Conflict

By Christine McNair

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2013 OTTAWA BOOK AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2013 ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2013 RELIT AWARD

Conflict interweaves ghosts, bad communication, the uncanny and the archival, to create a collection of poems that break down remembrance into abandoned historic markers, jet fuel, keening, or teeth. What you are given (this is a gift) is an insistent refusal to silence or shift. In exchange, the reader must face the impossibility of erasure, a gritty resistance to mourn a fight. Conflict is a collection of red balloons that intersplices and interweaves through various forms of conflict that occur in language, motion, architecture, emotions; between individuals, systems, and mechanical silences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bookhug Press
• Release date: May 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9781927040140

Book preview

CONFLICT

CONFLICT

Christine McNair

BookThug / 2012

FIRST EDITION

copyright © Christine McNair, 2012

The production of this book was made possible through the generous assistance of The Canada Council for The Arts and The Ontario Arts Council.

Amomis.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library and Archives Canada

Cataloguing in Publication

McNair, Christine, 1978-

Conflict / Christine McNair.

Poems.

ISBN 978-1-927040-14-0

I. Title.

PS8625.N33C65 2012     C811’.6     C2012-901065-0

to Rick McNair (1942-2007) & the valkyries

the in

ability to love

the inability

to love

– Ghost Song, Jack Spicer

but         I live by a kind of resistance

– The Sad Phoenician, Robert Kroetsch

It hardly matters why a library

is destroyed: every banning,

curtailment, shredding, plunder

or loot gives rise (at least as a

ghostly presence) to a louder,

clearer, more durable library

of the banned, looted,

plundered, shredded

or curtailed.

– The Library at Night, Alberto Manguel

Unentworden, alleroten,

sammle dich,

steh.

– Threadsuns, Paul Celan

MOON AT 3 AM, REFLECTED

Like a cut fish, I feel for the light

on the tips, the grace found in nailbeds

or on the ridge of a storm, things

that cannot call out their own name,

silenced by yelps and pitches, a night

gone purple with cold. Only a step

between what is and what isn’t

a break in the throat. I dream

of white waters in cold glass,

a reckoning – a breaking hope.

I dream but don’t rest, only scar

of shore to the left window

mare tranquilius, mare equus

white lap of water in the sink

slipping between my fingers, I suck

the tips and crave the salt.

MY PROBLEM WITH MACHINES

might have begun with the jolly jumper

swinging shit all over my mother’s back wall

content as a lamb, crescent smile

then the bikes, always hobbling and

falling, the uneasy way my spine

curved over the handlebars

and the cars, the two I crashed

each broken at the centre, unfixable

a permanent scream of metal and glass

the plane is supposed to be safest,

walls curved against unpredictable

traffic crash acts of god

but the height tugs at my nervous

brings out mysterious hail marys

half-learned from a catholic friend

it tickles the back of my neck

as I pitch forward through wide fuselage,

flying seats, empty fingers, lost safety cards

RAKINGS

each September,

each tidal lunar    ripchord

cold apples bleed pulp while leaves

pixelate dipped red ink over macerated

gold slashing, chrysographic ohs and ahs

soldered into sun-stunned vein.

All a-thunder,

branches shake    then close

semaphored hearts beat back

unarticulated motion, echo thin days

sunk with the open archaeological

memory of a cupped hand.

LOST COSMONAUT

arms drag webbed cirrus

punch past stratosphere

come in …. come in …

what? … yes … yes … breathing …

our transmission begins …

it’s all … I feel hot

… thirty-two … our transmission

begins now …

forty-one … yes…

I can see a flame …

… a flame …

our transmission …

…. forty-one …

forty-one …

           forty-one … forty-one

… forty-one … forty-one …

TEMP

we have an easy dress code here, take

many breaks, smoke cigarettes, let

bitter chocolate melt

It is permitted to display tattoos,

play music, make long distance phone calls

but pin yourself to demands, supply