“National Poetry Month” #2: Bryan Sentes

what the hell
do you mean
by heaven

heavin
heathen
breathn heather

“Hell above
& heaven below…”
such, space-time

diurinal yes
for us
on earth

gravity
grievous
grave

at apartment corner
writing desk
walled in

after noon
after lunch
walked home

Marchblue sky
leafless branches
mould loam paths

a clean dry
stone seat
left

closed eyes hear
I’ve read
blood & nerves

jet roar over
mountainfoot
downtown

aboreal
spring
birdsong

dryleafmould shuffle
squirrel scuffle
(branchtips metronome)

how I turn
my blind head
hears me

melt upslope
brookling
right bootside

bass subterranean
pigeon brew
mezzo mainstream

mudstomps
&pants
runpast**

__________
** “‘My audience is the virgin scroll laid out afore me’,” quote To Fu, unanthologized T’ang dynasty poet who calligrammed his ditties lying aside a babbling brook, then made paper boats of ’em & let ’em float gently on the ringlety waves toward the distant Yang-tze, the kiang of eternal nullity. (To Fu, like Li Po, was a “hsien hue,” or wine poet, sober and pissed at the same time, a state of being rarely attained in later ages.)

BRYAN SENTES lives and writes in Montreal. He bears a name that, if googled, can return 10,000+ hits, some of which refer to the author of three books:Grand Gnostic Central, Ladonian Magnitudes, and March End Prill, his most recent title, from which the poem above originates.