it spins in a gold liquid,

around, alive & dead.

Ghosts are the ghosts

of language & mindful of such

this scarlet nihilism

might crease the very thought,

O crevice   deep

in the shadows where we are

we give up the ghost into the air

of ourselves, of the actual,

on breath gathered

in a random order

gathered to be released

& in which all possible

moments are full of hope

take this gold liquid

o crevice, which is both

Alive & Dead, &

smooth our hands

in the infinite breath of our relative

crinkle of shimmering air

sitting without a coffin

within finity gathered

inside the liquid & golden

scarlet voice

Canadian Visionary

Poetry Americana for the cynics,

critics, those who have lived life sadly &

in part. Read Brits. Wake, up.

Read the works of visionaries

& hope. Canadian literature

sleeping. Sleeps. And dreams.

The dream/Read

American poetry & suffer

WHAT?

Read. O read. O poem.

What in the World is Coming to

& we were dreaming of becoming in a world

wracked by misery & desolation, hurt & death.

& we were dreaming of becoming pure energy.

& we were dreaming of becoming love when there

was no love, of becoming hate to fill the void.

& we were dreaming of becoming light.

& we were dreaming of becoming a dream,

dark erotic visitations to each other.

& we were dreaming of becoming root.

& we were dreaming of becoming magic

incantations of a planet bathing us in warmth.

& we were dreaming of becoming warm.

& we were dreaming of becoming

something in the deep beautiful blue.

& we were dreaming of becoming

1
We only use 10% of our total brain mass for a reason.

2
We only use 10% of our total brain mass for a reason.

3
'If it were not for this poem I doubt that I would ever ride a bicycle in the city of Toronto. It is the only thing I can remember to swerve in & out between the violent auto drivers. Whenever I drive a car I notice the televisionesqueness that haunts the mind, & I am sure that many people who drive regularly never quite know where they are, which would explain the high number of deaths occuring in our city as the transit drivers crush yet another sweet Taoist rider. Why must violence be everywhere? Please remove the cars from the city core & let us all breathe. Imagine! Yonge Street a six-lane highway right to the lake.'
   J.M.

 

John Elliott
lives in Toronto, Ontario, where he is Writer In Residence at Print T[h]ree (University & Wellington franchise). His wife Hazel is a choreographer, dancer and novelist. Together they have created many collaborations, including Saffron, Claire, & Aiden.

portrait of John Elliott by Alex Cameron

Typeset, printed and bound at the Coach House on bpNichol Lane, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2G5 The first edition of twenty boxed copies and four hundred trade copies was printed in May of 2000.

The paper is Zephyr Antique Laid.
All artwork by Alex Cameron
Boxes for limited edition hand-made by Don Taylor
Editor for the Press: Victor Coleman
Copy edited and designed by Darren Wershler-Henry

To read the online version of
The Ghosts of Jay MillAr,
visit our website at:
www.chbooks.com

To add your name to our e-mailing list, write:
[email protected]

Typeset in Carrier Book. In January 1967 the graphic designer Carl Dair released Carrier, the first text typeface to be designed in Canada. In 1999, Rod McDonald reworked the roman, finished the italic and added a bold weight. He incorporated many changes necessary to produce a working text face for digital typesetting.