Free Civil Elegies: And Other Poems by Dennis Lee Page B

budged.
    One was perpetually leaving his
   penis behind in garbage bags. One had a
    bazooka stuck in his throat, hence had some
difficulty speaking.
    The third would sob all night in the lonesome night,
crying for something damp, and close, and warm.
    I came across them far too late.
    They kept on dousing
epiphanies, misdirecting traffic.
    They kept on daring me to
break down, like a carburetor with a passion for wildflowers.

Heaven and Earth
    Ordinary       moving
         stoplight & manhole
         maple tree       birch tree    oak
dandelions crabgrass
         ferry boats Andromeda
         fathers and mothers, and
    heaven and earth and all
         vivacious things that
         throng around a man
will not approach until he
         hears himself pronounce “I
         hate you” with his body.

Sibelius Park
I
    Walking north from his other lives in a fine rain
    Â Â Â Â Â Â through the high-rise pavilion on Walmer
lost in the vague turbulence he harbours
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Rochdale Anansi how many
      routine wipeouts has he performed since he was born?
    and mostly himself;
    drifting north to the three-storey
    turrets & gables, the squiggles and
arches and baleful asymmetric glare of the houses he loves
    Toronto gothic
    walking north in the fine rain, going home through the late afternoon
he comes to Sibelius Park.
    Across that green expanse he sees
    the cars parked close, every second licence yankee, he thinks of
the war and the young men dodging, his wife inside
    with her counsel, her second thoughts
                        and the children, needing more than they can give;
    and behind him, five blocks south, his other lives
in rainy limbo till tomorrow
    Rochdale, yes Anansi
the fine iconic books, sheepish errata
     shitwork in a cold basement, moody
triumphs of the mind
                   hassling printers hassling banks
and the grim dudgeon with friends — men with
    deep combative egos, ridden men, they cannot sit still, they go on
                      brooding on Mao on Gandhi
    and they cannot resolve their lives but together they make up
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â emblems of a unified civilization,
     the fine iconic books;
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â he is rooted in books & in
that other place, where icons come alive among the faulty
              heroes & copouts, groping for some new tension of
         mind and life, casting the type in their own
              warm flesh
                                hassling builders hassling banks
    and he is constantly coming and going away, appalled by the force of
            wishful affirmations, he thinks of the war, he
    hears himself 10 years ago affirming his faith in Christ
        in the lockers, still half-clasped in pads & a furtive
                            virgin still, flailing the
    lukewarm school with rumours of God, gunning for psychic opponents
though he could not hit his father