MAXIMUS

He had the centre standing there 
In his head
Beacon for the harsh weather 
Everything it represented

It’s kind of like a yurt
In raw concrete, he had told the nurse
Red, orange, yellow paneling
curved bands of window glass

It wears the blizzard like a robe
Silver white all the way, he thought
Then a darker
Turn of thought

A tapeworm goes 
Inside your stomach 
every time you eat, 
and eats

Then goes to sleep
In your large intestine 
In a dream together
He asks if you’re happy

The tape unwound 
Tangled on the floor 
Irretrievable 
Moments

The figure foots a long shadow 
The echo in the street is terminal 
The children are all hushed
The homes are too quiet

Somewhere in this
Belongs a crow, he thought 
But what would he say
And who could he tell

Of his iron grey 
Perception; 
Inclement light on 
the brambly floor

Small
Wet explosions
Dot the figure’s face
Like the click of his heels dot time

I can’t help
Thinking of myself
As another person
In a different world, all the time

I read Preludes the other day
Realized I’d been holding my breath
The whole way
As the old ladies gathered last month’s news I gasped

I always 
Wonder
Where they go 
After that

To burn
in a common fire 
To see
in a common light

‘All mouth
All word
Old word’ 
The crow said

Brittle twig
Inundated text
Shadow of the oak
On the pavement darkly

Receding background
In the centre of the picture 
Bleary smudging
Of the rain

He’d talk to the nurses
At the centre
They’d hear all about
The characters and images

They’d give him a pill
Tell him to skip church
Tell him to call his brother
Tell him to write the damn stuff down

Why would you need to write it down 
If you remember it down to the letter 
Every modulation
Each slight pause

And then the figure would sit in a revery 
In the rotunda
By the natural gas hearth
At the centre’s axis

‘Paraplegic rolls into an empty parkade elevator alone 
‘Underwater welder below meters on meters of ice 
‘Monocellular predator in the microscopic dimension 
‘Disembodied saxophone moaning down a frozen street’

Rustling curtain 
In a vacant house 
Vacant house
Of flickering spirit

When you watch the fire
The curving and uncurving flame 
The mesmerizing erasure
When you watch the fire

Perhaps you can see it better when you’re down
In the eyes of a one-legged man
Empty eyes at the foot of a steep set of stairs
With his dirty lover, the two of them blocking the stairs

A tear of mercy,
A tear of sorrow
Of laughter and of blood, 
In a common light

‘Every thought I have has a twin,’ the crow said
‘The rhyming word is a double cousin,’ the crow said
‘We are going to the fair up there,’ the crow said
‘We are going to the graveyard to piss on all the tombstones’

Brittle twig
Inundated text
Shadow of the oak
On the pavement darkly

Under impositions
Of large dread figures 
We go completely 
White as death

Disappear in cinders 
Of the common fire 
Disappear in contours 
Of the flickering spirit

That said, there were a few good times. 
And a hard Sunday pew to renew
What might have been true in lieu of what – 
Nobody ever knew

Or nobody
Told me
And that amounted 
To nothing

Compose and decompose a thought 
Heft the weight of conceit
Link a few moments in time
‘Then recede,’ said the crow, ‘recede’

Through a pale field 
Of sense
To the empty centre 
Of the picture

It wears the blizzard like a robe 
Silver white all the way 
Glowing like a flue-hole
In a deeper whiteness

But the parking lot is empty 
The steps are all uncleared 
There are no footprints
The doors are all locked

Amid this 
Dark medium 
The centre 
Of it all

When you watch the fire
The curving and uncurving flame 
The mesmerizing erasure
When you watch the fire

The real metaphysical thing – 
Strict and unknown 
Unrecounted thought 
Recollects its own vanishing

Stupid mental game 
Paradox, anti-paradox 
Maddeningly 
Hopeless

Clap your friend 
Upon the shoulder 
Say some 
Heartening thing

The river is on fire
The mill-sails are all on fire 
The freshet is
A loaded gun

Amid this
Dark medium
Pullback from the river 
From a black feather

The flight
Of night
Higher, further 
Recoiling from the light

From the empty centre
From the reflection 
Something missing in the eyes 
Doubled in the doorway

Same mouth, new word 
Stepping in a filling step 
White as
Death is white as black

Looking back: it wears the blizzard like a robe 
Silver white all the way
Chanting olden mystic things
Clapping you upon the shoulder

DUSTIN COLE is the author of the novel Notice (Nightwood Editions) and the chapbook Dream Peripheries (General Delivery). He has also contributed writing to Apocalypse Confidential, BC BookWorld, Heavy Feather Review and the British Columbia Review.