Wednesday, December 30, 2009

A deleuzian reading of bpNichol's long poem The Martyrology: Books 1 & 2


poetry had shown you the way to go
a question only of returning
a pointless path to follow they said it leads but to death
                                              (bpNichol, The Martyrology)

Book 2 of The Martyrology (cont'd)


from "Book of Common Prayer": "saint of no-names" and page 26 from Chapter 2, "1914: One or Several Wolves?" (A Thousand Plateaus)


"saint of no-names "

_____________________

(5) Polestar is a rhizome
        Fields, ponds & bp's wet road are possible plateaus.
     bp is a BwO





As ghostly text or evening bars poet from his table, grief always
    sits between him & his dear saint reat:


unwell, alone, he can't sit under all this cloud-town worship for
     "we must return again to human voice & listen"


says makar of shiny-spined fable of "wails", now his lame heart
     linked to the stars outdoors,


somewhere between fields and dragons that end only to begin
     a new star-crisis, & reat his only saint


"our energy lives on", says bp, even as it all breaks down, stars
     saints and friends all around him


Perhaps poetry's a speech a line at a time or poem long as souls
     —that look across the valley—


stumble, &take things for "mirage or magic' &who'd never give up
     on poets lost (maybe 'mongst the stars!)


Stick to it! live lives thumbed thru often, folksy and old And go
     on a prince of flows


O! without noise of saint's dead nights & dreams, the impulse to go
     is ah! lovely and long,


good Ontario road under his feet bp grounded wakes from sleep,
     elated, and standing alone!

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