hymnody

Jeremy Stewart

 

I

weep & pee—
a way out
but not for us 

island sprouts bushes
western ribbon snake 

ringtone the wilderness
preach annihilationism 

inhaling finish to finish your work
spasmodic rasp of progress   intermittent drafts
words sprung from a thicket of talk
post-lettered 

 

II

overlooking Lake Hollywood
happy birthday to me 

what time doesn’t do // what doesn’t time do 

clouds dissipate
purify your wardrobe
compressed dynamic range 

pictures from the built world

in the camp theatre, I played
the back half of the horse, but
I was fired for smoking

  

III

musical renunciations
never be bored again 

the hopeless guitar, cornered
poppycock green harlequin
tent enfolds costumes in the torchlight 

every time is the last
(or will be 

drooping north // not green except when
rivers in leaf text
the this-thus
the moment I leave you at preschool 

riding different trains
exit unknown tunnels into
a daylight blacker than burial 

I’m (not) mistaken, I see that now

 

IV

we are who we are most of all
to someone else 

inward-looking eyelids, blood
black bubblegum          (the snap of 

we play ghosts
two notes wish to form a chord 

a low meadow inside a rainbow
properly I should remain obscure 

energy field painting transferred to sound
look between the depths of sound
as with stacked pages of closed books 

we who are most
of all someone else 

stolen guitar haunts the obdurate present
label the parts of speech 

all this passing away, transformed into God
knows what

 

 

 

Jeremy Stewart's experimental novel In Singing, He Composed a Song is forthcoming from the University of Calgary Press (September 2021). Stewart won the 2014 Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry for Hidden City (Invisible Publishing). He is also the author of (flood basement (Caitlin Press 2009). Stewart is a PhD student in English Literature at Lancaster University, UK. He once dropped a piano off a building. 

immemoriam

Jeremy Stewart

I

cannot do nothing
in dreamland I spit
tase your fears
drive off
fall from the wheel
of seasons
with lists I wish I wrote
not even those
horsey medicine mix-up
if we had known
deciduous thoughts
a situationist art school
in remotest hinterland
haunted used bookstore
your ashes in twelve golden discs
becoming-gone
in green pourings
after the end where I began
in dreamland
on herringbone floor
awake in dreamland
with dreamlanders
alone among dreamlanders
after my death I was alive
grue and bleen pourings
invented a language in
which to talk to myself
while a rotary dial I
answer “hello,” you
snored roundly
over Strauss’ Metamorphosen
you know zero about
me and understand
less


II

grue violets burst and disperse their seeds
trace wire transfers branch to branch
arms flung around horse
we might as well all of us
be forgiven crimes
you in the back
think you are free of guilt
ushers will escort you out
what you hate in what you write takes
revenge on all you loved
singing saw sang songs
unface darkness in a lamp-out room
blank shirt or negative-coloured
bleen map of anthill
I should be happy I escaped
plans for a cathedral
shed or treefort
perfectly invisible or more so
becomings-what already
in logodaedaly
if I want to live
survive becomings-unaffordable
why did I not form healthy habits
want to live but now
judgement impends
somewhere else would I
I would have meant such else
that unchanges you
smooth seam with creased hand
how long can you deny
what fortress do you defend
not to change
the place it hurts
body is where it hurts
who is the smallest meteorite
interstellar mote


III

what music will they make
me listen in hell to
fans overhead in dreamland spin
describe a gidouille
when that else of life overwhelms writing
do you lose those poems
or are they stored somewhere
for your return to writing
in some form
does the loss of poems accumulate
as anti-matter writing
with own invisible gravity
calculable as mass
of unwritten time
in future writing
you would have loved my children so much
in dreamland



Jeremy Stewart is the author Hidden City (Invisible Publishing) and (flood basement (Caitlin Press). His work has appeared in Canadian Literature, Geist, Lemon Hound, Open Letter, and elsewhere. Stewart lives with his partner and children in unceded Coast Salish territory/Vancouver, BC.