On Malice. Ken Babstock

      

      copyright © Ken Babstock, 2014

      first edition

      Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Coach House Books also ­cknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit.

      LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

      Babstock, Ken, 1970-, author

       On malice / Ken Babstock.

      Poem.

      ISBN 978-1-55245-304-9 (pbk.)

       I. Title.

      ps8553.a245o5 2014 c811'.54 c2014-904403-8

      On Malice is available as an ebook: ISBN 978 1 77056 401 5

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      for Samuel, who can bend time,

      and for Laura

      Yes, these are conquests from the castle. I washed

      my neck and my main source of food. Unfortunately,

      I also washed my supplementary animal.

      I have just built a … There is a struggle between …

      Stamp out all the frogs at evening. I like especially

      death. This is not a waiting room for souls.

      From this camp I abjure Time and expect Time

      in its other body to spike through

      the lateral. Rain accrues

      on the motiveless and hungry.

      If you can’t imagine being watched,

      you can’t imagine how good I am.

      1 September, 1970, plane leaving Alma-Ata for Tashkent. Incident reported at 23:50.

      What one otherwise only dreams

      signifies a flight, a flight

      into the unwashed. The word

      ‘supplementary.’ That is from

      the Christian religion. That is from

      the battlements. It has to hit someone.

      Yet all the just and wonderful smells

      of air on earth. The beach swims forward.

      The battlements under

      mine eyes shift so. Build-up of wax,

      oil, dermis, it flakes off fortune

      and smells where you hit someone.

      Incident on 2nd September, 1970, at 23:05, over Aldan. Plane in descent.

      He has built a town in the garden.

      Do unto others as you would.

      It carried me away.

      It carried me away –

      that matter is required between creations.

      You do and have done unto you

      any number of jewelled, riverine shot

      in cities built up in a garden.

      The heat in the space you were.

      The one bloom on the terrace

      and the rip in the cirrus, many in bloom

      and your body used up all night.

      Incident west of Blagovashensk, altitude unreported, September 5, 1970.

      As chum carries into waters lying south

      or southeast. How would song

      be considered everything and people

      succumb? Most powerful ‘Is,’ or almost

      one hour south in relation.

      Yes, animals. This is not a waiting room

      and the smell of tyranny detected

      in spit, piece by piece, each a sign

      for a kiss. It hit someone,

      radio’s still ripe for abuse.

      Camera in log. Camera in pen. Lens

      of the loosened dust where a dress drops.

      On September 7, 1970, at 22:15, incident over Baykrit, Krasnogorsk. Heavy rain.

      Everyone thinks Lord in relation

      to animals. Relation to substance, perhaps, often

      for hour after hour. Eternal struggle

      with him croaking and people there almost

      with us. Now

      I am thinking. How beautiful her true

      form can become. Neither alone

      nor fully with them, balanced

      naked, wet and bruised.

      Noisesome takeoff not helping me think

      in mauve, rose and silvering blue.

      The first star, wing light in the tagged mouth, sobs.

      Night. Ten minutes after takeoff from Biysk, September 11, 1971.

      Hardly ever showed it mixed up with

      ‘photograph.’ Who is that then?

      A strange bandit with a tablecloth

      behind her. Suppose it is he

      whom she is courting, or

      a ‘philosopher.’ Or gruesomeness …

      None of it diminishing morning as such.

      Thinnest film in the canopied air so animals

      rut or flex fighting dissolution

      as we say ‘Lord’ again, facing southeast.

      Where ribbons the peach and violet

      meteorological summa. My form bleats.

      Incident reported over Chita Oblast, at 21:40. No other traffic.

      You too are concrete, greensomeness, and no one

      wants