by Jay Millar
Your apartment is not a mess. The laundry is not
A chore. The dishes are not boring. Your cat will
Not die. Life is not tedious. You are not depressed.
Today is not the same as yesterday/last week/a year ago.
Life does not tire you out. You are not stressed out.
The city is not dirty. People do not die. You are
Not angry. You are not lonely. Days do
Not repeat. Humanity is not pointless. Death
Is not real. The city is not ugly. Life is not a
Mindless repeat of the last. Boredom does not exist.
No one shall ever come to any harm.
Humanism (part vii)
(parts i-vi are yours)
we can open up all those vents
only to find out how easily they close
in on us in the end. we like it that way
its so very irresponsible not to pay attention
to those fingers basking in the sunlight
every night i go home & run along your skin
it makes me happy to be human with you
owning fingers, & lips too, toes & pubic hair
just imagine what
those other hidden parts
Our Honey Moon
what the hell
this postcard has no edges
but this music definitely has longing
& being inside the water has our songs
as passionate as hate i love your songs
now come to bed & sing of longing
come here now have no edges
in heaven’s postcard some other space is hell
can break through & be Love as well
Firelight
makes
all conversation
song or story
tell me the centre
around everything
in the mind-like dark
look in
get lost
crawl upward
a long spine
to the tip
of the skull
scared of
the stars that way
no light can
look out
get lost
Workin’ Stiff
ride out the day
get paid
ride outa here
get beer
Jan 31 Mythologized on Feb 2
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
Endnotes
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
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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.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Book of Leaves
B’urd
Heartrants
Perfectly Ordinary Dreams
Short Ghosts