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


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 "

_____________________

(4) Valley road is a rhizome
      Cloud-town, Kalowna, & poet's table are possible plateaus.
      Dave is a BwO

Now picture a trace, after all, of a text or ghostly evening
     with a poet at a poet's table,
     and somewhere between grief & his dear saint reat
    one bp
 who's more adept at telling repast from the vanisht fable, magical
     makar of bound shiny-spined "wails of the saints", and
     links desire to outdoors for
bp's a heart-producing machine, a metaphor and kind of aimless
     crisis: that begins (as all hearts do) &ends with
     flows for nowhere but fields or snows

But above all a saint's vision or poet's or mine to intertwine with,
     a text of divination in my lap thumbed thru so
     often it's folksy & damp as dew

Perhaps poetry's like speech known only by its incipient heart
     a line at a time singly ript, singly a long poem
     told as the many tragic souls,
     —in cloudy valley they look across—

who stumble, & mistake things for "mirage or magic' in the act of
     flight Story after story of how dave, barb have dared
     to give bp, 'reat' and 'and' and 'orm' blessed
     forms of their own,
and an errant migratory flight through a private spring valley A
     faint "saint of no-names" is one, two or more retold
     lives And a tablet, painting or clean graven
     lines on the road
for as skies wash over eyes and lips it's easy to tell a saint's soppy
     no-mind, frail &uneasy, from a hot stare, or
     saint-hood and it's big O become

one bp who looks to flighty saint rand, wanting no more than
     to be left by his side, father & son,
     and go as a prince of flows
for"what flows between confuses you" O! & if any saint from over
     the road, orm-named with pupil, damn the panting
     processes of fields or whatnot, he'll suffer
     like bp for straying out of a snowy cloud (you bet!), like
     poet and saint

Nothing easy about a billowy town he's from or saint's wedged fall,
     'cept it's him who won't face the noise
     without saint's sad eyes,
 barely with us, too many dead nights, too often lifted from
     his dreams  And as he's free of tiresome repasts & prayers
     he returns on impulse if at all, lovely &
     productive

Lot of good depressed martyrs have done him! no-names are now
     more lovable than cloud-town saints, eyes fear-rimmed,
     tracking through Kalowna in '64

Elated, and waiting in rain, a line of good Kalowna road under his
     boots, (that Terry might have run down)—
     desires of every lashing martyr—
bp's a war machine! Risen errant or menacing soul who's chosen
     the snow outdoors & read 'saint'- like a covert sign-
     system for fettered hearts dying to go!

And he assumes a new accord with stars risen up over the eyes ,
     —gone the wandering cloud-men, et al—
     scraping roots, fascicles, & care and caresses, of saints and his
     dear dear barb,

&missing the simple image, equally unpoet-like, of name-less saint's
     proper name "mister or saint and, reat or rike" or what ?
     or prints as meaning "this way bp comes
     to Kalowna in '64",

like bashful canadian saint god! the etched road's a rhizome that's
     been outside all the time Append a name to bp's heart
     (valleys, sky and earth or something)


The road is a sky-blue rhizome, or saint's fallen smile