National Poetry Month : Gil McElroy,

 

Northing

1

Creature me I when I

Think that thought I

Who have a strange desire for moment me this act this time

The word he its consequences themselves dull up someone unworthy

I beside the habit

I my tongue volunteered

Stained yellow piles of memories around ago

“I need to be exempt from myself in order to see,” sd Clarice & she was I was for you & me

My mouth began & ended my hand my fingers I to myself

I beside the habit

 

2

You should’ve & wouldn’t stop you you’re hands like formulae

How dishevelled the occasions

The tensions come came the muscles obedient at last to the cause

You your arms a little bare

Mark you stand how gestures will form you

Nights of literature prejudge thee thou you without a barely constructed fear

So mark you stand how gestures will form you see when I think I thought you

My body my loneliness my lying I in the middle of something forever

I telling the breath

I with the lips going on badly

I in the grooves the quivering the uneven

I of the nape & the small muscles

 

3

A chin to my the lip to my the nose

Flesh all over & suddenly grace in this I hand

The glum reading into this something cunning even odder

The contrary hole

1 finger is awkward

2 are showy

 

4

A year of ones

Such days ordered with warning signals you

Some mislaid some

Things smaller more or less about the sound of windows

Windows only I have wanted I nerdish planes &

Phases

Yes phases

Offered certain when beyond I me & more

14^th century physics complicating the accustomed fall of bodies & unfounded some things

here, though, it is Einstein from the outset

their gaze everywhere & I always

a point but it as at rest

that of a nothing beyond me I & more you

in the heavens in the copied blue

the day a dismissive now

 

5

If I am I I begin to be reasonable

Mine own eyes momentary

Mine the affections mine the fluids around them mine the knives known only to science

Mine the limitations of the face mine the possession of episodes

Mine this inert instance & hoarding of stars

Let the lesser necessities out bittersweet canals & father he instances

Mine the bright-red sneezings that’s what I’ll have to resent

 

6

Old sixes and sevens in a little scalding heart

Spread I my oozes in a little scalding exchange so this thought what crowds me

Right sides form small words I get stuck I in mine throat

Words with easier flows the way our life boils up inside in the the safe distance

Monstrosities or not it condense in mid-October down the grooves & away a swallow of wafers nine months toothlessly devoured

If you lunch if brute facts survive the sharp bend in the curve not systems of cold reserve profound the corruption edge profound the second secularized world

The human nostril the term the art the pitched specifics the return of the mouth

My fingers & I they go without obeying patterns I pronounced shan’t & checked

A way built to the closing I shrunk to conventional properties

A hard thing glimpsed

 

7

A hard thing glimpsed inside built space it was built on top of

The dining room the dining room was slightly of wine & shiny black windows

I the house was a potent taste a plain nine

I they put out the fingers growing moments spurned I they put out that much

Only now was that clear I that they think of the lawn those long low sentences in the afternoon

A drop of that did spread you out to the (w)holes countless you nothing but yet you

You your precious heaven lost to its light

 

8

Mark you your stand how gestures will form I they say & I they think I thought you

A scourge in the knees for they her hands like formulae now dishevelled the occasion wobbly

They her tension came they her muscles obedient to the cause & just a little bare

So this thought what crowds me I saw it was still there words gotten stuck condensing in mid-October down these grooves & away

Me my body my loneliness my lying

I my in the middle of something forever I my with the lips going badly

I doesn’t for very long

 

9

In I this glum reach

In I this something a cunning even odder

In I tissues of a thing I on this uncanny earth

 

 

 

 

 

Gil McElroy is a poet living in North Bay. His most recent book of poetry is Long Division (University of Calgary Press).

Author photo by Gil McElroy

National Poetry Month : Gil McElroy,

 

 

I’m
off some-
where, counting sevens. 

Firm minutes.

I am
this inert
instance – except
longer. But I end up
about where? Why should
my orbit not be
a sudden geometric
measured?

Turn this car
around.

JD2458606

 

 

 

Gil McElroy is a poet currently living in Colborne, Ontario. His most recent book is Long Division (University of Calgary Press, 2020).

National Poetry Month : Gil McElroy,

JD 2458545

Distant

heart, distant

beat, receded

& away. Thoughts have forgotten

to desert me, instead hold

fast. Cling,

even.

Constricted me, the

ache in the centre

of my chest a

longing, a

remembrance of

your scent, glimpse of

your soul. That’s

one true thing about me, then, & so

there’s these, my

breaths, like

lesser sorts

of prayers. 

Promise your own

up. I have

a name

for each one

of mine.

My heart stumbles

through an inventory of these, these

breaths.

Mine, yours.

 

Gil McElroy is a poet and artist currently living in Colborne, Ontario. His chapbook, Some Julian Days: Twentieth Anniversary Edition, appeared last month through above/ground press.