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TODD SWIFT

Todd Swift was born in Montreal but has lived in Europe (Budapest, Paris and now London) for much of the past decade. He is the author of three collections of poems, most recently Rue du Regard (DC Books, 2004); and an editor of five poetry anthologies, such as 100 Poets Against The War (Salt, 2003). He is poetry editor of online journal Nthposition. He recently guest-edited the special section "The New Canadian Poetry" for the 2005 issue of New American Writing. In 2004 he was the Oxfam Poet In Residence, supported by an Arts Council England grant. Poems of his have recently appeared in: Agenda, Books in Canada, The Daily Telegraph, Gargoyle, Jacket, Magma, and Poetry Wales. His poetry recently aired on the BBC's Poems By Post (presented by Michael Rosen), read by actor Henry Goodman. He has been a guest reader at The Frankfurt Book Fair, The Dylan Thomas Centre and Shakespeare and Co, among other venues. He appears in the new anthology of contemporary Canadian poets, Open Field, from New York's Persea Books. He is a visiting lecturer at London Metropolitan University.

THE SEAWAY

What begins is empty

As childhood is aghast

At the constantly unlocked

Houses learn to walk, they say

New things with geometry

The Japanese architect bows

The streetlamps possess

The night sky, as children

Mumble to demons in their cribs

Not demons, radical sorcery

Seven bungalows, aligned along

The axis that proves Atlantis

Was based in the middest of the Seaway

The St-Lawrence, learning ice

In the form of ocean-going vessels

Say a first word: ice

The Japanese martini maker writhes

Needing a witchdoctor or priest

In the bright arc-lit suburbs, there

You will find religious ceremony

Worthy of the rose bush, the cherry blossom

Perennial ice plagues the ships

He built these homes now he must sink

Into the apostasy of a body owned and operated

The cradled devil-worshipper vomits ice

The child is not a child but a receiver

The signals are from the SS Merlin

Observe how ice is like a streetlamp,

Lit in the blue night of winter, electricity

Only one form of many in which to reach far

The ships as they seek the Seaway are ice-rimed

The black grotesquery of the Locks opens

Receiving their lit, silent transit, laden

With Japanese goods bound for Chicago

The children in the seven designer homes sing

Satanic sea-chants, of ice-lit nights, sailing further out

TRY STAYING ALIVE WHILE BEING A POETRY HUMAN

If you think I’ve been writing poetry all these years

Just to stay alive or be human, well: good guess.

A poem’s like raw, red meat to the bear in the zoo

Whose bars your skinny bold ass shouldn’t shimmy through,

Amigo. Call this the moment when I reclaim

That golden lute I pawned all those years back when

I needed the cash to drink myself articulate. Yeah.

That’s right. This poem’s like a sucker punch to

That part of your body usually referred to as the kidney.

It thrives on adrenaline, but can be good for you, too,

Like a sermon wrapped in a care package boxed into

A honey pot coiled around a shot of morphine tied

Around god’s little finger pointing straight at love.

I’ve seen ladies in iron lungs get up to dance, once

They’ve laid eyes on a sonnet about life’s mysterious

Tendency to be beautiful despite the recent election.

While I am on the subject of whores with one good leg

And two very good ideas, here’s a belief of mine

You might want to chew around your mouth like a baseball

Player on the mound might some tobacco. Okay?

Poetry is fixed, like prize fighting, except the belts

Are smaller and the purses also; and when someone

From the big contest or publishing house sidles up

Gnawing a mint toothpick to hiss: dive, sucker, dive

What they really mean is: go on, move to Florida and live

And leave the writing of poetry to the three of us

Here in this smoky gin parlour, divvying up the spoils.

Except, last time I looked, poetry’s spoils, as Horace

Said, you only get to rake in once in Elysium, or else

You’re mistaking goodtime Johnnys and funny girls

For the true sweepstakes, a forever memory, plenty of it.

That zoo is looking good, and so is the red meat, kiddoo.

JACQUES DERRIDA, MORT DANS LA NUIT

(1)

He watched television like us;

Was married, and wore suits.

Defended his doctoral thesis at 50;

Wore his welcome out, like any

Guest whose charm is literary;

(3)

Had broken the crockery

In uncharacteristic passion

But how a word looked over

Its own shoulder, and, envious

Of creation, devised to be numerous

(5)

Subtle bestiality (politics, like perfume

Has a scent to give away liaisons)

Appealing to the Yale lock

Crowd that saw their open modus,

And so went in to the reading room

(7)

Like bees whose smoke-drugged stupor

Has worn off and want to amaze

The Kabalistic air after combing

The world for all its unintended honey

That sits in the text of the flower’s cave,

(2)

Was perhaps a little vague

(on purpose); was the French

Agatha Christie (all those books!)

Except this time the mystery

Was not which Blimp or Vicar

(4)

Instead of set in stone and unified;

How the pen is more various

Than is often admitted, and has lied.

He was, of course, a bellwether

Of belles lettres and Heidegger’s

(6)

To perform their clever parricides,

Operating art’s heavy machinery

With all the gentleness of a guillotine.

Who can blame a teacher for the lessons

When slaving pupils get stirred up? –

(8)

Each petal inscribed with beauty

And desire; murder and flattery:

The world a language without origin

Maybe, but no less about style,

Flavour and idolatry, in the end