The Daisy Fandango

By Martin Reyto

Martin Reyto's second collection is metaphysics with a pulse. He continues to explore magically surreal terrains and voices of the mind and heart with finely honed, alternately wry and passionate observation, a flair for the dramatic, and a rich, dark musicality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martin Reyto
• Release date: Aug 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9780986767166

Martin Reyto

Martin Reyto is a Canadian educator, writer, and musician. He has worked in an eclectic variety of fields, including 18 years as a technical writer and software developer, 16 years as a teacher of creative writing, computer science, and business communication, and shorter stints as a symphony musician and audiobook narrator. His poetry and short fiction have been published in literary journals, anthologies, and book-length collections.

Book preview

the daisy fandango

martin reyto

Smashwords Edition

Published in August, 2014 by Suborion Media, Toronto, Canada

Copyright © 2009 Martin Reyto

ISBN 978-0-9867671-6-6 

All rights reserved.

The front cover illustration is from a painting by Catherine Reyto, and is used by permission of the artist.

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for the people i love

unforeseen

at twilight i woke from a deep sleep, reinvented as a dumpy old studio musician, and wrote a three-part fugue by j. s. bach. it flowed like a stream with sunlight on its interweaving surfaces. it flowed through grassy and forest places, its theme appearing here and there like black stones the water rushed over.

i was happy with the piece and wanted to play it for god. he arrived in the aspect of a studious man and said, please let me hear it. i turned my desk into a harpsichord and played, and god listened with evident care. a few bars before the end, my voices united in a suspended chord of such beauty that god caught his breath; and then, as the music flowed underground toward resolution in a part of myself i don’t understand, he wept.

so, he said, my manikin which i made, clay from clay from clay, proves amenable to interesting variation. the sustaining conflicts i laid into eve, adam, and their sons weave through the generations into cloth of great subtlety. my work moves of its own accord, yet is wholly made of me.

god, i said, wishing the transaction noted, i made this for you.

it's crazy, he said. "who knew? we’ve all outdone ourselves this time around. ad maiorem gloriam meam. eh?" he winked and kicked me lightly in the shin.

your making these sounds, and my hearing them, complete a circle, he went on. whenever this happens, you and i could willingly die, and then we don’t. i pretend to leave you and attend to things you know nothing about; and you despair, convinced an event like this can never be repeated. but then, at some unforeseen moment, it always is.

why? i cried out, and just before I woke up again i heard him echo, why? and then realized the voice wasn’t his.

bucolia

1. requiescat

the city is a marketplace

—unhappy knowledge for your

urban agoraphobe

so he bought a place in the country