National Poetry Month 2015: rob mclennan,

from Glossary of Musical Terms

The Key of R, Minor

A territory, blitz. She, from certain angles. Hospital beige. Oracle, a useless vanity. Dates shift. Flicker. You are not the moon. Sad stone, happy. Absence, absence, gesture. Baby, kicks out. Bloodstream, ribcage. Ascend, descending. Swerve, exchange, abend. Such startling, music. Rock salt, lines the quarry. In which we remain present.

The Key of Silence

Occipital. Driven, changes. Change. Subject: what becomes. Morning, dawn, recedes. Ornaments, and grails. A spectral park. We strive, the difference. Inching, silence. Cries, the wee thing. Overtakes the air.

rob mclennan’s recent titles include notes and dispatches: essays (Insomniac press, 2014), The Uncertainty Principle: stories, (Chaudiere Books, 2014) and the poetry collection If suppose we are a fragment (BuschekBooks, 2014). He currently spends his days full-time with toddler Rose, writing entirely at the whims of her nap-schedule. robmclennan.blogspot.com