Allyson Paty & Danniel Schoonebeek
November 2015
TORCH SONG: BIOGRAPHY OF H
she waits & is told & the news is bad
so rending the maternal breast cries
AI EI OI MOI & comes to four ends
a. as a slave b. as a dog c. she blinds
& murders d. a human but barking
•
Queen on her throne of snow globes
& moth-eaten kaftan Oma always
said ‘budget for death’ but freeing
the elk & saving the coal for her eyes
Oma never said hers’d be worth it
TORCH SONG: LANDSCAPE
your body in my head you god
or animal beloved rabbit queen
in a winter garden the fire path
you raged unbridled will beech
silver shot past me & flashing
•
Diet of sweat & red corn for a year
hunting geese occasional black-billed
canvasbacks you’d lose your taste too
for pignolis french brogues camapri
until you can’t even afford to labour
TORCH SONG: NICKEL TOUR
No longer 12 traitors to maim
in the knotwood my birthday
I’ll waste in her pink & gold
bathtwater it’s mother’s liquer
that’s pickling me for the blight
•
Gone past the tower the river
the roofs & in my slackest hand
the foam the world the depths
to the fire-pits summoned I burn
one work to displace another
TORCH SONG: OLD BALLAST
Was he nothing our founder
at all like his statue the fool
of a village he built on her sill
and sold to the trout raiders
for a shot-up handful of beads
•
One more history strapped
to the back of a hero & I’ve no
place for greatness the city
its congress of towers & some
break money some break stones
TORCH SONG: OVER THE ATLANTIC
Hi from nowhere in miniature I spy
one fight scene two men in two films
at grand brown desks a mealy kiss
in orange streetlight & I & the 200
others washed in gray & yellow
•
Rarely you’re worth the beauty I say
to myself but when I’m waiting for
my enemy to join my table and my
enemy is waiting for me to join his
resistance it’s me who’s the abomination
TORCH SONG: PORK BELLY
Called me a waste of a church-going
man & said god show me an infant
who’d want to get born with your
crest on his rump I’ll show you a child
who’d rather be raised on hayseed
•
Two eyes & one tongue piss poor
in light of all the witness the man
has in mind for himself says give me
all your names & the answer’s go fish
in the garbage-glut sea he’s a baron
TORCH SONG: RED BRONTIDE
Your face the face of a woman
authored in waste its runnels
from the day the fight & fuck of it
the city shimmers now what’s
sacked & who’s the vanquishers
•
A death in the ward last night
the guards in my life each one
is a gaslamp & in order to save
money for milk thistle & licorice
the law bids I turn them all low
TORCH SONG: THATCH
Black ice in his beard & crossing
the gangway when he passes
himself (he’s aware without
cussing) it’s hard to decide which
one of himself gets the maul
•
North so north it’s a boast
about blankness the mythic
past / the curious past quote
the stones & vowed to silence
the traveller quotes his dead